Only God Forgives
(2013)
(SPOILERS) Pretentiousness incarnate, and off-puttingly violent
to boot. Those seem the chief
accusations levelled at Nicolas Winding Refn’s latest film, with the added slap
down that it’s slow and dull. There’s some truth to all those criticisms,
although how much they become black marks or virtues is clearly in the eye of
the beholder. I liked the film, but Refn definitely exposes the limitations of
his thematic content by placing his emphasis in such a foregrounded and
aesthetically indulgent manner.
I should emphasise that I’m not immune to decrying
filmmakers over their pretensions towards pretension. I find Refn’s fellow
countryman Lars von Trier insufferable, and each time I find myself persuaded
to check-out-one-of-his-films –absolutely-must-see my prejudices against him
are only reconfirmed. I probably qualify as a fair weather appreciator of
Refn’s work, since I liked Drive for
all its glossy existential minimalism but still haven’t got around to
investigating earlier pictures. To an extent, it surprises me Only God Forgives has been turned on so
ferociously; it’s clearly following the same path of stylistic excess as that film.
Probably the key is not its more lofty mythic and surreal elements, it’s that
it betrays what is essentially Drive’s
very easily recognisable hero narrative. Drive
is so pared down and identifiable with that, for all the eruptive violence, it
is broadly palatable. Only God Forgives
eschews any such comfort, and its difficulties lie here rather than through
being wilfully oblique.
Refn dedicated his film to Alejandro Jodorowsky, but I think
its safe to say he lacks the philosophical complexity of his inspiration. Even
a brief glimpse of one Jodorowsky’s films is likely to leave one with the
impression the director is something of a mentalist, in the Alan Partridge
rather than Simon Baker sense. That’s not something you’d assume of Refn. There’s
no sense of a director guided or impelled to express himself through strong
beliefs or primal, irresistible forces. The danger inherent in Only God Forgives is it may serve to
expose its director as the shallow art house guy, feted above the Hollywood set
but actually more at home confined to their formally unchallenging
storytelling. Style over substance can be a complimentary term in Hollywood
but in the art movie it represents a desecration of one’s calling.
Only God Forgives
reminds me more of David Lynch or Stanley Kubrick, but even then with
qualifications. There is the feeling and atmosphere of a Lynch film but no
sense of an imagination of unknown depths let loose. This movie could never go
anywhere off-beam; it is really quite restricted in content. Refn’s
construction is very calculated in relation to meaning and symbolism, in a
literal way you would never find with Lynch. In that sense it possesses
something of the precision of Kubrick; those Shining-esque slow tracks down corridors, reinforced by a bassy,
rumbling, soundtrack. And where Lynch’s films possess an acute sense of humour,
borne as much out of extreme environments and fractured realities as unstable
characters, Refn often feels like he doesn’t quite know what he’s got. He
doesn’t push the performances the way Kubrick does in The Shining, but there’s no way you can watch the dinner scene, in
which Ryan Gosling’s Julian and girlfriend/hooker Mai (Rhatha Phongam) are
engulfed by a torrent of venom spewed forth from Crystal (Kristin Scott
Thomas), his Cruella de Vil mother with an Oedipal spin, and not conclude this
is all so absurdly over the top it’s intended to be funny. Generally, however, the
self-awareness humour brings might have been the missing antidote to Only God Forgives’ portentous town.
Refn has said that Drive
should feel like really good cocaine and Only
God Forgives like really strong acid, which may provide too much of an
insight into the director’s limited agenda. The latter might be his strongest
link to Jodorowsky’s approach given his ‘70s pictures were so associated with
intoxication and ecstatic states to one degree or another. I’m not sure you
could really label Only God Forgives
an acid trip, though. It has hallucinatory sequences (hands, right; they’re
everywhere, even when they aren’t there any more), dream-like elements and
aspects that can only be explained in a fantastic way, but at no point does the
picture become unmoored and cast adrift in a sea of the unmartialled
subconscious. Refn has his hand too firmly on the tiller for this to descend
into a bad trip, for all the eyeball gouging and amputation on display.
After all, the director has set out his somewhat one-note
stall with the title. Once you connect that to the content there isn’t much
else to say. Gosling’s underworld Bangkok drug dealer, whose front is a Muay
Thai martial arts club, is pitched into a world of revenge and family purgatory
when his older brother Billy, a very
sick individual, meets his end after raping and murdering an under-age
prostitute. Julian refrains from taking out retribution on the avenging father,
to his mother’s disgust. It becomes clear that the entire clan is deeply
unwholesome. Crystal has a Jocasta-like hold over her surviving, and uses
overtly sexual language in his presence. Her response to the news of Billy’s
actions is the ice cold “I’m sure he had
his reasons”. She goads Julian over her brother’s more accomplished manhood
(“How could he compete with that?”),
and Julian’s reaction is to take the blows. Indeed, he ranges on Mai, who is mystified
why he would let his mother treat him like that; “Because she’s my mother”.
