For weeks now, as he’s done in the past with previous film or TV series, Danish filmmaker and enfante terrible Nicolas Winding Refn has been hyping up a new project called “Copenhagen Cowboy” on his Instagram. This past week, the filmmaker revealed that his teenage daughter, LizzieLou Winding Refn, who he often features on his Instagram page in playful dance sequences, would be the star of the project. But what is “Cophenhagen Cowboy” exactly. A limited series like his previous Amazon crime drama, “Too Young To Die Old,” a film like the oedipal fight/revenge drama, “Only God Forgives” (2013), or psychological horror film “The Neon Demon” (2016)?
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Well, thanks to People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), of all places, who have lodged a complaint about the project, we have some answers. Apparently, it’s a Danish Netflix series, and PETA has claimed a whistleblower has notified them that a “pig was shot and killed” for the making of a series.
PETA shared part of a letter they sent to Netflix co-CEO Reed Hasting, urging the scene to be removed from the series.
“Killing a sentient being and exploiting that death for the sake of entertainment is unacceptable and may be illegal,” says PETA Senior Vice President Lisa Lange. “No animal should suffer or die for human entertainment, and PETA is calling on Netflix to leave on the cutting room floor any footage that might glorify this pig’s needless, senseless slaughter.”
Furthermore, PETA alleges that the “farmer who supplied live pigs admitted that one was going to be killed specifically for a scene in the show. Copenhagen Zoo confirmed receiving a dead pig from the production, and Danish police are currently investigating.”
That’s a strange way to get confirmation about a new filmmaking project, but there it is. What the project is actually about is unknown. It should also be reiterated that killing animals on a film set is unethical, unnecessary, and yes, potentially illegal and should not be condoned.
It might be unfair to suggest, but it’s also perhaps not entirely a surprise as Refn loves to prod and provoke. Refn is already a controversial, goading filmmaker who likes to push buttons and sometimes seems a little bit tone-deaf about current cultural shifts. His series, “Too Young To Die Old,” starring Miles Teller, which seemingly no one watched given how little press there was about it, might be an indication of where he’s at these days, as it was arguably purposefully offensive and disturbing (and also kind of twistedly brilliant). It’s kind of an odious and repellant work in spots, featuring so many gratuitous, problematic, near-pornographic moments of violence, sex, and fetishistic sexual violence. But as a deeply angry screed about the state of America under Trump,” but it’s also an undeniably blistering work that’s hard to turn away from. Our review of the film described it as an “audacious, hypnodrone porno nightmare of Post-Trump polarity.” It’s hard to defend and yet a striking, furious work full of contradiction.
Refn, who once went bankrupt from investing his own money to finish his films, once turned down what would have been the career-making James Bond “Spectre,” if that’s any indication of how unwilling he is to play by anyone’s rules other than his own.