Movies We Love... "Only God Forgives" (2013)

A film not for the faint of heart:

Nicholas Winding Refn's "Only God Forgives" (2013) is dedicated to Alejandro Jodorovsky, and it's easy to see why... it is probably the most incomprehensible (and divisive) film since that director's "El Topo" (1971).  We found however that the Jodorowsky film that kept springing to mind at our viewing of Only God Forgives was his later "Santa Sangre" (1989) which was once described as "a strange, violent, but ultimately liberating vision."  That would be our assessment of Refn's current film - precisely.

The perplexing vision we now consider is set in Thailand, shown here as a neon-lit Hell which seems to be inhabited by demons, their victims, and an avenging angel intent on restoring a moral balance. Certainly Julien (Ryan Gosling), our central character, is a tormented, possibly cursed soul, while his older brother Billy (Tom Burke) and American mother Crystal (Kristen Scott Thomas) are obviously damned in their theatrical, florid, and painfully evil personas.  Julien and Bill run a Thai boxing club which is a front for a drug operation.  The fighters are all young boys and the prostitutes the brothers visit are also young...  in fact, the action is precipitated when brother Billy rapes and kills a sixteen year old girl apparently because he could not find a fourteen year old one.

Officer Chang (Vithaya Pansringarm) arrives with his coterie of sharp-dressed Bangkok policemen to dispense justice (without benefit of arrest, court or trail). He allows the girl's father to dispatch the killer-rapist in the first of the movie's trademark scenes of Tarrantino-like mayhem. We're talking super-realistic blood and gore which again may be a tribute to Jodorovsky. Then Inspector Chang, drawing his ever-present Samurai sword from it's sheath cuts off the father's arm as a reminder to not let the same fate happen to his other three daughters.

Soon the boys' demon-mother Crystal arrives on a flight from America and a grinding cycle of murder and revenge begins to unfold. We will not bore you with the details, since the audience not willing to hop on this ride will probably be just as bored watching the same details of plot play out on the screen... 
But let us say however that Refn's intentional deliberate pace, his precise editing and use of shadows and color, local atmosphere, suspense and a mesmerizing, pounding, gloriously evocative soundtrack were anything but boring to your humble critics.

A few examples: why the numerous shots of Justin's hands? He looks at them, spreads them, coils them into fists - they are even his instruments of sexual entry, and if we can believe his mother, they have an Oedipal history. Likewise for the inserts of lounge performance (by Chang or a young woman in what seems to be a debutantes' ball set in a night club). Their songs take us briefly out of the (slow, deliberate) action and are presented without subtitles for the English audience. Are they the Greek chorus to this tragedy? Are they meant to balance the mayhem? We were reminded by them of the intense theatrical performance of Roy Orbison's "Crying" which was performed in Spanish in a pivotal scene from David Lynch's "Mulholland Drive." One gets the feeling they may hold the key to unlocking an impenetrable mystery. Or is that hopeful and unfulfilled thinking? Some inserts of amputations and sexual interplay appear to be out of place or perhaps occur only in the mind of one of the character's. These stylistic flourishes kept me engaged (and thus never bored) but we can easily see how those with less investment or tolerance might have had their patience sorely tried... perhaps even to the breaking point.

One fantastic foot chase through the streets of Bangkok is brilliantly choreographed, as is a later fist-fight/Muay Thai confrontation between Officer Chang and Justin. These alone demonstrate that this director know exactly what he's doing.

In the end, we have to come down on the plus side as admirers of Refn's new opus. This is a film for those who watch movies late at night and are willing to be drawn into them for visceral and psychologically obscure reasons - a state of participation where knowing more is less... a fever dream as we called them in the 60s. In short, a movie to be experienced rather than analyzed.
We will add though that God Only Forgives is not mindless. It is a carefully planned fable and the moral symmetry is flawless. Even in hell justice is served.

* * *

Notable quote:

Julien: It's a little more complicated than that, mother.

Crystal: Meaning what, exactly?

Julien: Billy raped and killed a sixteen year old girl.

Crystal: I'm sure he had his reasons.

And then we watched... "La Vallée (Obscured by Clouds) (1972)...

