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.
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.
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.
