You give me a time and a place and I give you a 5 min window...

Rating: 10/10 (9 May 2020)

Drive attempts to hit a pace and atmosphere and succeeds spectacularly. Underground, dedicated, moralistic, faithful, limited, passionate: so many admirable features to describe the film. A faint experience of averageness morphed with passionate faithfulness and dedication, the need for belonging and naivete to the level of risking one's life for the wellbeing of others. This movie is a metaphorical love story; a love story for the beauty of dedication and selflessness. The gestures presented in the movie and the seemingly lack of desire of the character to exude any form of histrionics. The character is taciturn and seems to know exactly what he wants, and it is willing to die for it, clearly.
The movie is driven by almost non-verbal expression and imagination. There is a conspicuous lack of dialogue, at some points disturbing. The Unnamed protagonist (Ryan Gosling) had to interact with short phrases and stoic faces. At some point I thought this character must have some form of trauma to be so reserved, but it is as if he decided to be like that and lived perfectly with his decision. Maybe he was habituated to a life of rejection and misunderstanding. A woman like Irene (Carey Mulligan) had to be graceful in the awkward silences and try to trespass his sturdy carapace: vulnerable, lonely, familial, sensitive.
The unnamed protagonist was ready to absolutely demolish anything that threatened him. He is not a shy person, and he exuded that starkly in so many scenes where appropriate action was needed to place limits or make a statement, but he was also noble and selfless: a character willing to sacrifice his personal success or benefit for others, for a greater cause. He exudes many of the values that are seen commonly in superheroes, but in a real, sanguinary way, where his mortality or lack of superpowers gave him even more credit for his actions.
The slow burning pace of the movie gave us little time to digest the life of the protagonist. The lack of dialogue allows us to use our imagination and try to deduce his mysterious nature. Instead of being a clear shortcoming the lack of dialogue becomes a prominent quality for the movie and a facet that raises the protagonist to an iconic level of stalwart unrelenting integrity.