           A film by Barbet Schroeder - "La Vallée (Obscured by Clouds)"

"La Vallée" was Barbet Schroeder's 1972 follow-up film to "More" and is especially notable because of it's soundtrack music by Pink Floyd, a kind of trance-rock, later released as the album "Obscured by Clouds." It is the story of Vivian (Bulle Ogier), the young wife of a French diplomat, who while shopping alone for tribal artifacts in Papua/New Guinea meets up with Olivier (Michael Gothard) and a small band of (hippie) explorers who claim to be able to put her in contact with providers of the rare plumage of the Bird Of Paradise, which has been hunted to near extinction. Trafficking in the colorful feathers is illegal but a few are known to be still available in remote interior outposts. The hunt for the exotic and beautiful feathers is eventually subsumed into a greater search, when Vivian agrees to accompany the band of free-spirited wanderers into the mountainous interior of the island where the leader of the group, Gatean (Jean-Pierre Kalfon), hopes to find "the valley," a legendary, perhaps nonexistent, paradise from which he claims that, if it has ever been found, no one has ever returned.

   Through the days of journeying, there are encounters with remote inhabitants portrayed (in improvised footage) by members of a real New Guinea tribe. Vivian is introduced to experiences of free sex, natural drugs, nature worship, and vague utopian philosophy that seems to involve mainly the shedding of all vestiges of western mores and civilized conduct. The obviously real slaughter of pigs for a collective aboriginal feast is a disturbing scene - it tells us the director was stretching for verisimilitude and gives us an indication that this fable is hardly a fairy tale. 

   As the group's exotic adventures continue, beautifully photographed by award-winning cinematographer Nestor Almendros, they climb ever higher into the mountains, first surrendering their land rover for horses, and then the horses for an arduous trek on foot. Eventually they are lost in mist on a clouded mountaintop, exhausted and without any remaining food and water. The film ends in a revelation which may be more mystical than real and as the pulsating Pink Floyd music plays us out, one is reminded of the old adage that the journey is sometimes greater than the destination.

    We cannot call "La Vallée" classic cinema, but the use of exotic locale, the cinema verité style, and the symbolism of the story make this film a curiosity at least, that now, half a century on, reminds us of a time when we could still envision an earthly paradise and when "turning on and tuning out" was considered an act of brave artistic exploration.

Movies we love... "Summer with Monika"  (1953)

"Summer with Monica" is a 1953 film by Swedish director Ingmar Bergman. It stars Harriet Andersson and Lars Ekborg as two working class Stockholm teenagers who are caught up in the throws of youthful passion, which also is a way they can momentarily escape the stifling boredom of their lives.
Harry is a lonely boy whose mother died when he was only eight, and whose father has become withdrawn. Harry seems to be always late for his job in a stockroom of glass and porcelain. Monica, who is far from lonely, comes from a large family. Her father is a lovable drunk, who can sometimes be mildly abusive. Monica can't catch a decent night's sleep because of the constant ruckus raised by her younger siblings. She works in a grocer supply where the other employees, all men, are always grabbing and clutching at her.
The two youngsters begin to flirt with each other. They go to a movie or dine alone at Harry's place, but mostly they pet and paw and share cigarettes and soon they are in bed together. When Harry's dad goes into the hospital, an aunt comes to help who cleans the apartment energetically until late into the night. With the trysting place of Harry's home blocked, the lovers retire instead to the refuge of a tiny boat at the docks which belongs to Harry's dad. There, in a space not much bigger than a doghouse, their love blossoms into full romance and with the bright Scandinavian summer coming, they devise a plan to leave everything and sail away like bandits to live on a beach of the archipelago.
For a while it is paradise... they make love, they cook, they play and bath each other and mostly they just enjoy the sunshine and a freedom neither has ever experienced before. But into these storybook idylls, reality always finds a way of intruding. Food grows scarse, their setting has its own limitations related to cleanliness and order, and Monica finds that her clothes no longer fit, even though she's been eating less.

What makes this rather pedestrian tale remarkable is the naturalness of the two lead actors and the great talent of the director. This film made MIss Andersson a star, and shortly afterward she began her own affair with the director who was drawn to her natural charisma. Young Mr. Ekborg, though not as natural before the camera as the female lead, was a very good actor and the moral complexity of the story rests upon his shoulders. The black and white photography is gorgeous and creates some indelible images in the viewer's mind.
We will mention a remarkable scene near the end of the film. Monica uses her cigarette to light one for Harry, and then she turns and stares directly into the camera while the background gradually grows darker. The image is held so long that it makes one feel uncomfortable. This device, to break the fourth wall, was never used at the time and Miss Andersson says she felt she was breaking rules just doing it. Her stare into the lens is held for an extended time and it penetrates into the viewers mind and raises questions that are difficult to frame: "Are you judging me?"  "What would you have done differently?"  "Do you even know who I am deep inside?"  "You've been watching me... how does it feel to be watched?"

