Only God Forgives

Had it not been for the success of Drive, Ryan Gosling and Kristin Scott Thomas would’ve never agreed to star in Only God Forgives, a film so anti-audience that I doubt it will get a wider cinema release in the US. A not exactly model American family operating in Bangkok makes a local machete-wielding police chief very angry. Who is related to whom is revealed only gradually, with the steadily rising body count. Everyone is a psycho either raping fourteen-year-olds, dealing drugs or poking people’s eyes out. Omnipresent darkness, deliberately placed lanterns and neon images, dragon symbols in the red half-light, slow-moving figures, dark or psychedelic music, and Ryan Gosling staring into space as hard as never before. The film plays with audience expectations, misleads, hypnotizes, scares, sometimes fascinates, but does not provide any final satisfaction. Vithaya Pansringarm’s cop is a properly demonic sadist, while the mother played by Kristin Scott Thomas is a properly unscrupulous bitch. A strange movie that will make you think, but doesn’t come to any conclusions. (05/30/2013)

A pseudo-art game with symbols, vague characters, and a story about revenge and (lack of) forgiveness, in which fantastic cinematography and the unintentional ridiculousness of Gosling's vacant stare reign supreme. Overall, it’s enough for the biggest movie pose and epic fail of the year because I haven't seen a movie in a long time that shows so much of what it wants to be and works exactly the opposite way; I want to read a long analysis of it by a film theorist. (09/21/2013)

Refn made a name for himself with the film Drive and decided that his approach must work every time. And so, once again, we get a gritty spectacle with blood splattering, stoic acting performances, long shots that mostly say nothing, and familiar faces, which Refn has been successfully incorporating since Valhalla Rising. The first half hour is fine and could bring almost anything, even a Tarantino-style bloodbath, but Refn won't give you that. He continues to stylize his film and does things his own way. I have to say, his approach to violence simply works for me. It looks incredibly good and realistic, which is enhanced by the use of a static camera. However, Julian's fight with the mob boss is an utter travesty. Unfortunately, the second half of the film is really about nothing, and the violence alone just can't save it. It's a shame because the start was much more promising. (01/06/2014)

OK, when it’s Refn, I absolutely don't mind and have never minded superficiality. Not even being a poser. I always felt something more behind it - vibration, a unique vision, the ability to captivate through image. Only God Forgives is the first time that ostentatious self-affection and the importance attached to every (albeit non-plot) shot has severely bothered me. The entire film is actually the anti-thesis of Drive, an image of a passive, incompetent, insufficient, castrated protagonist, on whose side are neither justice nor sympathy. Unfortunately, Gosling's pleading gaze into the camera seems sometimes tragicomic, similar to the didactic repetition of castration motifs and the emphasis on the archetypality of the plot (sometimes horribly didactic). The plot element is as truncated and frustrating as the protagonist - it's certainly not a fail - it's an intention, a rather mischievous creative intention, which Refn ostentatiously presents to us. Disconnection, inconsistency, extraordinariness - what made sense to me in Valhalla Rising as a lyrical poem resonates in Only God Forgives as an empty and pompous mannerism, gratification of the armless, sometimes even rebellious and strenuously aggressive. Mechanical declamations, the absence of logic, a bizarrely interconnected world in which the only possible order rules - the order of the director's ego. For me, a completely empty pose, empty enough to frustrate me. A few scenes are, of course, masterful (the fight, the chase through the city, ending with a recipe for a funny wok pan), but the enchantment of the whole faded. Nicolas Winding Refn reduced to excess. (05/30/2013)

Thanks to Drive, Nicolas Winding Refn conquered the world, only to drive away his newly discovered fans away with his dream project. A hypnotic atmosphere that compels you to immerse oneself in every dark shot is an amazing thing, but the slow storyline is so self-absorbed that I can't go any further, not even for Ryan Gosling's indecipherable gaze. In Bangkok everyone is betting on him more than ever before, and I honestly felt sorry for any audience members who have already had enough of Gosling's silent charisma. Personally, I still fawn over him instantly, but considering the surprisingly strong feeling that this is an empty fable set in perfect visuals, this time around I am indeed disappointed. (10/21/2013)