Year: 2013
Director & Writer: Nicholas Winding Refn
"Julian, a drug-smuggler thriving in Bangkok's criminal underworld, sees his life get even more complicated when his mother compels him to find and kill whoever is responsible for his brother's recent death."
- Summary written by anonymous
Mostly I watched this movie because it looked interesting. Actually I just now realised that it's directed by the same Danish director who directed Drive (and the Pusher trilogy I've been meaning to watch forever).
First of all, I am very surprised. If you think about the story as simplified as it is in the summary, this movie could be very simple, very simple and typical crime drama. But no, Only God Forgives was far from simple and typical. It was way more artistic than I thought it would be.
This movie was slow, very slow, almost unbearably slow. It kind of reminds me of Stanley Kubrick's The Shining, and I'm not sure which one was slower. This movie was only an hour and a half, but it felt longer and shorter because of the pace. This is what I was kind of expecting when my father called David Lynch's style prolonged. But the pace works well, it's an interesting artistic decision.
The cinematography was interesting; it was colourful and mysterious. It added partially weird atmosphere to the movie.
Also this movie was much more surreal than I would've thought after quickly reading through the plot summary. The surrealism made it kind of hard to follow this movie, and sometimes it got really confusing.
And when you combine the slow pace, amazing cinematography and the surreal feeling of the movie, the result was astonishing. I never would've thought that a crime drama with such a simple plot would turn out to be a really artistic movie. I was expecting something like Drive, but tiny bit worse and simpler. It felt like I was watching some kind of true art movie, where elements of Kubrick and Lynch and Tarantino were combined - a combination which usually would feel slightly weird, but turned out to be amazing. Most of this movie felt like some kind of more artistic, dreamlike scene you could add near the end of otherwise simple movie.
One other thing about this movie, it was really graphic. It was almost sickening, but I think that was a good touch. It was better than not showing anything or sugarcoating the most violent parts. Also the dialogue was as rough as needed. This movie probably isn't for anyone who gets easily disturbed by violence or "heavy-handed" dialogue.
The score reminded me a bit of the score of Gone Girl. It was amazing, and worked nicely with the pace and the surreal feeling of the movie.
Only God Forgives has a simple plot, but it has been carried out in the most amazing manner I could've imagined for such plain idea. I'm starting to really like Nicholas Winding Refn's work. I recommend this to anyone who has seen Drive, because even if this isn't the same, it's definitely worth seeing. Only God Forgives is weird, sometimes hard to follow, but still a tremendous, stunning movie.
☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆
8 / 10
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