Nicolas Winding Refn, the director of films such as Bronson, Drive, Only God Forgives, and Neon Demon as well as the shows Too Old To Die Young and Coopenhagen Cowboy, has never been interested in making conventional art. Instead, the polarizing provocateur has increasingly leaned into his own sense of style and the artificiality at the core of it as a way of revealing something more. The result has been a fascinating run of projects that are as frequently astounding as they are alienating, making him one of those filmmakers who, love him or hate him, has emerged as a true one-of-a-kind.
His latest, Her Private Hell, is no different. His first feature in a decade, it’s a descent into hell starring Sophie Thatcher and Charles Melton as two troubled souls desperately searching for lost family members though only discovering a beautiful yet dark world that threatens to consume them. I’m on the record as being quite taken with the film, so I wanted to speak with Refn about his return, what it’s been like to step back into feature filmmaking, collaborating with Thatcher on the part, and finding new life after nearly dying.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
Seattle Movies Daily: When you first sat down with Sophie Thatcher, what were the conversations that you were having about this journey that you wanted to go on? Did you know how it was going to put you both through, I would say, a lot emotionally, visually, sonically, together?
Nicolas Winding Refn: Well, like anything, it becomes traveling companions. My first question was, "What is your relationship with your father?” And my second question was, "What kind of music do you like?”
What did she say?
Oh, what happens on set, stays on set.
What is your relationship with your father and what music do you like?
I would say it's complicated and I like all kinds of music.
Since we're talking about music, how did you decide on the score here? I had read you talk about not wanting this to be an electronic score, that there's a tendency in sci-fi to just go that route. What was your thought process about how you wanted this film to be scored?
Well, I thought it could be interesting at least. I, in a way, without maybe knowing it, wanted to make an opera. Because everything became very operatic. Everything started with two ideas. First I went and got the money and then I came up with two ideas. One was Private K going to hell to bring back his daughter and the other one was a young woman coming to a city that doesn't exist. But what would combine them in a triangle would be Leatherman, which was the glam monster. So within that, everything was very operatic because it was automatically, by design, very artificial, you know? Both settings would be made on stages, like built because they didn't exist, and the Leatherman would have leather gloves with crystals on them. So, from that on, and the themes of Elle and her father always leaving her and marrying her stepmom, you know, because that used to be her lover. So, her lover becoming her stepmom, and her imagination of an ultimate father. All those things are very operatic. They're very heightened emotions, set in the world of analog. So, opera just became the opportunity to create it with.
When you talk about the artificial, I'm curious about this in the context of not just this film, but your work overall, do you think an artificiality that you create brings you closer to something real emotionally?
I think I find more satisfaction in the artificial emotionally. Because I think our senses of fantasies have more abilities to interpret at different ages as you go. Like every minute you age, you look at the same experience with a new pair of lenses, and fantasy can give you that because it has so many layers within it. It's almost bottomless, and I started my career making films about capturing authenticity. But after, you know, four movies like that, I kind of came to the realization that I would go in circles eventually, and I didn't want to. I would get dizzy and throw up, so I needed to find something that was more linear, that had an endless amount of opportunities.
At what point was that? Where was the turning point when you saw those new opportunities?
I think when I decided to make Bronson, which is essentially a movie about a man who creates an alter ego and lives there. That's transitioning to fantasy. And from then on, starting with Valhalla Rising and going into Drive and Only God Forgives, it was full-on. Obviously, Neon Demon added a whole new layer in that everything was seen through the lens of young women, but it was still the same idea of fantasy.
In the context of those fantasies, it's places that people go to escape from themselves, from the world. I then wonder, is that sustainable? Especially in this film, where she's making this film, but it feels like all of the pain she's carrying with her comes into the frame.
Well, essentially, the movie is about someone who is on the full mental descent. But once she gets to what she feels there is the ground floor, a whole new path opens up. And then, what happens there, is obviously very exciting.
Do you feel like a new path has opened up for you as a filmmaker as you've gone through these different layers and floors of discovery?
I think it's not so much new paths, but it's making a film that was as instinctual as possible. Meaning that, because it had so many genres within it, I could basically wake up deciding what mood I was in. It's like putting on your favorite playlist and then deciding to rewind it and start over again with something else. So the act of creativity becomes a driving force.
Did you make a playlist for yourself when you were setting out on this? Is that something that's part of your creative process?
I always use a musical kind of inspiration because it opens me up emotionally, so I can let the floodgates open. I'm very easy to manipulate.
In what way? What do you mean by that?
I wear my emotions on my sleeves, which is not always the easiest way to navigate through life because you're constantly affected, and it can be difficult sometimes to control oneself. At the same time, it's a form of purification you're constantly going through.
Do you think that helps make you a better filmmaker? Because I almost feel like it could pull you closer to the emotions, but do you need a distance from it as well?
No, on the contrary, creativity is full indulging. It's like you're swimming in it.
How is the water when you're swimming in it?
It's wonderful. You don't really want to get out. The problem is that you don't want it to stop, but then eventually you'll run out of money.
At the premiere of the film in Cannes, you talked very personally about your own near-death experience, and that this film brought you back to life. As you've now been resurrected in a sense, what has this newfound chance made you feel as a filmmaker?
You know, before I died, I had kind of come to the end of my creative journey. Meaning that I had nothing left in me to do. I was able to go from cinema into creating some streaming shows, thinking that that would reignite everything, and it kind of did in a superficial way. But the answer wasn't there. Then I had a chance to work in the fine arts together with fashion, which I really enjoyed.
And then I died. I was able to come back, and I realized that I've been given a gift. Like George Bailey in It’s a Wonderful Life. I could start over again, as if the past never really existed, even though I have a piece of it and I know everything. It still feels like my derail was not so much a derail; it was a U-turn that I had to take and experience other formats of creativity and implement that into my future, which I'm more interested in. I'm not interested in the past. I'm interested in the future, and combining that with technology's evolution and the ecosystem of the entertainment industry, and how everything is being dismantled and renewed, reevaluated, rethought. Tearing down the normalcy of conventions, realizing the algorithm as the enemy of creativity, and seeing that you got to be there for all those teenagers out there trying to find ways to express on all levels.
Were you one of those teenagers? Did you find yourself looking to cinema or to art as a way for you to begin to express yourself?
Oh yeah.
What was it you looked to? Part of the reason I'm asking is a Seattle question: I believe you went to Scarecrow Video, I've heard from the folks there, to one day just look at box art, without making a big show of it, and so it seems like you still have a love for this.
I love stores of dreams. I love cinemas because they're palaces of dreams. I love video stores because you make an effort to go there and browse through dreams. I find clicking on a machine to find something very unsexy.
Her Private Hell opens today at the AMC Pacific Place and the Regal Meridian in Seattle. It will also play at the SIFF Film Center via The Grand Illusion on July 31 and August 2.
