Copenhagen Cowboy: a long and Winding road

• Reviewed at the 2022 Venice International Film Festival.

There have been countless stories of hogs attacking their owners over the years, leaving only dentures behind as proof of their feast; in 2013, a mobster was fed alive to an enclosure of pigs by a rival family, a murder method that has reportedly been used by the mafia for decades. There’s something almost poetic about it: some of the most intelligent animals on earth, characterised for their greed and tendency to wallow in filth, enacting revenge on the greediest mammal of all.

Pigs are a prevailing symbol in Copenhagen Cowboy, the new six-episode series by Nicolas Winding Refn coming to Netflix later this year. Men make squealing pig noises when wounded. A pig farm is the setting for several gruesome acts of violence. Given the squalor of its nighttime underbelly, Copenhagen itself may well be a filthy pen. Pigs, like humans often do, devour without thinking.

Inspired by westerns, fairy tales and what Refn has called the “metaphysical power of femininity”, the series is a glacial, occasionally riveting odyssey through concentric circles of Copenhagen hell. In typical Refn fashion, the protagonist is an inscrutable character: Miu, a tiny, wily girl with a bowl-cut and soulful, saucer-wide eyes. She’s played by Angela Bundalovic, all cheekbone and jaw, her gamine face paired with arms that hang rigidly by her sides, as if her muscles have prematurely anticipated rigor mortis. Dressed throughout the series in a sporty zip jacket and tracksuit bottoms, her disconcerting stillness is interrupted only by small flashes of elasticity in martial-arts scenes. “You’re stressing me out with your gaze,” someone says to her, and we’re inclined to agree; later, when asked if she is a ghost, Miu merely pauses, then answers with a strange miaow.

We follow Miu, the titular cowboy with no past and an uncertain future, as she traverses the Copenhagen criminal underworld. From seedy underground brothels to fluorescent Chinese restaurants via corporate back-rooms and elaborate mansion estates, she embarks on diverse missions for truth and redemption, only to find herself thrown from one sticky situation into another; episode arcs involve stolen drug money, trafficked sex workers and a sadistic, flamboyant villain. Miu, our roving avenger, has been bought and sold throughout her life, first by her mother aged seven; in the present day, she has been purchased by and now belongs to a dotty middle-aged woman named Rosella, who believes that Miu will be a good-luck charm in Rosella’s pursuit of fertility.

Throughout the six episodes, we gather droplets of information on a certain cryptic gift Miu possesses – the kind that “40 years ago, they would have burnt you at the stake” for – though the fact that nobody can quite put their finger on the nature of this gift is a source of some frustration. It’s clear, however, that she draws upon these curious powers to wriggle out of the most volatile scenarios. The show’s supernatural elements are somewhat elucidated in the final episode, when Miu has a meeting of minds with her nemesis and alter-ego Rakel, played, in her first screen role, by Refn’s own daughter Lola Corfixen – a steely-eyed, hyper-feminine princess. Corfixen provides one of many small but assured supporting turns; others come from seasoned Refn collaborator Zlatko Burić, who plays unscrupulous drug dealer Miroslav, and a whole roster of first-time screen actors: Li li Zhang as the tricksy Mother Hulda, Jason Hendil-Forssel as brutal kidnapper Mr. Chiang, and Andreas Lykke Jørgensen as serial killer Nicklas.

This is the first work Refn has shot and set in his native Denmark in over 20 years, but is filtered through the same neon-drenched neo-noir aesthetic we’ve seen throughout his career. High-contrast colour abounds: pinks, purples and blues illuminate Miu’s world, her path lit with LED strip lights and the garish, gaudy glow of slot machines, storefronts and cavernous basements; ripe lilac sunsets backlight her distinctive silhouette. Also unsurprising is the stylish, synth-heavy score from regular Refn collaborator Cliff Martinez, which overlays the elegant on-screen violence with an eardrum-pounding beat.

Some viewers will find the relentless distancing a bit much – those sweeping arc shots across empty rooms, the scenes shot at a chilly remove, the enigmatic, poker-faced protagonist – but Copenhagen Cowboy will be manna for those partial to Refn’s acidic, arcane films. With no certainty of future seasons, it’s a bold move for the director to only begin to set up the story’s superhero elements in the final episode. But up until that point, it’s an overly languid journey, however visually striking it may be.