Only God Forgives.

Having seen this Bangkok set crime thriller twice since its release in August 2013 I can now say with some certainty that the bulk of the critics that booed Nicolas Winding Refn’s latest movie at Cannes press screening were wrong. Only God Forgives (2012) is a brilliant antidote to all these ‘feel good movies’ that the cinema going public are accused of clambering after. It’s that slap across the face that French director Mathieu Kassovitze was talking about in a Guardian newspaper interview about his film Rebellion (2011). It’s strikingly menacing, brutally violent and its climatic fight scene is as beautifully choreographed as any thing you would have seen on the big screen. The colour hue totally enhances the narrative, the darkness of Refn’s story is totally mesmerising.

 

The sexy evil mother from hell!

As is the acting, with Ryan Gosling following up on his role as Driver in Drive (2011) as the uncommunicative Julian Thompson, an American expatriate living in Bangkok who runs a Muay Thai gym as a front for his dealings in the Thai criminal underworld.  His brother Billy (Tom Burke) is beaten to death, sanctioned by the police Lieutenant, Chang, (Vithaya Pansringarm) known as the angel of vengeance, by the pimp father of a sixteen-year-old prostitute that Billy has just killed. Its when the brothers domineering mother Crystal arrives from America to extract vengeance for the killing of her first born that things start to get very messy. Kristin Scott Thomas plays Crystal, the sexy evil mother from hell whose relationship with her sons borders the incestuous, a role that’s different from what we have come to expect from this wonderfully versatile actress.

 

The man who thinks he is God.

It’s a modern day film noir, an hallucinatory fable, that brings to mind the work of Wong Kar Wai (As Tears Go By 1988 and Fallen Angels 1995) and the Argentinian director Gasper Noe whose Tokyo set Enter the Void (2009) is similar in its ambiance. Bizarre set pieces litter the movie, where at times the violence is almost unwatchable especially when karaoke enthusiast Chang is involved. Cinematography Larry Smith shoots mainly at night highlighting the neon splendour of Bangkok.  Refn dedicates his film Alejandro Jodorowsky whose Santa Sangre (1989) was also infamous for scenes of mutilation of human body parts. As Philip French opined ‘Only God Forgives is a provocative oddity that like Lars von Triers recent movies looks back nostalgically to a time when it was still possible to stir up jaded audiences and shock the bourgeois’[1].

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[1] The New Review 4^th August 2013.

Nightbirds.

Danish film director Nicolas Winding Refn, best known for the Pusher Trilogy (1996 – 2004) and the award winning American crime drama Drive (2011), is said to be a great fan of the obscure New York underground film maker Andy Milligan and it was Winding Refn who was instrumental in getting the BFI to release one of Milligan’s little seen body of work as part of the BFI Flipside series. As well as director, Milligan was a screenwriter, cinematographer; actor, film editor and producer, pretty much a ‘jack of all cinematic trades’. His oeuvre includes 27 films made between 1965 and his death from aids in 1990, mostly exploitation and horror/gore movies; he gained a reputation for being the worst filmmaker of all time, a sort of bohemian Ed Woods.   

It was in fact Winding Refn who discovered a 16mm print of one of Milligan’s many ‘lost films’ on eBay.  Nightbirds (1970) is one of the three or four films he actually made in the UK. Shot in the Spitalfields area of East London in 1968 it relates the story of Dink (Berwick Kaler) who is living rough on the streets of London’s East End. After a particularly bad night he is spotted vomiting by the beautiful but bizarre Dee (Julie Shaw). She immediately invites him to join her in her top floor room of a partly derelict house seemingly owed by an Irishman known as Ginger (Bill Clancy). Dee and Dink develop a curious sexual relationship, with Dee developing a raging jealousy should Dink as much as talk to another women but appears herself to be having an illicit relationship with her landlord. 

Dee rescues Dink from the streets or does she?

It’s publicity seemed to intimate that your are about to see an erotic movie, but believe me your not. Just to paraphrase some of the garbage that the trailer comes out with: “Nightbirds is for the turned on generation, a movie of out time, a chronicle of todays permissive youth. For young adults who don’t mind having their faces slapped. All the destructive forces of a female come together in Nightbirds. A study of moral masturbation where everyone’s private demons come alive. Nightbirds is the alternative trip. The world of Nightbirds will blow your mind. A film you will see and must see time and time again.”  

They develop a strange sexual relationship!

