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philosoraptor42Nicolas Winding Refn has finally released his latest film "Only God Forgives" once again starring Ryan Gosling, so that review will be at the end of this director showcase.
I'm given to wonder how I ever came to know about Nicolas Winding Refn as a director. It seems that "Pusher" was the first film of his I ever saw. Quite a strange place to start since it's a fairly obscure film.
I'm guessing that I heard some positive words said about "Valhalla Rising" by Mark Kermode, decided I would need to see it and put it on my rental list. Okay, so why was "Valhalla Rising" not the first of his films I saw then? Well, I think I looked up the director of "Valhalla Rising" on Rotten Tomatoes and discovered that "Pusher 2" had 100%. (I don't think I realised back then how much easier that is when you only have 9 reviews, but anyway.)
However I came to discover his work, I'm glad the Pusher movies acted as my introduction. I still feel like, more often than not, a good director is the best assurance of a film's quality. Before reviews, actors and certainly before trailers, it's best to see who directed the thing. Because when you get a really good director then it tends to be that even their lower quality works have something special to look out for (even if it's someone like Tobe Hooper where you really have to squint to find the good in some of his works, lol).
So, here are reviews for the last four movies in Nicolas Winding Refn's filmography, including his latest movie "Only God Forgives"...
Bronson (2008)
(All new review!)
This seems to be the film that really put Tom Hardy on the map. This is before "Dark Knight Rises", before "Warrior", before "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy" and even before his relatively minor role in "Inception". And what's more Tom Hardy is the undisputed star of this piece, with some parts of the movie even involve his character directly addressing the audience.
Tom Hardly plays Charlie Bronson, who I'd presumed from the DVD cover must be some kind of boxer or wrestler. In actual fact he's a violent man renowned for being particularly violent and rioting within prison. His birth name is Michael Peterson but he renames himself after the actor Charles Bronson (known for films such as "Death Wish").
Certainly it turns out that he does a bit of boxing, and I was convinced at this stage of the movie that we'd reached the important point in Bronson's life. However, in actual fact, this career in bareknuckle boxing is not long lived since it occurs during a quite brief period of parole from prison.
Tom Hardy presents Bronson as an ironically charming figure and has admitted to finding him charming in real life. I say "ironically" because while he can act like a gentleman when he wants to, he's also prone to acting like a complete maniac and never seems quite right in the head (though what actual mental problems he may have appear to be a complete mystery).
The scenes where Bronson addresses an audience of imagined fans, applauding his rioting and booing the authorities that would wish to keep him in check, are quite long extended scenes. Yet Tom Hardy's performance and the wonderful bizarreness of these scenes keeps them entertaining, albeit also somewhat disturbing. I don't say "disturbing" because of any explicit content. These scenes are pretty much just Bronson giving a lecture, but just the idea that Bronson expects applause for his violent actions and what that says about the mind behind this otherwise charming individual is troubling.
And don't get me wrong. Bronson isn't portrayed as charming as in a charming villain. I mean that asides from being a violent monster he actually seems like a really nice person. And at times we even see him using his violence for honourable reasons and even being a bit of a romantic at one point. Dismissing him as scum seems at once totally reasonable and overly simplistic at the same time. Tom Hardy's energetic performance makes very clear just how fascinating and multi-faceted a character Bronson is. And the film totally relies on the strength of Hardy's performance for its success.
Towards the end there's quite an enigmatic ending as is becoming quite common with Winding Refn's movies. But I think perhaps the bigger problem is how little actually happens within the movie. Winding Refn is, as always, more concerned with mood and character than he is with narrative arcs. That said, this is a very impressive piece of cinema and one that will stick with you long after you remove the DVD.
A-
Valhalla Rising (2009)
(My original review here)
Valhalla Rising started off seemingly like one of the coolest Nicolas Winding Refn movies ever. It was set in some unknown period in the distant past. Mads Mikkelsen (yes, him again!) is being dragged around in chains and forced to perform fights in which his captors bet on him. It's a pretty safe bet since he is utterly brutal. But then they find themselves on a small ship sailing in what seems like mystical voyage. The trip is treated in the movie as if it is the boat ride to hell. It's made completely unclear and yet apparently you are supposed to realise this anyway, that these are the vikings who sailed to America.
