Only God Forgives

A danish trip to the bloody world of drugs and Thai (homo)boxing. Now it depends how much you can take as a viewer. Nicolas Winding Refn doesn’t need to tell us anything. The story is simple. The message unclear. The dream sequences like out of Valhalla Rising or Fear X gain even more ecstatic dimensions thanks to the Bangkok location. The symbolism of severing limbs, good born from evil and twisted good that achieves justice only by perverse means. The foul-mouthed and permanently grouchy Kristin Scott Thomas is a perfect contrast to Gosling’s passivity and to the Terminator-like precision of Vithayi Pansringarm. Only God Forgives also contains one of the most appalling torture scenes of recent times. Something to watch for the most demanding of viewers, with a dark after-taste that stays with you long after the final song is over. (06/06/2013)

An experience that from the viewer’s perspective is something that combines orgasmic feelings with getting your fingernails ripped out, when you had the misfortune to be born with twenty fingers on each hand. The subjective running time of 300 years admittedly hypnotizes you with its visual fetish and almost hollowed-out narrative, where Gosling, for example, could easily have been replaced with a plush imitation of himself and it wouldn't have mattered. I don't begrudge Refn making films for himself; what bothers me is that he's considered a fantastic director, with his obsessive fascination with the image proving that, as a director, he's actually incompetent and lacking any kind of insight. And I don't buy his dedication to Jodorowsky as an alibi. Only God Forgives is essentially a photo-novel due to its static nature, and perhaps the likes of Greenaway would eat it for breakfast. In all its negatives, the film is reminiscent of the director's American debut, Fear X, or the anti-intellectual I Come with the Rain. But I can't help it, it's delicious eye-candy and offended me only a little bit. Now it's up to Refn what he comes up with next; I'd recommend a genre film, otherwise he doesn't have much of a place in a world where Gaspar Noé, Harmony Korine, or Danny Boyle are making visual art spectacles. I look forward to the reviews. (05/06/2013)

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. (30/05/2013)

An empty hypnoneon nothing that paradoxically has it all; redruM, a shitload of material for Gosling’s breakfast, Oedipus complex², Jodorowsky, a return to mother’s womb, Martinez, Thai folk song karaoke, some explicit violence etc. (05/06/2013)

Nicolas Winding Refn and Ryan Gosling were apparently surprised by how successful Drive was with the general public. That’s what gave them the courage to work with even heavier themes than Drive had. They say that there is power in simplicity, and this is exactly what Drive was. A dynamic camera, an oppressive atmosphere supported by great music and, in essence, a very simple premise. Only God Forgives has all these elements, but it is still quite brutal, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Asian movies with mafia characters in the lead are simply like that. But to top it all off, they talk even less and everything takes a really long time, which was perhaps the biggest issue the movie had. It would have been dynamic otherwise. Some of the intentionally long and meaningless shots have a message for a split second, but all the atmosphere disappears within a single moment because nothing really happens in the movie. The electronic music is also sparse, and all that initial enthusiasm quickly fades away in less than half an hour. One then looks at Ryan, who thinks that his charisma will do all the work, but he apparently does not understand that if he doesn’t speak, the viewer can’t form an opinion about him. Even so, I respect the creators’ efforts. The movie’s completely different from a classic film production and deserves great respect. Drive was the work and success of the moment. But Only God Forgives is its indistinct shadow. (01/11/2013)