Copenhagen Cowboy (2022-2023)

 “Four hundred years ago, they would have burned you at the stake” 

Let's start the year with a blast!!! 

A #NWR (Nicolas Winding Refn) UFO comissioned by Norsk Netflix ! Streaming from Jan. 5 2023!

For film lovers (and fans of the polarizing NWR) a must-see, for others proceed with caution!

Neo(n)-noir, surrealism, synth electronic score, sexual deviance, existentialism, nihilism, violence & pigs, all in Copenhagen Cowboy, a six-part mini-series (well, more like a pilot) from the Danish provocateur Nicolas Winding Refn. It's also a comeback of sorts to motherland Danmark, where Refn hasn't made a film since Pusher III back in 2005.

Plot? Who cares? Or, what plot? This is a NWR trip, a visual, audio feast, existential, experimental mind f*uck.  Neon Punk again.

Miu (Angela Bundalovic) is a spirit, or a lucky charm, or what? She looks androgynous, short hair and a blue jumpsuit that she wears in every scene. She is bought by the Serbian/Albanian Danish mob dealing in sex traffic and other evil deeds. Very Evil, very dark, strong accents (I think the Dansk and Serbain and Mandarin are the forte of the show). Later on we get to the Chinese mob -or Danish Yakuza? and the bigger deal Serbian mob. A gang war ensures. Plus a degenerate ubermench (but not somench)serial killer (Nikolas) living in a castle. Some Hannibal (Thomas Harris)inspired plot? Should we mention his sister  (sister?) Rakel (played by Refn's daughter Lola Corfixen) ?  And what about those pigs? 

We get some answers in episode 4 from Miroslav- Zladko Burik (best European actor in Triangle of Sadness), a regular of Refn's Danish films,  The Pusher trilogy and Bleeder. 

And what's that cameo in the end (ep.6) from Hideo Kojima, world's most famous video game designer? Suffice to say NWR and HK are good buddies but he's a prelude for something more. ALSO Refn cameos in the series, as a shady businessman (or?pig?) in a suit. 

I am very curious if this will be renowed for season 2, I kinda guess not but who knows? There's nothing even remotely similar to this produced by Netflix or any other streamer!

But it happened before. Too Old To Die Young, NWR's first fare into streaming game in 2019, with the 10 episodes/13 hours of cinematic mayhem left comissioner Amazon Prime jawless, and that was a show slower than CC and more violent, decadent and sexually deviant. And well, it was better than CC out of which I liked best the first two episodes, for ambiguity, elipse and setting. 

The best assets of CopenhagenCowboy are the neon noir cinematography by Magnus Nordenhof Jonk, on his first fare with Refn, the editing (where I gotta congratulate an old schoolmate, Olivier Bugge Coutteon his 1st NWR  flick), and of course the score, pulsating synthpop 80's electronica by old collaborators Peter Peter, Peter Kyed, of course Cliff Martinez and Julian Winding, Refn's nephew whose Neon Dance he used in The Neon Demon. IMO Winding's piece "Pigs- A Slight Return" takes its cue from Krzysztof Pendercki/Wendy Carlos' piece, used in opening titles for The Shining. One of the best cues of CC is also Winding's trance dance Undead is the New Red. Indeed;)

CC premiered in Venice (bits) and here's a review:

https://theplaylist.net/copenhagen-cowboy-review-nicolas-winding-refns-take-on-the-superhero-genre-is-drenched-in-neon-lit-despair-venice-20220914/

”I looked at Copenhagen Cowboy more like a Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale, with Denmark as a multiethnic, multi-language place that, to certain people, is supposed to be heaven because it’s the country of Bernie Sanders.” (#NWR)

from his interview in Vulture here

one of my favorite shots,reminescent of The Keep!