This film is ultra slow and, after Mad Mikkelsen's fights at the beginning, doesn't even have much in the way of violence to keep you interested. Sure, it's atmospheric, but when everyone starts seemingly having some kind of acid trip in the second half, I felt the movie rather lost its sense of direction.
Still, I can't help but acknowledge that "Valhalla Rising" is a thrilling, atmospheric and absolutely gorgeous film. It's so unique that it gets a bit of leeway for that. But not too much leeway.
C-
Drive (2011)
(My original review here)
This is far and away my favourite Nicolas Winding Refn film. It takes the best elements of Refn's previous films and combines them with a bizarre new retro-synth soundtrack that produces some weird kind of alchemy. The upshot is that Drive subverts the 'action hero' trope with an ambiguously creepy/sweet romance and lashings of intense violence. All the while the film is utterly beautiful to watch and the simple plot is gripping and effective.
The "Pusher" film series just felt like it got better and better consistently with every instalment, so I cannot help but feel that this is essentially "Pusher 4". Certainly those who found it a little hard to 'get' might have benefitted from some familiarity with the Pusher movies beforehand. Elements like the slow pace and the more arty side to "Drive" were both entirely unsurprising to me considering his previous work. The soundtrack choices in "Drive" however were a complete revelation and quite a stroke of genius.
Drive is one of my favourite films of all time and an absolute masterpiece.
A+
Only God Forgives (2013)
(All new review!)
Nicolas Winding Refn's latest film starring Ryan Gosling is set in Thailand. Julian (played by Ryan Gosling) and his brother Billy (played by Tom Burke) run a drugs operation with a Thai boxing ring acting as a front for their operations. After a successul evening's business, Ryan Gosling's brother announces "time to meet the devil", goes to his local brothel and asks to sleep with a 14 year old girl. When told that they had nobody that young, Billy offers 50,000 baht to have sex with the brothel owner's own daughter. Once Billy has beaten up the brothel owner and attacked some of the girls he makes his way down the street. He sees a 16 year old girl sitting on a chair outside her home. The scene is deeply creepy and we can tell that something bad is going to happen. Billy is clearly seriously twisted and quite unhinged.
We then see Chang (played by Vithaya Pansringarm) make his way towards the crime scene. The home of the girl now has a police car outside and Pansringarm stares up the staircase that leads to the room where the crime took place. Billy is actually still in the room sitting next to the dead body of the girl. The police are also still there. Chang confronts the father of the young girl rather than comforting him. He asks him how he could have allowed this to happen. He says that the father should "do what he wants" to Billy and the police lock up the door and leave the father to take his vengeance. When it's over Chang tells the father "come with me".
Next we see, they are in some dark isolated area on the edge of town. The father is on his knees and Chang is calmly accusing the father. The father thinks that he is being punished for killing Billy, but it becomes clear that the girl who Billy killed was being prostituted by her family. The father is being punished not for killing Billy, but for putting his daughter in harm's way. He is told that he needs a reminder of what he has done wrong, so that he knows to protect his other daughters, and this is the first point where we see Chang reveal a small sword, as if from nowhere, which he uses to cut off the father's arm. Chang swinging this sword expertly downwards becomes a regular theme in the film.
Ryan Gosling's character Julian, having been told of his brother Billy's demise goes to find the father and avenge his brother's death, but the father tells him what happened. We don't actually hear what the father tells him. It's another regular theme of the film that at certain points voices will be muted. We don't need to hear the explanation. We know what happened and a quick silent flashback with some emotional music, makes Ryan Gosling's look of understanding much more effective.
