This one came out a while ago but it’s still worth a watch if you haven’t seen it yet. It’s worthwhile because Nicolas Winding Refn is one of the most bizarre and fantastic directors working today. His style is completely his own, and is as frustrating as often as it is mesmerizing. It’s important to note that Only God Forgives is not Drive; if you’re going into it expecting it to be anything like Drive because it stars Ryan Gosling and because Refn had so much success with Drive and Drive was so bloody awesome that he’d be a moron if he didn’t just try to make Drive over and over again—you will be disappointed.
Only God Forgives, despite the presence of the Gos, shares much more in common with Refn’s pre-Drive work, such as Bronson and Valhalla Rising, the latter in particular, in that it relies heavily on establishing a distinct atmosphere and focusing more on images and music and impressions than on story. Refn is always referring to himself as a “fetish filmmaker,” and this is a term that is deliberately vague. What I understand him to mean is that he is more concerned with the sick fascinations and pleasures we can feel through patently bizarre experiences. It means that his movies tend to consist of scenes strung together that, when they work on you, combine to form more than the sum of their parts. I’m not entirely sure Only God Forgives worked for me, but I don’t regret watching it, and I can’t wait to see what Refn makes for us next.
Continue reading on the next page…
