#2: PUSHER

While such artists as Lady Gaga and Kanye West attempt to salvage the artistic merit of the music video industry to the point of pop culture martyrdom, the music video's once influential imagery has unfortunately faded away from today's mainstream, post-"TRL" interest.   As the platform for the pop-driven video scales back from the once prevalent television programming to today's ever-accessible web, the hyper-stylized, dreamy surrealism of pop video has seemingly taken refuge in the medium of film.

Richard Coyle in Pusher (2012)

In Luis Prieto's remake of Nicolas Winding Refn's 1996 film, Pusher, the film's highly designed photography and sound is a definite product of the instant gratification of the early 80s music video.  Through this defined influence, the film features bright, florescent lights garnished with hues of faded pinks, yellows and steely, metallic grays, fast cut sequences and an unrelenting pop soundtrack, all whirling around the circumstances of a hapless, antihero.  With a soundtrack composed by electronic duo Orbital, featuring the Still Going remix of Austra's "Beat and Pulse", the film thematically falls in line with the aggressively, pop-inspired visuals featured in Refn's (who acts as Executive Producer behind this 2012 reboot) most recent slate of films, including Bronson (2009) and Drive (2011).  Although the film is Preito's vision, Refn's eye is distinctly present. 

Agyness Deyn and Richard Coyle in Pusher (2012)

The root to Refn's signature color contrasts could be easily dismissed by his admitted colorblindness; however, through this visionary handicap, Refn' trending outcome has revitalized such seminal visuals initially introduced thirty years ago by filmmakers like Michael Mann (Manhunter, Miami Vice, Collateral), Marek Kanievska (Less Than Zero), Paul Schrader (American Gigolo) and Brian De Palma (Scarface) along with the inspired soundtracks of their musical counterparts Tangerine Dream (The Thief), Thomas Newman (Less Than Zero, The Lost Boys) and Giorgio Moroder (American Gigolo, Scarface). 

"Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right..." The "Clowns/Jokers" mural by Chu on Curtain Road in London

When you really get down to the core of the film, peeling back its layers of flashy, uber-hip ambiance and noise, there's really nothing new to discover.  The overall plot (a middleman drug dealer has a week to relieve a hefty debt to his mobster supplier after a deal goes horribly wrong) struggles to carry effective prevalence and ultimately shows its age, paralleling the dated movement of the European underworld portrayed throughout the initial Pusher franchise of the late 90s, along with Guy Ritchie and Matthew Vaughn's interpretation of the criminal delinquents of East London throughout the early 2000s (Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, Snatch, Layer Cake).

This is where the influence of the music video ultimately seeps in, defusing the necessity of plot/concept/character and wholly indulging the senses with image and sound.  Although this cinematic trend could be the succeeding savior for the music video aesthetic, it's a creative negligence that can prove to be crippling to the interest and cinematic understanding of the modern film audience. 

 

Go here to see the trailer for Luis Prieto's Pusher (2012).

Go here to see the trailer for Nicolas Winding Refn's original Dutch version of Pusher (1996).

-MTK