Crystal’s call for revenge initially seems to be of the
mafia-esque blood-is-thicker variety; it doesn’t matter what Billy did, justice
must be served. But any scales of justice turn distinctly dicey when her
instructions become far much more than eye-for-eye retribution (she wants cop
Chang’s family killed too). Further still, she is willing to sacrifice Julian
without pause when it comes to her life or his; her unnatural hold over her son
is one of pure manipulation. Affection was only reserved for her first born.
This is emphasised by Julian’s post-mortem mutilation of his mother (and the
way it echoes the look-don’t-touch jollies he gets from Mai pleasuring
herself). He has the younger child’s insecurity over never being as special as
his elder sibling; “He killed his own
father with his bare hands” because Crystal asked him to (not that she
tells Change this; “He’s a very dangerous
boy”). And the promise that “I can be
your mother again” is the ultimate carrot on the stick to bend him to her
will.
However, Only God Forgives is painted in broad strokes; there’s nothing
really resonating beneath the Greek tragedy surface trappings, despite the
amount Refn leaves unsaid. Gosling doesn’t have 20 lines in the whole film; Mad Max 2 minimalism without the
accompanying heroic iconography. Accordingly, Gosling’s brooding impassivity
doesn’t hold much impact. But that might be part of Refn’s peculiar point.
Scott Thomas eats up her role and spits it out with relish, though. She’s a
toxic tour de force; Crystal has a lump of burning coal where her heart should
be.
Vithaya Pansringarm’s Lieutenant Chang represents Crystal’s
equal and opposite. Both are bringers of unremitting judgement. He roams
Bangkok with the smooth precision of a Zen Judge Dredd, dispensing his own exclusive
brand of justice based on particularly inimitable reasoning (“He’s not the one” he deduces as soon as
he sets eyes on Julian, discounting him from murdering Choi). Dismemberment,
torture, impalation; all are acceptable and appropriate depending upon the
culpability of the subject. And then there are some he lets off, perhaps for
sentimental reasons (a hit man looking after his crippled son is allowed to
live, but its unclear if this is because Chang will be taking a father from his
son, or because he loves his boy).
While Chang operates as a supernatural
force, haunting the dreams of Julian (he might even be a figment of his
imagination, such is the acid trip reflex here) and flourishing a sword of righteousness
from no visible place on his back, and may well be believe himself to be an
instrument of divine retribution, even divine himself, he does not possess the
tools to forgive. Only to arbitrate. He is also a dab hand, and foot, at Thai
boxing (during a fight that leaves Julian looking not unlike Nic Cage at the
end of Wild at Heart, Julian can’t
even connect) and a keen karaoke enthusiast (a singing detective). These
musical interludes, sometimes overlaid with Cliff Martinez’ ominous rumbling
rather than Pansringarms’ tones, are the closest we come to the warped vibe of
Lynch; Chang’s supernatural precognition of danger is much more familiar.
It has to be said, with all these aspirations to content,
depth and meaning, Refn is at his most effective when he is creating the purely
visceral or adrenalised. A machine gun massacre leads to Change chasing an
assassin on foot and taking him out with a sizzling frying pan. The expertly
choreographed fight between Chang and Julian (“He’s not much of a fighter”), accompanied by a soundtrack that
wouldn’t be out of place in TRON Legacy.
The uncertainty over what Julian will do when it comes to killing Chang’s
family. There is some deeply unpleasant violence on display, mostly during the
extended torture of the man who order the hit, but it would be a mistake to
assume this is one long inferno of brutality. It’s more that the subject matter
is tonally harsh and unforgiving.
So yes, Refn’s pretentious side is Only God Forgives’ least-most quality. It serves to highlight the
limitations of its director’s ideas and content, right down to the
indeterminate final sequence. But like Drive, he packages his material in
visually and aurally seductive ambiance. The charge of lethargic pace isn’t one
I can really recognise; in contrast, the opportunity to soaking up the
atmosphere of this neon-charged, primary colour, world of bold shadows and
dissecting lines is the picture’s greatest strength. And, in this instance at
least, the limited nature of what is behind it isn’t a deal breaker. I can
forgive Refn his indulgence and ostentatiousness, although I can’t speak for God.
****
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