Film review: Only God Forgives

Newsroom 21/12/2013 | 10:45

You’ve got to hand it to Nicolas Winding Refn – the Danish director doesn’t flinch from depicting violence. Most of the characters in his latest gore-fest can’t hand anything to him though – they’ve had their arms chopped off by a samurai sword-wielding Bangkok police chief. Which is one way of keeping re-offending rates down. When he’s not separating wrongdoers and their limbs, the dismembering cop enjoys a spot of karaoke.

Chang (Vithaya Pansringarm), whose no-nonsense approach to law enforcement would probably find favor among sections of the Daily Mail readership, is not actually the least likeable character. That toughly contended title goes to American drug trafficker Billy, whose idea of a fun night out is trashing a brothel and murdering a 14-year-old prostitute.

This faux pas starts a chain of vengeance that sucks in Billy’s terrifying mafia widow mom Crystal (Kristin Scott Thomas) and his decent younger brother, Julian (Ryan Gosling). That’s decent in relative terms, in that he doesn’t go around torturing people, disapproves of killing 14-year-olds and is hot. He’s still a drug dealer and murderer, just not a really bad one.

Julian sees a prostitute, Mai (Rhatha Phongam), whom he doesn’t slaughter (so she fares quite well, considering), and asks her to pretend to be his girlfriend for dinner with his unhinged mother. We don’t know why – we don’t know why he does anything because he only has 17 lines in the entire movie, so his motivation is a mystery. During the meal, Crystal hurls foul-mouthed abuse at Julian and Mai and compares the size of her sons’ penises. In all his Meeting the Parents, Ben Stiller really had it easy next to this.

So, on we go, with some graphic torture, hints of incest, a bit of karaoke, a shoot-out, some limbs being lopped off, more torture and murder, you get the idea. Many of the scenes are bathed in neon light,

with a trippy electronic soundtrack, giving the movie a surreal quality in keeping with the slow, Far Eastern Western-inspired plot and the characters, none of whom resemble real people, but a hotchpotch of ciphers and symbols.

Although deeply strange and often unwatchable in its ultra-violence – which makes Kill Bill look like Disney – something about Only God Forgives exerts a draw, and, if not gripping, it’s certainly absorbing. Part of this is the stylishness conferred by Refn’s meticulous direction. Thought and craft have gone into every shot, and there’s a gamut of references, from blood-on-hands Macbeth symbolism to long tracking shots of corridors that nod to The Shining.

Gosling and Pansringarm’s taciturn characters don’t let them do too much – the former looks moodily handsome and the latter exudes calm menace – but Scott Thomas really goes to town as a bleach blonde Cruella de Vil with oedipal issues. Seeing the cut-glass Anglo-French star playing so far against type is just one of the curiosities of this bizarre, brutal but never boring film.

Director: Nicolas Winding Refn

Starring: Ryan Gosling, Kristin Scott Thomas, Vithaya Pansringarm

On at: Cinema City Cotroceni, Cinema City Sun Plaza, Movieplex

debbie.stowe@business-review.ro

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