Only God Forgives (2013)

Nicholas Winding Refn is a very visual filmmaker. I think that should be understood before one sees any of his movies. Even his last one, Drive, which was the most restrained and also the most successful film Refn has yet released, was extremely stylized and image-driven. I heard far too many people complaining that Drive was boring, probably because they were expecting a more traditional action/chase picture. Anybody expecting a traditional martial arts movie from Refn’s latest, Only God Forgives, needs to stay far away. The end credits of Only God Forgives dedicate the film to influential “midnight movie” director Alejandro Jodorowsky. Jodorowsky’s El Topo was a western without cowboys, a powerful drama without a story. Only God Forgives has been created in a similar style. It is a revenge flick about people incapable of enough emotion to exact a revenge, a morality tale without a moral.

There are only three characters worth noting: the man whose brother has been killed, the man’s mother who does not accept the logic that her son deserved to die and the brutal policeman who is trying to get to the bottom of the series of murders that have started taking place. This is not the kind of movie that is built on performances, but I must say that Kristin Scott Thomas is dynamite as the mother, and by that I mean a lit stick of dynamite that hasn’t gone off yet. I must also speak in defense of Ryan Gosling. The critics complain that he is cold and emotionless here, as if that were a fault of the actor. To criticize his performance is to show a lack of understanding as to what the film is trying to achieve. Most viewers have the delusion that movie characters must be constantly speaking their minds. Gosling only has some twenty lines of dialogue throughout the film, but this does not mean we are deprived of any understanding of the character, just that his motives aren’t going to be spelled out for us.

This is a bizarre film both structurally and thematically. The story is simple, but it is laid out in such bold strokes of nightmarish passion that viewers have become confused by forfeit. There are numerous moments of sudden, extreme violence that will disturb and anger most. After watching the movie, I was not the least bit surprised by all the reports of walk-outs even by experienced arthouse filmgoers, nor by the incident of it being “booed at Cannes,” that dreaded omen that the movie will not make any money. Opinions of Only God Forgives on both sides of the argument have already become passionate and violent. I can agree, to some extent, with both sides. While I did not find the movie at all boring, I can understand why the average viewer would not have the patience or stomach to endure all its whims. As for the violence, well, of course it’s revolting. It’s ridiculous to think that violence in the movies should ever be fun, though that has become a common view. I think it’s very important for movies like this to come along when they do and force sick-minded people to face the very thing they revel in elsewhere.

These days, the word art is synonymous with pretention and boredom. Saying a movie is art is like saying, “Don’t go see this,” but I don’t know how else to put it. I enjoyed Only God Forgives because it is stunning because it is beautiful because it is ugly. Filmmakers are artists whether the description sounds nice or not. If a painter painted an abstract image of deplorable cruelty, but did it masterfully, is it less of a masterpiece because it’s uncomfortable to look at? When it comes to a movie like Only God Forgives, the viewer has to make a choice to either be bored during its silences or use the ample time to decide what the film is trying to say and how you actually feel about it. For example, Refn has said that the story of the film has spiritual significance (Many scenes are drenched in the color red, which suggests both blood and hell.). There is no doubt that one character represents God and another the devil. We are not explicitly told which is which, though everything you need to understand is right there in front of you.

One more thing. I would like to give a quick shout-out to two of the individuals that most made the film work, though they are seldom mentioned: cinematographer Larry Smith and composer Cliff Martinez. Good job.

8/10