Sightlines · how to watch
How to watch Pusher II
2004 · Nicolas Winding Refn · Pusher II on Sightlines
5 things to watch and listen for on a first viewing, without spoilers, and 3 more once you have seen it. Each names something you can see or hear, the pattern it belongs to, and what noticing it gives you. How these keys work.
On a first viewing
Watch how close the camera stays to Tonny's body. (camera)
Refn shoots in a mobile, handheld register that hunts and breathes at Tonny's shoulder, rarely pulling back to a composed, stable distance.
Payoff: The camera's closeness keeps you pinned to a man who can't get any distance from his own life.
Watch for the word tattooed on the back of Tonny's neck. (setting)
Tonny carries RESPECT in block capitals where he can never see it himself, though everyone standing behind him can read it instantly.
Payoff: He's demanding something with his own body that he has no way of checking for himself. In the reading: fetish. Deleuze calls an object like this a fetish, a part-object carrying the whole force of a drive that has no other outlet.
Notice where Tonny stands in his father's garage. (staging)
Blocking keeps placing Tonny at the physical edge of rooms, hovering near his father's world without ever being let fully inside it.
Payoff: The framing keeps telling you he doesn't belong here before anyone says so out loud.
Notice how long Refn holds on an awkward confrontation. (cutting)
Scenes at the garage, at a deal, at a christening are allowed to run past the point of comfort, curdling instead of cutting away.
Payoff: The discomfort you feel watching is the point: the film refuses you an easy exit too.
Listen to the workshop and club noise crowd out the dialogue. (sound)
The soundscape stays grounded in the din of chop shops, clubs, and crowded rooms rather than a scoring voice telling you how to feel.
Payoff: The noise of the world presses in on Tonny the same way it presses in on you.
The 3 rewatch keys open on this page when you choose "Seen it?".
Carry this in: Watch how close the camera stays to Tonny, and watch his posture whenever his father is near.