We next see Gosling's character Julian with his girlfriend Mai (pronounced like 'my' not like 'may'). His wrists are tied to a chair and his girlfriend pleasures herself in front of him. There's an indication that there's some serious issues in the way he expresses himself sexually. Later on, we see him staring at her in a bar imagining himself reaching his hand between her legs, but he clearly never gets up from his seat and this contact is all imagined. There's yet another repeated theme all through the film of Ryan Gosling reaching his arms forward either to make a fist or reaching one arm forward as if trying to connect with something.
Finally after all this build up Julian finally meets his mother Crystal. Crystal is played by Kristin Scott Thomas and, as you'd expect, she is absolutely amazing. She plays a completely horrible woman. She is shocked to hear that Gosling's character has not taken revenge for his brother's murder and as for the revelation that Billy raped and murdered a 16 year old girl all she has to say is "well I'm sure he had his reasons". The initial conversation between Gosling and Scott Thomas is the point where the film really gets going. Scott Thomas' performance essentially holds the film together, since even just staring forwards there is just so much power behind her gaze.
As with Drive, there's a genre subversion here. All the way through we see Chang as violent and ruthless and he's set up as this deeply disturbing figure in the background. He's basically portrayed in a way that would suggest he's a villain. Except that it becomes quickly quite obvious that he is in the right. His actions are always in the interest of justice even when those actions are cruel and practically psychopathic at times.
As a contrast, and here's the really interesting part, Kristin Scott Thomas's character Crystal is clearly an absolutely foul human being and there's a clear suggestion that she probably sexually abused her two boys as they grew up (perhaps explaining Julian's sexual issues). Yet Crystal is one of the few characters who commits no violent acts in the entire film. She just wants revenge for the death of her son, she's just a grieving mother, she's just doing what's right. Except she's not. And this figure who stands back and gets others to do the violence is clearly the most evil figure in the film, even while Gosling's character Julian refuses to have a harsh thing said about his cruel and heartless mother who shows him nothing but contempt.
The movie does suffer from a very slow pace and the film doesn't build to climax, so the ending feels a bit deflated. Also a particular annoyance for me was repeated long scenes of karaoke. Still, the movie is absolutely beautiful and the scenes are slow and meaningful. This is not a film like "Drive" and while a lot of us wanted something more in that vein it is wrong to mark this film down for being a different sort of film. Drive was more like an action film, but Only God Forgives is much more of a revenge thriller. But the other issue is that this is a revenge film where the protagonist is reluctant to take that revenge and that wish for revenge being thwarted is hard to get excited about. There's a sort of passionlessness to this film.
Still, there's no doubting that this film is powerful. Every scene is careful, clear and insistent. We always know precisely what is happening. One thing I felt was a little unclear was why the police kept allowing Chang to kill people or slice their arms off, but there's always something rather supernatural about him. I've heard that he's supposed to be an ex-policeman. That might explain why he doesn't wear a uniform, but whatever he and the Thai police are doing is clearly against the rules. Some have suggested that Chang is actually supposed to be God, though that is completely in contradiction to the title. Chang does not ever really seem to forgive wrongdoing.
"Only God Forgives" isn't a film for everybody, but it is a brilliant piece of cinema nonetheless. As a well-crafted piece of cinematic art I cannot fault it one bit and if that was how I decided my scores, this would have an A grade. No doubt about it. However, in many ways this is quite a frustrating film. It's not prepared to fall into the typical format. It doesn't have a relateable protagonist with a goal the audience can share. It doesn't even have an anti-hero who drags the audience along for the ride. Instead it's a tale of bad people doing bad things and there's not even a Greek Tragedy format where we appreciate the bad guys' inevitable demise. But a score of 38% on Rotten Tomatoes (as it currently stands) is absurd. I have trouble understanding how anyone could really call this a bad movie even if they didn't find it personally appealing. It's certainly not anything like as frustrating as Winding Refn's earlier slow paced arty film "Valhalla Rising" which still holds a 71%. Though that being said Valhalla Rising has 39 positive reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, while "Only God Forgives" has 50, so perhaps that explains some things. For lovers of indie movies this is clearly a very impressive film, but those used to more mainstream features will find this much less accessible than "Drive" was.
