Pusher (1996)

Nicholas Winding Refn was only 24 years old when he directed Pusher in his native Denmark, a fact that you would not even guess by the gritty look and the deliberate pace of this surprising film that is far from being needlessly violent and which is populated by believable and organic characters. Frank (a remarkable Kim Bodnia) is a drug dealer who is just trying to make money on the streets of Copenhagen. He has a girlfriend and a good friend who is also a business partner (amazingly portrayed by a very young Madds Mikkelsen, the unforgettable bad guy from Casino Royal, the 007 movie)  but he is far from connecting with anybody. Things get bad when a drug deal happened to be a police trap. Frank avoids prison but loses the drugs and consequently gets into heavy debt with his provider, an enigmatic guy from the former Yugoslavia who is surrounded by thugs who are as menacing as surprisingly human. The hunt starts to close in, of course, but Frank is more resourceful than what you might guess. However, the plot is far from being too important. What matters here is the atmosphere, the increasing sense of isolation surrounding the protagonist, the betrayals that he inflicts on others and the harvest of violence that he collects. This is a remarkable film, no doubt about it, and the amazing trajectory as a film director of Nicholas Refn is a solid testimony that Pusher was far from being a lucky shot.

Animal Kingdom, 2010

You never know what’s going to happen next in Animal Kingdom, the 2010 Australian movie directed by Daniel Michôd. The narrative, the mere construction of the scenes, the acting and the plot itself are unsettling and challenging for the average spectator, since everything seems to disrupt not only the usual Hollywood formula but the inner mechanics the movie seems to adhere to. As a general rule, even the least appealing Aussie films tend to make acting the center of the movie experience. In this case, Joshua, the protagonist (merely called “J”) hardly seems to act. He is a shy, introverted underage teen who speaks in monosyllables and growls. When his mother dies of a drug overdose while sitting on her sofa and a paramedic comes to the house to examine her, he seems to be more concentrated on the TV contest show being broadcast than in the outcome of his mother's situation in the living room. Afterwards, he is forced to move in with his tough grandmother (an impressive acting lesson by Jackie Weaver) leader of a family that seems to live at the edge of the law, a sociological portrait that seems to be frightfully close to the truth. Living with them, J appears to be uninvolved or unconcerned by the criminal actions of his relatives —-an idea that the final scene destroys with a wrecking ball-— who are under close surveillance by the police. With the exception of the subdued role of Guy Pearce as a police officer, almost every character is painted with gray to dark overtones. Even grandma, who seemed to be a ragged but sweet mature woman disconnected from the aberrant behavior of her sons, shows no sign of mercy at her own grandson when she has to decide between him and her sons. But if the bad guys are not sympathetic, the police are not necessarily nice either. Interestingly, the violence is not unleashed by the bad guys but by the cold blooded killing of one of the family members by the police.
Here my final thoughts. Though you might blame the movie for lacking a much needed sense of humor, it overly compensates with scenes that are so well crafted that catch you completely off guard. It's like living in the wild, never suspecting what is happening next and each one defending his own as an extension of him or herself in the world. In this Animal Kingdom there is no place for pity or a sense of justice, you just do what you got to do.