The Pusher Trilogy.

"Your first impression of this five-hour-plus underworld trilogy is that director Nicolas Winding Refn is an engineer of epic scale and structural ambition, and that the tiny kingdom of Denmark is apparently a snake pit of narcotic squalor and homicidal chaos," writes Michael Atkinson in the Voice. "But the Pusher movies play less like features than like the nastiest hit TV series HBO never made."

Martha Fischer launches Cinematical's trilogy of reviews by calling Refn's debut feature "an enthralling combination of the shocking, the sensational and the matter-of-fact.... Refn directs his film with a remarkably assured hand, exercising self-control that will drive the legion of state-side Tarantino devotees mad. Instead of pumping up colors, violence and personalities, Refn takes the opposite approach, rendering his most tension-filled moments so subdued they're almost deadpan." And here's II. III (III's best, argues Alison Willmore at the IFC Blog).

"Yes, we've been talking about these films forever, but let me say it again anyway: Nicholas Winding Refn's Pusher films may just be the best trilogy of crime films ever made." At Twitch, Todd points to a new trailer. Todd's Toronto reviews from last September: I, II and III.

Updated through 8/21.

Daniel Robert Epstein interviews Refn for SuicideGirls.

Earlier: Stuart Klawans in the Nation.

Updates, 8/17: Salon's Andrew O'Hehir has a good, long talk with Refn. More from KJ Doughton in Filmmaker.

The Reeler introduces his talk with Refn: "That a half-dozen or so of Pusher's characters come and go between films inclines it not toward some finite, Godfather-style mythos, but rather a TV-style tableau. In other words, don't think of it as a franchise - think of it as a parallel universe, and a visceral, compelling one at that."

Among the questions Aaron Hillis asks for IFC News: "The hell you went through to get the two sequels made is chronicled in a 2006 documentary, currently playing on the international festival circuit. What's the story behind Gambler?"

Update, 8/18: "[Y]ou can almost taste the hate and smell the stomach wounds. Given an appetite for grisly crime flicks, they make for a delectably nasty epic," writes Nathan Lee in the New York Times. "The Pusher films pull no punch. They’re a knockout."

Update, 8/21: Brad Westcott has a long talk with Refn for Reverse Shot.

Posted by dwhudson at August 16, 2006 3:44 PM