B+
I'm given to wonder how I ever came to know about Nicolas Winding Refn as a director. It seems that "Pusher" was the first film of his I ever saw. Quite a strange place to start since it's a fairly obscure film.
I'm guessing that I heard some positive words said about "Valhalla Rising" by Mark Kermode, decided I would need to see it and put it on my rental list. Okay, so why was "Valhalla Rising" not the first of his films I saw then? Well, I think I looked up the director of "Valhalla Rising" on Rotten Tomatoes and discovered that "Pusher 2" had 100%. (I don't think I realised back then how much easier that is when you only have 9 reviews, but anyway.)
However I came to discover his work, I'm glad the Pusher movies acted as my introduction. I still feel like, more often than not, a good director is the best assurance of a film's quality. Before reviews, actors and certainly before trailers, it's best to see who directed the thing. Because when you get a really good director then it tends to be that even their lower quality works have something special to look out for (even if it's someone like Tobe Hooper where you really have to squint to find the good in some of his works, lol).
So, here are reviews for the last four movies in Nicolas Winding Refn's filmography, including his latest movie "Only God Forgives"...
Bronson (2008)
(All new review!)
This seems to be the film that really put Tom Hardy on the map. This is before "Dark Knight Rises", before "Warrior", before "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy" and even before his relatively minor role in "Inception". And what's more Tom Hardy is the undisputed star of this piece, with some parts of the movie even involve his character directly addressing the audience.
Tom Hardly plays Charlie Bronson, who I'd presumed from the DVD cover must be some kind of boxer or wrestler. In actual fact he's a violent man renowned for being particularly violent and rioting within prison. His birth name is Michael Peterson but he renames himself after the actor Charles Bronson (known for films such as "Death Wish").
Certainly it turns out that he does a bit of boxing, and I was convinced at this stage of the movie that we'd reached the important point in Bronson's life. However, in actual fact, this career in bareknuckle boxing is not long lived since it occurs during a quite brief period of parole from prison.
Tom Hardy presents Bronson as an ironically charming figure and has admitted to finding him charming in real life. I say "ironically" because while he can act like a gentleman when he wants to, he's also prone to acting like a complete maniac and never seems quite right in the head (though what actual mental problems he may have appear to be a complete mystery).
The scenes where Bronson addresses an audience of imagined fans, applauding his rioting and booing the authorities that would wish to keep him in check, are quite long extended scenes. Yet Tom Hardy's performance and the wonderful bizarreness of these scenes keeps them entertaining, albeit also somewhat disturbing. I don't say "disturbing" because of any explicit content. These scenes are pretty much just Bronson giving a lecture, but just the idea that Bronson expects applause for his violent actions and what that says about the mind behind this otherwise charming individual is troubling.
And don't get me wrong. Bronson isn't portrayed as charming as in a charming villain. I mean that asides from being a violent monster he actually seems like a really nice person. And at times we even see him using his violence for honourable reasons and even being a bit of a romantic at one point. Dismissing him as scum seems at once totally reasonable and overly simplistic at the same time. Tom Hardy's energetic performance makes very clear just how fascinating and multi-faceted a character Bronson is. And the film totally relies on the strength of Hardy's performance for its success.
Towards the end there's quite an enigmatic ending as is becoming quite common with Winding Refn's movies. But I think perhaps the bigger problem is how little actually happens within the movie. Winding Refn is, as always, more concerned with mood and character than he is with narrative arcs. That said, this is a very impressive piece of cinema and one that will stick with you long after you remove the DVD.
A-
Valhalla Rising (2009)
(My original review here)
Valhalla Rising started off seemingly like one of the coolest Nicolas Winding Refn movies ever. It was set in some unknown period in the distant past. Mads Mikkelsen (yes, him again!) is being dragged around in chains and forced to perform fights in which his captors bet on him. It's a pretty safe bet since he is utterly brutal. But then they find themselves on a small ship sailing in what seems like mystical voyage. The trip is treated in the movie as if it is the boat ride to hell. It's made completely unclear and yet apparently you are supposed to realise this anyway, that these are the vikings who sailed to America.
