ONLY GOD FORGIVES C+
Denmark France Thailand
USA Sweden (90 mi)
2013 d: Nicolas Winding Refn Official
site [France]
An overly somber style over substance film, where except for
the excessively violent subject matter, one might think this is a Wong Kar-wai
film, as the lush visuals combined with the highly eclectic musical soundtrack
written by Cliff Martinez add a hypnotic, near surreal color palette. Stylishly impressive, set in the dreamy
underworld of Bangkok, Thailand, but the characters all feel like they’re
sleepwalking through their roles, not unlike Gaspar Noé’s ENTER THE VOID
(2009), a director singled out in the credits by Refn, stuck in a netherworld
purgatory waiting to be judged by a martial arts policeman named Chang (Vithaya
Pansringarm), dressed out of uniform in loosely fitting and comfortable
clothing, who like a spaghetti western Avenging Angel or God, restores order
through brutal punishments, bordering on torture porn, but his judgment comes
swift and decisive instead of inflicting prolonged agony. Afterwards, in perhaps the most surreal
moments in the film, Chang sings karaoke while his fellow cops sit around in
uniform to listen. While the surface
effects can be near spectacular, as the composition of each shot couldn’t be
more remarkable, along with an edgy use of lighting and a dazzling color
scheme, shot by cinematographer Larry Smith who worked on three Kubrick films,
recreating the spooky element of surprise in the long hallways shots of the
Overlook Hotel, but there’s little to no interior involvement, where the viewer
is never connected emotionally to anything onscreen. The dialogue is so campy during some of the
most violent showdowns that it borders on the ridiculous, adding an element of
the absurd to the already over-the-top visualizations, making this a midnight
run cult film at the time of its initial release. Refn also dedicates this film to Alejandro Jodorowsky,
a cult figure whose films depict picturesque horrors and humiliations, where Peter
Schjedahl in his New York Times review
calls EL TOPO (1970) “a violent surreal fantasy, a work of fabulous but
probably deranged imagination.”
Jodorowski himself is quoted as saying, “Everyday life is surrealistic, made
of miracles, weird and inexplicable events. There is no borderline between reality and
magic.” All of which means this was
meant to be a head-scratcher, something of a mindfuck of a movie, where the Argento-like
atmosphere of menacing doom defines the film.
Ryan Gosling is Julian, who along with his brother Billy
(Tom Burke), run a Thai kickboxing club, which we learn later is just a front
for a major drug operation. Julian’s
demeanor is so calm and understated that he barely utters more than a sentence or
two throughout the entire film, where he doesn’t act so much as sulk, but like
Chang, he’s more of a presence than an actual character. When his brother inexplicably goes berserk,
raping and killing an underage prostitute, leaving her lying in a pool of her
own blood, the sickening aspect is so acute that the regular cops turn to
Chang, something of a specialized expert only called upon in the most hideous
crimes, where his unique method renders immediate judgment, with no arrest, no
trial, and no imprisonment, as if he’s not really a part of the human
condition, but an elevated force to contend with, seemingly drawing upon
supernatural powers. Except for his
lightning quick martial arts strikes, he does everything else in a Zen-like
calm, in near slow motion, as if he’s hovering over the consciousness of these
criminal suspects with their fates in his hands, outraged at hearing their pathetic,
self-justifying defenses, demanding that they admit to their crimes, enacting a
savagely vicious arm mutilation when they don’t answer swiftly enough. In this way, the act of justice is decisively
rendered and remains permanent, not some idealized concept. When Chang allows the girl’s father to take
his revenge upon Billy, it’s as if the world turns upside down. Kristin Scott-Thomas arrives on the scene in
an outrageously over-the-top performance as the diabolical mother mourning the
death of her firstborn, still fuming and in a state of rage that Julian hasn’t
exacted revenge for his brother’s murder, re-establishing her iron-like control
over the drug operations, and ordering Julian around as if he was still an
insolent child. The scene of the film is
a formal dinner sequence between mother and son, where Julian is joined by Mai
(Rhatha Phongam), a prostitute pretending to be his steady girlfriend, where
the vile flamboyance of the mother turns this into a classic scene and one of
the memorable highlights of the year, a uniquely horrific and thoroughly
embarrassing moment where Scott Thomas becomes a dragon lady that turns belittling
and malicious humiliation of her son and his hooker girlfriend into an artform,
initiating an assault of crude language so debasing that she’s a contender for
the most evil mother in screen history, something of a parallel to the Albert
Brooks character in Refn’s previous film Drive
(2011).
Thematically, a film this very much resembles is Taxi
Driver (1976), another avenging angel film where Chang has to literally
clean up the scum and garbage on the streets, holding the same contempt for
moral rot and decay as Travis Bickle, using many of the same unorthodox methods
as well, creating an eternal bloodbath as human salvation. But Scorsese’s film is deeply rooted in an
incendiary, character driven performance, something altogether missing here, as
outside of the commanding performance of Scott Thomas, the rest may as well be
zombies or the walking dead. With each
successive shot so perfectly rendered, Refn uses the photograph-like
composition to advance each scene, where except for the violent action
sequences, much of this film is a picture of stillness, an induced calm, like
an oasis on the horizon, but something of an illusion covering up the internal
turmoil hidden within. The sins of the
world are covered in a kind of toxic moral laziness, while Chang’s job is to
root out each rotting soul one by one.
Scott Thomas blames Chang for allowing her son to be murdered,
completely overlooking Billy’s own wretched acts, and sets into motion a series
of blistering assaults on the police designed to remove Chang from the picture,
but it’s as if he’s from a different realm, inscrutable and untouchable,
surviving every attempt, until ultimately Chang finds Julian. In exaggerated spaghetti western fashion, the
two head for the ultimate showdown playing out in Julian’s own boxing ring, now
nearly deserted except for a few miscellaneous cops, Mai, and Julian’s mother. In the emptiness of the room, Julian proves
no match, as his opponent is a phantom, a demented godlike figure with a
bloodthirsty appetite for inflicting pain, literally pulverizing his victims
before walking away unscathed, leaving behind a grim and overly solemn world
that resembles a morgue. The film lacks
the energy and entertaining appeal of any Bruce Lee movie, but overwhelms with
its superb production design, ultimately feeling like an empty experience that
is all surface visuals with little more to offer. Lacking the well-crafted characterization of
Sergio Leone, this feels more like a cartoonish homage to the macho revenge
genre, where the Tarantino-ish, overly stylish bloodletting continues, but it
all feels so meaningless after awhile, becoming a one note film that only grows
more tiresome.
