Just watched it, very experiential film, feels like you get to understand the main character the more the movie floats along because he's quiet, most of the film's quiet and gloomy as you experience it... the silence is maddening... Had a real Apocalypse Now feel to it.
One cool thing I think Refn has as a director is trying to communicate an emotion not through plot logic or speech, but through visuals and music. Really good music and visual art, in my opinion, is something that tries to communicate an emotional state, sometimes complex, through means other than explanation. That's the mechanics behind use of metaphor. Something that isn't, but is.
The trick is to replicate the emotion in different circumstances that can be understood by someone who doesn't know or understand the original context. This can get really bogged down and confusing, though. Treating film as if it were music or a painting. That's what I think he's doing. Trying to simplify it, too, as much as possible.
Here's an article from a series I just started reading, it's from the Free Film School at craveonline.com, it's called
Film as Ornamentation, and I think this film qualifies:
http://www.craveonline.com/culture/496383-free-film-school-98-film-as-ornamentation
I think he's going for something basic, a physical and primal sensation in viewing film, rather than a knowledge or wisdom of the world being communicated.
So I think his motive for this film is something about being in nature, outside of civilization. Not escaping civilization
for nature, but how man in nature must have felt, as the incessant and addictive need for civilization crept up around him like a Mist. These days, we can only understand nature as a respite, somewhere we go to get away from civilization, as a contrast.
He wants us to get a glimpse of how a person lived before that civilization and morality stuff crept in and ruined us, have him go through it, as an outsider, a captured slave, a free man, and have him eventually accept his fate, no going back, unless you count death, the most universal and unanimous natural act.
If you think about it, before modern society, it must have been maddening, a deafening sort of boredom, having to survive as a wandering nomad, and the human mind seeks ways to explain why things are the way they are, via religion (let's join a crusade!) or superstition (it's the boy's fault! We're in hell, it's One Eye's Fault!) or power (I'm in it for the gold and riches), or even love (OneEye and the Boy, odd couple from way back!) by seeking and participating in civilization.
If anything, this is mankind's way of
dealing with mind-numbing boredom, whereas before, we didn't know any better. One-Eye didn't know any better, and he got a taste, and now he wants to go back to before he knew, which is impossible, can't un-ring a bell. But it's addictive, being around people and forming relationships. He made a friend, the boy. He's infected. His ultimate undoing.
I think this guy One Eye is the opposite of those wanting, even needing civilization, seeking it out. He's the one who was before, and was cool with it, but he got caught and is kinda forced to participate. He's comfortable in an amoral Nature. He kills, he doesn't ask why, or start crying out of guilt or conquering out of greed or any of those newer emotions. It's like he was beyond emotions, or before emotions. That's what he wants to get back to, and this journey shows us the only way back is death via primordial Chuck-It Tennis Ball Launcher.
As is, it feels like a real good Mood Movie. Also felt like MMA back then was much more conclusive and satisfying. There were no decisions or draws or lay and pray. Finish rate 100%!