This film is ultra slow and, after Mad Mikkelsen's fights at the beginning, doesn't even have much in the way of violence to keep you interested. Sure, it's atmospheric, but when everyone starts seemingly having some kind of acid trip in the second half, I felt the movie rather lost its sense of direction.
Still, I can't help but acknowledge that "Valhalla Rising" is a thrilling, atmospheric and absolutely gorgeous film. It's so unique that it gets a bit of leeway for that. But not too much leeway.
C-
Drive (2011)
(My original review here)
This is far and away my favourite Nicolas Winding Refn film. It takes the best elements of Refn's previous films and combines them with a bizarre new retro-synth soundtrack that produces some weird kind of alchemy. The upshot is that Drive subverts the 'action hero' trope with an ambiguously creepy/sweet romance and lashings of intense violence. All the while the film is utterly beautiful to watch and the simple plot is gripping and effective.
The "Pusher" film series just felt like it got better and better consistently with every instalment, so I cannot help but feel that this is essentially "Pusher 4". Certainly those who found it a little hard to 'get' might have benefitted from some familiarity with the Pusher movies beforehand. Elements like the slow pace and the more arty side to "Drive" were both entirely unsurprising to me considering his previous work. The soundtrack choices in "Drive" however were a complete revelation and quite a stroke of genius.
Drive is one of my favourite films of all time and an absolute masterpiece.
A+
Only God Forgives (2013)
(All new review!)
Nicolas Winding Refn's latest film starring Ryan Gosling is set in Thailand. Julian (played by Ryan Gosling) and his brother Billy (played by Tom Burke) run a drugs operation with a Thai boxing ring acting as a front for their operations. After a successul evening's business, Ryan Gosling's brother announces "time to meet the devil", goes to his local brothel and asks to sleep with a 14 year old girl. When told that they had nobody that young, Billy offers 50,000 baht to have sex with the brothel owner's own daughter. Once Billy has beaten up the brothel owner and attacked some of the girls he makes his way down the street. He sees a 16 year old girl sitting on a chair outside her home. The scene is deeply creepy and we can tell that something bad is going to happen. Billy is clearly seriously twisted and quite unhinged.
We then see Chang (played by Vithaya Pansringarm) make his way towards the crime scene. The home of the girl now has a police car outside and Pansringarm stares up the staircase that leads to the room where the crime took place. Billy is actually still in the room sitting next to the dead body of the girl. The police are also still there. Chang confronts the father of the young girl rather than comforting him. He asks him how he could have allowed this to happen. He says that the father should "do what he wants" to Billy and the police lock up the door and leave the father to take his vengeance. When it's over Chang tells the father "come with me".
Next we see, they are in some dark isolated area on the edge of town. The father is on his knees and Chang is calmly accusing the father. The father thinks that he is being punished for killing Billy, but it becomes clear that the girl who Billy killed was being prostituted by her family. The father is being punished not for killing Billy, but for putting his daughter in harm's way. He is told that he needs a reminder of what he has done wrong, so that he knows to protect his other daughters, and this is the first point where we see Chang reveal a small sword, as if from nowhere, which he uses to cut off the father's arm. Chang swinging this sword expertly downwards becomes a regular theme in the film.
Ryan Gosling's character Julian, having been told of his brother Billy's demise goes to find the father and avenge his brother's death, but the father tells him what happened. We don't actually hear what the father tells him. It's another regular theme of the film that at certain points voices will be muted. We don't need to hear the explanation. We know what happened and a quick silent flashback with some emotional music, makes Ryan Gosling's look of understanding much more effective.
