Copenhagen Cowboy

Ambitious miniseries with beautiful shots throughout and atmospheric lighting. The neon lights, production value and overly long silences were the highlights of the series. I was pulled into a strange world where I absolutely couldn't tell where it was going. The first two episodes require patience, however once you are into the story, Copenhagen Cowboy is something new and engaging.

The colours and cinematography are beautiful in a harsh environment. It's slow - sometimes very slow - but once you enter the meditative state, it makes sense. Though it has dark storytelling and violent characters, there's ample of hope and kindness involved as well.

The technical brilliance in the direction, cinematography and score can't really be denied. The reliance on specific shots - static camera, 360 degree pans, slow zoom is highly effective and everything is calculated to build maximum tension.

However, I feel like, it could easily have been a 2 hour film instead of a miniseries as it would've been fast paced and wouldn't even miss any story elements.

A fascinating production that requires some perseverance by the viewer. Be prepared for a very meticulously filmed story that takes some time to more or less fully understand. The pace is slow in every aspect: in dialogue, in plot development and in cinematography. Acting is very minimalistic and retained and melts beautifully with the way scenes are filmed. The story has as much importance as the visual experience.

This series is definitely not for the impatient ones who expect an easy to swallow, quickly paced story. However, if you're ready to have some patience, are able to accept that not everything will ever become fully clear and are open to this kind of cinema, this may just be right for you. A gem in Netflix productions.

The first two episodes require patience, however once you are into the story Copenhagen cowboy is something new and engaging.

The colours and scenery are beautiful in a harsh environment. It's slow - sometimes very slow - but once you enter the meditative state it makes perfect sense.

It's also a huge contrast between the main role - an alien like altruistic girl vs killers, gangsters and hedonists.

Copenhagen cowboy do have som references to films like Hannibal (brutality and pigs eating people dead or alive), Drive (colours, music and scenery) and David Lynch in general, including the ufo theme from the last tween peaks series. That said, this series adds something new to the table and is a positive surprise. Netflix really tries to be creative and innovative. Kudos.

I love the films and television of Nicholas Winding Refn and within one episode I was fully back in his neon soaked, grimy, atmospheric world of static tableaux, the worst humans imaginable, extended circular pans and long signature pauses between speech or action.

I sometimes wonder if his effectively borderline mute protagonists are a direct criticism of people who use words too freely with no consideration.

As the mass Netflix crowd slowly find this I'm certainly expecting a slew of downvoting to occur and all the usual complaints about camerawork, lack of story, slowness and how quickly people fell asleep.

I hate these tragic people and equate them with the targets of Refn's scorn. The low, emotionally impotent, the unthinking and in this case thematically, the ultimate bottom-feeders, the pigs.

Basically if you like his previous work you will most likely love this too. It's been so long since the awesome Too Old to Die Young and you can see that he has certainly put those 4 years to good use.

This incoherent mini-series could easily have been a 90 minute movie and we wouldn't have missed any story elements. It would have been fast paced, but you wouldn't feel the urge to hit the fast-forward button, as I did.

There's a not a lot that make sense in 'Copenhagen Cowboy'. We are introduced to a wide array of characters who are somehow all connected and tied to the underworld, but most character arcs are left uncompleted. In the center of it all there's the emotionless protagonist with zero chemistry.

It's a shame that NWR focuses more on cool-looking neonlit shots, and slow moving 360 degree pans than telling an engaging story, because I prefer substance over style. Style should be the icing on the cake and serve the story, not the opposite.