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Before last week, I had heard writer/director Nicolas Winding Refn’s name pop up in film articles and reviews frequently in the last half-decade, but had seen precisely zero of his films. (I do hope to see Drive in the theaters before the end of the month). I was aware of his five hour crime saga, the Pusher trilogy (1996, 2004, 2005), but had refrained from seeing it as an article on it I had skimmed several years back had given me the (false impression) that the level of brutality and violence was high and that strong stomachs were a requirement. The onscreen body count for all three films totals only a handful and, save for the climax of the third film - which plays like a clinical, less jokey and yet simultaneously more absurd take on body disposal than featured in, say, Pulp Fiction - the level of viscera is shockingly low for gangster/drug dealer films.

In regards to my false impression, the fact that my reading comprehension was shot to hell doesn’t surprise me as this happens on occasion when I read about a book or a movie to get an impression of a piece of art or to read the prose of an author I like, without necessarily spoiling the particulars of the plot. What is more disconcerting (though gratifying in an odd way) is that my ability to stomach violence, the thought of violence, and more precisely head trauma of any kind has decreased as I have gotten older. (Mind you, this is from someone who read American Psycho - upon its initial release in 1991 - at the tender age of 15. And not covertly, either. Mom had to accompany me to Waldenbooks for the purchase, as it was only available to adults and kept in a very intimidating wall display behind the cashier’s counter.)

I am not precisely sure when this tipping point occurred. Having a child now is a contributing factor, but was by no means the instigator. In an odd way, it recalls for me when my parents took me to see my first R-rated film, Blue Thunder, in the theaters. Although I remember little of the plot from nearly 30 years ago, I recall distinctly the scene where Roy Scheider’s partner escapes from the bad guys and they shoot him in the back as he is running down the street. My seven-year-old-mind thought, “But, but, they can’t do that. He couldn’t defend himself.”

Now that I am becoming less, not more, inured to displays of violence, it has become common practice for me to squeal, recoil, or shout an audible, “Ohhhh, FUCK!” at scenes such as John Malkovich’s attack on Richard Jenkins in Burn After Reading (even though this is in long shot, with no blood), Daniel Plainview’s improper use of a bowling pin in There Will Be Blood, or the ultimate fate of the gymnast in Final Destination 5.

The Pusher films are about many things, including the buildup of tremendous unease that sooner or later (generally the latter) ends in violence, but release from tension is not one of them. The first film ends at what appears to be the bottom of a downward spiral, but there is no relief even then. The entire film is really an exercise in suspension, in allowing its protagonist to dig himself deeper and deeper into a financial and moral quagmire, always finding out, to his surprise and ours, that the hole has no bottom. Shot in chronological order, with a handheld camera that helps maintain a rough immediacy and an air of dread from start to finish, Pusher is intense but also contains a thicket of odd humor.

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