We next see Gosling's character Julian with his girlfriend Mai (pronounced like 'my' not like 'may'). His wrists are tied to a chair and his girlfriend pleasures herself in front of him. There's an indication that there's some serious issues in the way he expresses himself sexually. Later on, we see him staring at her in a bar imagining himself reaching his hand between her legs, but he clearly never gets up from his seat and this contact is all imagined. There's yet another repeated theme all through the film of Ryan Gosling reaching his arms forward either to make a fist or reaching one arm forward as if trying to connect with something.
Finally after all this build up Julian finally meets his mother Crystal. Crystal is played by Kristin Scott Thomas and, as you'd expect, she is absolutely amazing. She plays a completely horrible woman. She is shocked to hear that Gosling's character has not taken revenge for his brother's murder and as for the revelation that Billy raped and murdered a 16 year old girl all she has to say is "well I'm sure he had his reasons". The initial conversation between Gosling and Scott Thomas is the point where the film really gets going. Scott Thomas' performance essentially holds the film together, since even just staring forwards there is just so much power behind her gaze.
As with Drive, there's a genre subversion here. All the way through we see Chang as violent and ruthless and he's set up as this deeply disturbing figure in the background. He's basically portrayed in a way that would suggest he's a villain. Except that it becomes quickly quite obvious that he is in the right. His actions are always in the interest of justice even when those actions are cruel and practically psychopathic at times.
As a contrast, and here's the really interesting part, Kristin Scott Thomas's character Crystal is clearly an absolutely foul human being and there's a clear suggestion that she probably sexually abused her two boys as they grew up (perhaps explaining Julian's sexual issues). Yet Crystal is one of the few characters who commits no violent acts in the entire film. She just wants revenge for the death of her son, she's just a grieving mother, she's just doing what's right. Except she's not. And this figure who stands back and gets others to do the violence is clearly the most evil figure in the film, even while Gosling's character Julian refuses to have a harsh thing said about his cruel and heartless mother who shows him nothing but contempt.
The movie does suffer from a very slow pace and the film doesn't build to climax, so the ending feels a bit deflated. Also a particular annoyance for me was repeated long scenes of karaoke. Still, the movie is absolutely beautiful and the scenes are slow and meaningful. This is not a film like "Drive" and while a lot of us wanted something more in that vein it is wrong to mark this film down for being a different sort of film. Drive was more like an action film, but Only God Forgives is much more of a revenge thriller. But the other issue is that this is a revenge film where the protagonist is reluctant to take that revenge and that wish for revenge being thwarted is hard to get excited about. There's a sort of passionlessness to this film.
Still, there's no doubting that this film is powerful. Every scene is careful, clear and insistent. We always know precisely what is happening. One thing I felt was a little unclear was why the police kept allowing Chang to kill people or slice their arms off, but there's always something rather supernatural about him. I've heard that he's supposed to be an ex-policeman. That might explain why he doesn't wear a uniform, but whatever he and the Thai police are doing is clearly against the rules. Some have suggested that Chang is actually supposed to be God, though that is completely in contradiction to the title. Chang does not ever really seem to forgive wrongdoing.
"Only God Forgives" isn't a film for everybody, but it is a brilliant piece of cinema nonetheless. As a well-crafted piece of cinematic art I cannot fault it one bit and if that was how I decided my scores, this would have an A grade. No doubt about it. However, in many ways this is quite a frustrating film. It's not prepared to fall into the typical format. It doesn't have a relateable protagonist with a goal the audience can share. It doesn't even have an anti-hero who drags the audience along for the ride. Instead it's a tale of bad people doing bad things and there's not even a Greek Tragedy format where we appreciate the bad guys' inevitable demise. But a score of 38% on Rotten Tomatoes (as it currently stands) is absurd. I have trouble understanding how anyone could really call this a bad movie even if they didn't find it personally appealing. It's certainly not anything like as frustrating as Winding Refn's earlier slow paced arty film "Valhalla Rising" which still holds a 71%. Though that being said Valhalla Rising has 39 positive reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, while "Only God Forgives" has 50, so perhaps that explains some things. For lovers of indie movies this is clearly a very impressive film, but those used to more mainstream features will find this much less accessible than "Drive" was.
B+
