Only God Forgives – 2013 – Nicholas Winding Refn

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Only God forgives is a film based in Thailand about an American family and their encounters with the leaders of Thailand’s underworld. Setting the neon filled visuals to one side, its very safe to say that this is a film that lacks in terms of storyline and audience connection. The only thing apart from the overly emphasised neon visuals that shows any attempt to capture the audience is the violence which can be used as something to wake up the inevitably sleeping audience when they drift off due to the lack of dialogue and pretty much all drama. “Refn fumbles the violence: what I think is supposed to be the film’s gross-out centrepiece, in which Chang tortures an English bar owner by piercing his body with metal chopsticks like some demonic acupuncturist, is horrible without being interesting. But his control of the setting is absolute, and Bangkok glimmers with almost incomprehensible seediness.”(Collin 2013)

However, all that the film lacked in its narrative it made up for in its overly aesthetic visuals. Refn used contrasting colours mainly red and blue to depict an interesting collision on screen of lighting which unlike the storyline is interesting to the eye of the viewer. “Even the grimmest locations are given a stylish boost by a glow of red or a flash of blue. Yet the lighting, production design and score are by far the film’s most artful elements.”(Calhoun 2013) One can argue that this film judging by the acting and minor dialogue the film was actually just intended to be an ‘art house’ work. The protagonist of the film Julius had overall like a paragraph of dialogue the whole film and the audience were too frequently acquainted with Julius’s expressionless face which did not help in connecting us to the story one bit. “Strip away the noirish lighting and the high-end production design and you have a boring revenge melodrama without character development, emotional impact or moral nuance. If your idea of fun is watching Ryan Gosling sleepwalk through Bangkok, then this could be for you. But take something along to occupy the hellish longueurs in between.”(Quinn 2013)

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Bibliography

Robbie Collin 2013– Available at: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/filmreviews/10073237/Only-God-Forgives-review.html

Dave Calhoun 2013 – Available at: http://www.timeout.com/london/film/only-god-forgives

Anthony Quinn 2013 – Available at: http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/film-review-only-god-forgives--ryan-goslings-bangkok-bloodfest-is-a-hellish-bore-8742691.html

Fig 1 – Available at: http://canarymoviereviews.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/only-god-forgives.html

Fig 2 – Available at: http://acidemic.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/suspiria-for-men-only-god-forgives-2013.html

Fig 3 – Available at: http://edenliaothewomb.tumblr.com/post/55686969968/kristin-scott-thomas-in-nicolas-winding-refns