Only God Forgives sees Nicolas Winding Refn reuniting with
his Drive muse, Ryan Gosling, to deliver what may well be his bravest film yet.
After the relative breakout of Drive with a mainstream audience, Refn reverts
back to earlier, darker and wholly less accessible avenues of his career.
Julian (Ryan Gosling) and his brother, Billy (Tom Burke),
head up a Bangkok drug ring fronting as a Muay Thai club. Bangkok serves as
Julian’s personal purgatory governed by violence and vengeance. Billy’s murder
throws Julian into the ring (quite literally later in the film) with the old
testament-channelling angel of vengeance, Chang. A policeman of sorts, Chang is
the titular God of Only God Forgives: all knowing, untouchable, and without
mercy.
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| Julien feeling a bit blue |
Julian’s mother, Crystal (Kirstin Scott Thomas) is the Lady
Macbeth of the piece; domineering, corrosive to everything she touches, a
veritable demon clad in leopard print and peroxide blond. Scott Thomas delivers
a magnetic, horrifying performance, the only person that reveals any humanity
in the elusive and stoic Julian. Subtly and not so subtly we uncover a dark, Oedipal
past that seems to hang behind his vacant, glacial eyes (Freud would have had a
field day). He is a man haunted by his past, by his mother, by the death of his
brother, by Chang. But, most of all, he
is a man haunted by violence.
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| A cinematographers wet dream |
Only God Forgives is, like Drive and most Refn works, a film
about violence. However, in the same way as A History of Violence and Taxi
Driver, Drive explored the inherent violence in a man and to a greater extent
the violence imbedded in American culture. Only God Forgives on the other hand
is a film about violence as a physical and emotional imperative, the sole
solution to any issue. This is where the recurring motif of hands comes into
play; bunched in fists, being cut off, covered in blood… it is a film laden
with such imagery. In a world governed by violence a man’s hands are his tools
for violence, his only way of impacting the world he’s trapped in. The idea of a man’s hands being removed
renders him impotent. It’s Chang’s greatest punishment.
Refn wears his influence on his sleeve but this is where he differentiates himself from the superficially comparable Tarantino. Tarantino
mimics, lifts and steals from what he loves to boast his eclectic knowledge
whereas Refn’s surpasses homage, his films are knowing love letters that are
never arch or exclusive. His films relate to other directors as much as they
relate to genre, Fear X to Lynch, Bronson to Kubrick, Valhalla Rising to
Tarkovsky. With Only God Forgives, Refn recalls his earlier Fear X, due in
large part to their shared feverish, blood soaked cinematography, orchestrated
by Larry Smith. However, the two films relation is more than skin deep. They
are both films that explore what goes on around the confines of narrative
rather than serve it up on a platter. Both films are not easily palatable but
inaccessibility and depth together are often disregarded as pretension, a
criticism far too easily laid at Only God Forgives. Every frame has a reason
and an insight displaying a perfect exercise in intent and formality. Without
over-lauding it, it does exactly what art should; it dispels with pretension
and instead promotes interpretation.
It goes without saying but it’s not a film for everyone,
it’s something of an obnoxious work that will anger, irritate and enthral in
equal measure. This is something Refn revels in; provocation, he’s a director
that wants to coax a response above garnering acclaim. In less capable hands
this could come across as widely self-indulgent and to a degree it is. Watching
Only God Forgives, it is wholly apparent that it’s a film untarnished by
committee, a film made on the director’s terms.
Only God Forgives is a masterstroke in restraint and
self-belief and only further cements Nicolas Winding Refn as the most
uncompromising and exciting auteur of the last twenty years. It’s an incredibly
rich film that rewards repeat viewings and even taking or leaving the wealthy
subtext it’s just a startling sensory experience.
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