I can assure you that the trailer bares little or no relation to the finished film, which has in reality a strange grimy feel to it. Its not about 60’s youth in general, it has more to do with a mentally disturbed young women picking up men who are living rough on the streets. I do agree with what Nicolas Winding Refn said about the filmmaker “you begin to realise that (his) films were made by someone who was very tormented, and also very intelligent, a sensitive man who used film as an art form to express his views on life.” In fact tormented is a good description of this oddly compelling film.

Drive

Driver.

Let me get two things out of the way. One: Drive (2011) is a great “American” film highly recommended for intelligent film lovers that enjoy a good strong slice of adult entertainment. Two: Its has an 18 certificate which means that the film may include scenes of hard drug use, supernatural horror, explicit sex or in the case of the film under discussion, very strong gory violence. Where’s he going with this you may well ask? Well I’ll tell you, when you attend a cinema to view an “18” film you relinquish the right to complain about the films content, knowing full well that it will probably upset you if you have a weak disposition. Even so, in my opinion the film includes no more violence than your standard child’s fairy story where the wicked are always punished in what can be violent and extreme ways, preserving innocence and purity against evil.  I would suggest however that cinema goers take due account of the certificate that the BBFC award a movie before shelling out their well earned pennies. Enough of this rant, on to the business in hand.

Irene.

As your now aware the RBC Film Club featured Drive on Monday night. The evening began with a short but precise introduction from our resident film scholar Connor McMorran. Described as 2011’s coolest movie it tells a story about a man who is known only as Driver. An outsider, a skilled mechanic and a movie stuntman by day and a getaway driver by night, whose life appears to be managed by garage owner and cripple Shannon. When Driver meets Irene, a waitress in a local diner and mother of a young son Benicio, he suddenly finds a mission in life. Irene’s husband comes out of jail with outstanding financial obligations to the local mob, our wheelman decides to throw his weight behind the ex-con to allow him to pay his dues and retire to a life of domestic bliss with his young family. Nothing goes to plan and subsequently throws Drivers life into an ever-increasing violent spiral.   

The discussion that followed the screening raised some interesting points. Firstly how American was this movie? Its director Nicolas Winding Refn, known for violent movies including the Copenhagen based Pusher trilogy and the British movie Bronson (2008) (that elicited such a great performance from Tom Hardy), is Danish so the whole thing is filtered through the eyes of a budding auteur with a European perspective. Hossein Amini an Iranian wrote the screenplay adapted from the 2005 novel by James Sallis. In particular the lighting and the camera work gave it the feel of a European art house movie and along with the sudden intense violence of a modern South Korean film injected a edgy tension in to this very well made movie. Another point was the film influences. The director has acknowledged that both Peter Yate’s Bullitt (1968) and John Schlesinger’s 1975 movie The Day of the Locust were an influence. But I would suggest that Sergio Leone’s Spaghetti Western characters inspired the personality of Driver: an outsider, no background or past, no real name, lack of the spoken dialogue and like the cars he drives, has an unremarkable facade that deliberately masks the fearsome capability beneath the surface. I would suggest that the “coolness’ could be based on a certain Mr Steve McQueen, some of the characters he played in the sixties and early seventies display similar characteristics.

Driver gets to know his neighbour.

Something else that was discussed was the cast. Our stunt man was played by the very promising Ryan Gosling, a London born Canadian whose best work to date has been Half Nelson (2006) Lars and the Real Girl (2007) and a film recently shown at the RBC Film Club Blue Valentine (2010).  Irene, an under written part which does not allow the 26-year-old British BAFTA winner Carey Mulligan any real acting scope. Mulligan made her feature film debut only 6 years ago in Pride and Prejudice (2005), since then I have seen her in And When Did You Last See Your Father (2007), Public Enemies (2009), her big break came with the award winning An Education (2009) and the highly acclaimed Never Let Me Go (2010). The mob connected Shannon is performed by Bryan Cranston an American TV and film actor who grew up in Los Angeles where the film is set. Shannon’s mob connections are played by comedian Albert Brooks and Hell Boy himself Ron Perlman. Irene’s husband is acted by Oscar Isaac who indecently was King John in Ridley Scott’s Robin Hood (2010). The mysterious Blanche, involved in the robbery that when wrong, is portrayed by Mad Men actress Christina Hendricks. It was agreed that it was a very interesting and inspired cast who all played their part in making this stylish film one of the ever growing list of impressive American films. And don’t forget to order the Chris Martinez soundtrack you won’t be disappointed.