As this predates the famous final freeze frame that ends Truffaut's "The 400 Blows" by at least six years, we will credit Mr. Bergman with being the pioneer and innovator. It is said that "Summer with Monica" was greatly admired by the French "nouvelle vague" directors. Now, after our viewing, we can understand why.

And then we watched...

VIAGGIO IN ITALIA (VOYAGE TO ITALY) - Italian, 1953 - director Roberto Rossellini.

Never know what you will discover on Turner Classic Movies. Last week we caught this gem on a night they were running some neo-realist films of Italian director Roberto Rossellini. "Voyage to Italy" is from 1953, the period when the legendary director was working with his love and muse, Ingrid Bergman... perhaps you will recall "Stromboli?"

The story is slight but involving... interesting to us as a chance to witness the manners and morals of a British couple vacationing in Italy, in the vicinity of Naples in the early 1950's. Alex Joyce (George Sanders) is a successful businessman, and Katherine (Miss Bergman) is his bored, slightly neurotic wife. The upper-scale couple have come to Italy to claim an inheritance, an estate left them by a beloved uncle. They plan to take possession, put the villa up for sale, and then return to Britain as quickly as possible. Having not spent so much time together in a long time, they realize their marriage is not working as it should. Their nerves start to fray, and even little differences are not easily resolved. Katherine had always wanted children, a topic Alex will not entertain... too busy! They begin to spend time apart during the day, Alex goes off to Capri with old friends he's met - a little flirtation is involved, and Katherine hangs back, touring the local museums in Naples, or just lounging in the Italian sun. To her, the environs recall an old love who knew Italy well, a poet who died, yet just the mention of him seems to drive Alex to a fury. Things deteriorate and a divorce is proposed.

As the film progresses, there are occasions to see the sights around the bay of Naples in the context of the story. Vesuvius looms behind them in many scenes (a symbol of the destruction of their marriage?) and in one very affecting scene, they go to Pompeii with an archeologist friend to witness the pouring of a capture mold.

In an explosion of the volcano in the first century AD, some residents of the ancient city were swallowed so quickly by the rain of volcanic ash, that they were caught in their everyday activities. The accumulated ash hardened and encased them in what might be considered a time capsule. Gradually the organic material of their bodies disappeared, leaving an empty space which they once filled. In the twentieth century, archeologists found that by pouring a plaster material into the spaces when they were found, an exact mold of the deceased victims could be formed, so that when the hardened volcanic material is chipped and swept away, a sort of living statue is revealed... a slave carrying a water jug, a young boy clutching a dog, an infant sleeping in a crib, and so forth.

As fate would have it, the mold Alex and Katherine witness is discovered to be that of a man and a woman lying side by side holding hands. Later they witness a local religious pageant in which children are following and singing behind a icon of the Madonna; Katherine gets swept into the crowd as by a flood (or flow of lava) and she calls out to Alex to save her, when moments before they were not speaking to one another. Events such as these lead the couple to face the possibility that they may have been acting in pettiness and haste. Is a more positive resolution possible?

"Journey to Italy" is remarkable because to the psychological insight that Rossellini brings to the modern relationship. He had just gone through a divorce in order to be with Miss Bergman, and she was in self-exile from Hollywood because her affair with the Italian director was considered a scandal. The film uses mood, symbolic imagery and nuanced dialog to give insight. It tends to avoid the maudlin and melodramatic. Though the movie was a box-office failure, it has since been reassessed, especially by French crtics and New Wave directors like Truffaut, who have labeled it "the first truly modern film." It is on the list of the BFI top fifty motion pictures of all time.

We were a bit put off by watching the Italian language version, because we suspect a voice actor might have been employed for Mr. Sanders, but in the end the experience was a good one for us, in part because the location filming, the panoramas of Naples, Vesuvius and the Pompeiian ruins give the film an air of captured time... a historicity that accentuates the link between lived time and remembered past.