I was hesitant returning to Nicolas Winding Refn‘s Only God Forgives, so instead of just watching it outright I listened to the commentary track on which Refn discusses the film with Empire film critic Damon Wise (read his five star review of the film here). Yet, considering the film features a scant amount of dialogue, I did throw on the film’s subtitles as I knew they’d be of little distraction.
I saw Only God Forgives in Cannes earlier this year (read my review here) and wasn’t particularly moved, but sufficiently intrigued. After discussing it with several of my fellow critics in town and attempting to work our way through the intentionally oblique narrative.
After writing my review, I then read through an early draft of the screenplay, which, as you may expect, is far more detailed than the end product, most of which was stripped out of the final product. Why? We’ll get to that soon enough.
Before we go much further, here’s the official plot synopsis:
Julian (Ryan Gosling), an American fugitive from justice, runs a boxing club in Bangkok as a front for his drug business. His mother (Kristin Scott Thomas), the head of a vast criminal organization, arrives from the US to collect the body of her favorite son, Billy. Julian’s brother has just been killed after having savagely murdered a young prostitute. Crazy with rage and thirsty for vengeance she demands the heads of the murderers from Julian. But first, Julian must confront Chang (Vithaya Pansringarm), a mysterious retired policeman – and figurehead of a divine justice – who has resolved to scourge the corrupt underworld of brothels and fight clubs.
Of course, the “divine justice” line is very important and to listen to Wise and Refn discuss the thematic elements of the film is to almost hear the exact same conversations I had at Cannes all over again. This is to say, as much as we were looking for answers to what was taking place, Refn is just as unsure as we were. At least with most things.
Chang is largely described as the “Angel of Vengeance”, the question is whether he was granted this divinity or if he’s taken it upon himself. How much of the film is real and how much is imagined are additional causes for consideration as you watch.
Getting deeper into the theme, both visually in his filmmaking and throughout the commentary, Refn pays particular attention to Julian’s hands, as if to say our hands are not ours to do with what we please, but to do the bidding of a higher power and when we do wrong, they’re removal serve as punishment for our transgressions.
Wise and Refn explore most every possibility conceivable as Wise even tries to drum up a Jaws comparison, which I had to roll my eyes at a little, but perhaps the most curious bit is the moment Refn decides to tell the story of his young daughter whom he is entirely convinced can see ghosts. Yeah, not so sure I’m buying it either.
Refn does, however, offer an explanation for why Only God Forgives is the way it is. Which is to say why it lacks dialogue and why it’s such a departure from his critically acclaimed previous film Drive. Refn says:
The idea that when something works, when something becomes a success, my first instinct is to deconstruct everything afterward. Like almost a safety net that worked and I’m so afraid of repeating myself… I have to destroy it so the next film I do is completely deconstructed from that.
[Only God Forgives is] the exact opposite [of Drive]. Everything had to be deconstructed around me because Drive became such a success that the formula could be repeated, I could get comfortable and just repeat that formula and that was one thing I would not do. In order not to fall back into it you had to destroy it, by doing something much different next time. That’s how Only God Forgives became the film it did, it was a film made with a need of combusting and the pleasure of creating. Because, personally, the sense of creating works when it’s as pure as possible. Meaning the process never repeats itself.
So it’s like you forget the past when you do it again. Sometimes it’s hard to forget the past because we all want success. That’s what we long for and it’s the exact reason why you destroy it because it’s too easy. When you get nervous or you feel insecure or you get uncertain with what you’re doing, it’s easy to fall back into a safety net, what worked the last time, and that’s the chief enemy of creativity. Good taste and begin safe with it.
[amz asin=”B00E1LO5J6″ size=”small”]It’s interesting to think of Only God Forgives as a deconstruction of Drive, especially considering how far afield Drive is compared to mainstream films, which is one of the main reasons I love Refn’s work so much. He has the guts to take things in a different direction, even if it doesn’t entirely work. I respect his attempt to avoid falling in a trap of repetition and redundancy, even if Only God Forgives is a little too vague for me to truly fall in love with.
As for the rest of the Blu-ray, beyond a collection of behind the scenes featurettes and a small selection of director interviews, the featurette with Cliff Martinez exploring the film’s score is a must watch. Martinez has definitely hit his stride as of late with his scores for Steven Soderbergh’s Contagion, Refn’s Drive and now Only God Forgives and this featurette explores his process with this film and his surprise seeing the first cut only to find out dialogue he expected to be in the film suddenly gone and he would have to tell the story with his music. Good stuff.
Overall, as a Refn fan I’m glad I own this Blu-ray and I do expect I’ll return to it at some point, though I’m not sure when. The film’s palette was made for high definition as the bright neon pops right off the screen, but it will be a test for several audience members looking for a more straight forward narrative.
