BRONSON (UK 2008) **
Directed by Nicolas Winding Refn

BRONSON is Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn’s treatment of the life of Britain’s most famous prisoner Michael Peterson a.k.a. Charlie Bronson. 

Refn is famous for his trilogy of drug movies PUSHER I, II and III, screened at the international festivals but never released in North America.  Refn seems the best choice as director for an artistic treatment on BRONSON, but the film ends up empty, ultra-violent and frustrating.  Basically a full blown excursion of Bronson’s in-and-outs of various institutions showing his bouts of aggression, beatings, more beatings and even more beatings, the film eventually ends on a note with Bronson again, once again ultimately beaten up by the screws.  And judging from his incorrigible behaviour, the audience probably feels he deserves it. 

The film briefly chronicles Peterson’s youthful days.  He is shown at school beating up his fellow students and teacher and eventually growing up to a hot-headed 19-year old where he gets into trouble with a botched robbery.  Swiftly apprehended and originally sentenced to 7 years in jail, Peterson has subsequently been behind bars for 34 years, 30 of which have been spent in solitary confinement. During that time, Michael Petersen, the boy, faded away and ‘Charles Bronson,’ his superstar alter ego, took center stage.  While the publicity notes state that it is Refn’s intent to enter the inside of the mind of Bronson - a scathing indictment of celebrity culture – this never happens.  A main fault is Refn’s insistent of putting art before factual account – a tactic that worked very well in last year’s Irish prison film HUNGER.  Where that film combined artistic set-ups that made its point, Refn’s set-ups just demonstrate another of Bronson’s outbursts.  An example is the extended dream sequence interspersed throughout the film with Bronson in clown make-up telling his life-story to a faceless audience.  What this achieves is nothing.  Refn does not offer any insight to his violence, his erratic behaviour or any mental or psychological problems that he might have.  The only reason offered by the film’s ads is that this is a man who seeks fame, but Refn’s film does not reflect this at all.  The developing relationship between his parents and Bronson when Bronson is released from prison to their care is quickly dismissed for more segments of artistic violence.

The effect of the violence is lessened by an overriding musical score, often by classical music.  Though it is not Beethoven, the musical score and characters’ dress and the static staging of scenes (both films were set in the 70’s) often remind one of Kubrick’s A CLOCKWORK ORANGE.  Refn’s film has a continuous edgy feel owing to the fact that his Bronson can erupt into a fighting monster at any time.

But the ultimate effect of the film is artistic violence on display with no insight to the protagonist’s behaviour or comment on the social justice system.  Pity as Tom Hardy offers a riveting performance while undergoing a body change from average to muscularly scary.