Only God Forgives (2013) - Refn's violent vigilante beauty in Bangkok

♥♥♥♥♥♥

+ 3rd Best Movie of the Year
+ Best Danish Movie of the Year

Visually restrained yet fiercely energetic and powerful, this sun-drenched French poster for Nicolas Winding Refn's Only God Forgives

Danish writer-director Nicolas Winding Refn (Drive (2011)) returns to his old strange, twisted self with Only God Forgives, which resembles his Mads Mikkelsen-starring mute viking psych-out Valhalla Rising (2009) and his John Turturro-starring crime mystery Fear X (2003) more than his preceding smash hit Drive. It has therefore disappointed a lot of critics and audiences, who, after the more conventional and very popular Drive, just don't seem to get it.
- But pay no heed to that negative hype; Only God Forgives is an unmissable film. And how often does a phenomenal filmmaker invite us on a sword-and-martial-arts-mixing modern western myth with big stars in Bangkok? Frankly, I think that many critics are blinded by conventions and ungrateful.

Only God Forgives is the story of brothers. One is bad; he kills and rapes a young girl and gets murdered for it. The other tries to be good, but is damaged and put under new pressure by their ruthless, drug-running mother to avenge her lost son. Meanwhile, a fierce local cop exerts a kind of Old Testament justice in Bangkok's grimy netherworld of criminal filth.

In other words, it's a totally straightforward and perfectly understandable basic story. The pace is, - regardless of what others may write, - stable and continually moves ahead in an old-fashioned western/horror-kind of steady rhythm with gruesomely violent and sexually charged scenes coming one after the next, each serving a clear purpose for the story.
Ryan Gosling (Drive (2011)) is awesomely cool here once again as a very silent protagonist, - this time not as a winner type, however, - and British actress, Kristin Scott Thomas (The English Patient (1996)), who has boldly gone along on this film which is nothing like what she usually does, is a superb matriarchal villain, whose deviousness and possible wrongdoings onto her sons in the past haunt her behavior - and theirs. Thai actor Vithaya Pansringarm (The Hangover Part II (2011)) also does wonders as the mystical, local cop, who exerts a Dirty Harry (1971)/Death Wish (1974)-like vigilante justice, which feels fresh and unlike any before seen vengeance mission, both due to his performance and the execution, but also due to its implicit feeling of its being a mysterious, righteous justice from the East upon the traveling wretches of the West.
The title, like the rest of the film, is not designed to be a crowd-pleaser. Religious people will most likely dislike its implications, and surely we can all agree that it's not the nicest of thoughts that only God forgives. I think it is to be considered in terms of genre and as a hint as to the logic of the stern Thai avenger we meet in the film. Though Only God Forgives is an art film and a genre enjoyment, (SPOILER the gruesome eye-spearing shot is as taken right out of a Lucio Fulci horror film of the 1980s), its title is probably decided to resonance such films as Gianfranco Parolini's Lee Van Cleef-starring spaghetti western, God's Gun (1976). It also incarnates the villainous mother's crude perception of life.
DP Larry Smith (The Guard (2011)), composer Cliff Martinez (Contagion (2011)), costume designer Wasitchaya 'Nampeung' Mochanakul and art director's Witoon 'Boom' Suanyai and Russell Barnes (Howl (2010)) also deserve the highest compliments for an aesthetically amazing, pompous, decadent and neon-drenched dream of a film, meticulously carved out, which looks and sounds amazing.

SPOILER Besides everything else, I love the film's strange, beautiful and darkly funny karaoke-sequences and the ending. Only God Forgives is a truly rare film that should be watched, and can be watched many times, each time registering something new.

It may also be Gosling's last starring vehicle in a good while, as he has said that he wants to retire from acting and is now directing his first, mysteriously sounding, How to Catch a Monster (2014), about a secret underwater town. (Ed. note: It ended up being retitled Lost River (2014), and critics axed it, and Gosling is now back in front of the camera where he belongs.)

Refn is slated to do a 200 mil. $ remake of the 1976 sci-fi-classic, Logan's Run. Whether this will ever actually happen, and whether a good movie will come out of it, I have my anxieties and doubts. (Ed. note: This was scrapped, and Refn is instead focusing on a horror movie for 2016, titled The Neon Demon.) Together with Only God Forgives, his best film remains, in my opinion, Pusher II (2004), very worth seeing for anyone just slightly hooked by his films.

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Nicolas Winding Refn: 2013 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED VI]

2013 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED V]
2013 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED IV]
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Bronson (2008) or, Violent Man
Bleeder (1999) - The mysterious second film by Nicolas Winding Refn 

Listen to some of Cliff Martinez' music from the film here

Cost: 4.8 mil. $
Box office: 10.6 mil. $
= Flop (returned 2.2 times the cost)
[Only God Forgives premiered 22 May (Cannes Film Festival, France, in competition) and runs 90 minutes. Shooting took place in Bangkok. Thailand. The film opened #26 to a 313k $ first weekend in 78 theaters in North America, its peak there although it spread to 81 cinemas, grossing 779k $ (7.3 % of the total gross). North America was its 3rd biggest market. The biggest and 2nd biggest were France with France with 3.6 mil. $ (40 %) and the UK with 1.8 mil. $ (17%). The film won 3/7 nominations at the Robert awards (Denmark's Oscar), and was nominated for a Bodil award (Danish film critics' awards) among other honors. Refn returned with a Hennessey X.O. commercial in 2016 and theatrically with The Neon Demon (2016). Gosling returned in Adam McKay's drama masterpiece The Big Short (2015); Thomas in Before the Winter Chill/Avant l'Hiver (2013); and Pansringarm in short film Gutted (2013) and theatrically in Ninja: Shadow of a Tear (2013). Only God Forgives is rotten at 40 % and a 5.2/10 critical average on Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Only God Forgives?