Only God Forgives (directed by Nicolas Winding Refn)

Wanna Fight?

Low brooding beats, gloomy shadows, Ryan Gosling’s face appears obscured in the darkness of the frame. So far, so familiar for the second pairing of director Nicolas Winding Refn and his golden boy Gosling. But those expecting Drive 2 should move on as that is where the similarities come to an abrupt end. In Drive, Gosling was allowed some form of happiness before the inevitable car crash of violence but in Only God Forgives his exiled Julian starts in hell and continues the descent as the film progresses into a dark rabbit hole with no escape.

A simple tale of revenge performed like an operatic nightmare, Julian, an exiled drug smuggler living in Thailand, is ordered by his mother Crystal (Kristen Scott Thomas, an incestuous Cruella DeVille styled like Donatella Versace) to kill the man behind his brother Billy’s murder. However the man he is targeting is retired cop Chang, aka The Angel of Vengeance (Vithaya Pansringarm), with his own agenda for primitive justice.
Only God Forgives’ ace card is in its design, every frame is composed and executed with precision and admirable flair. The cinematography is rich in enhancing the lurid underworld, seeped in evocative red hues that disorientate and drag the viewer further into the situation. Winding Refn is a director with free reign and you can sense that he will not allow his vision to be compromised which comes at a price; it feels too aware of itself to care.

Crystal pouts in neon hues

It is populated with ugly characters with no redeeming qualities, that whilst it is not always necessary to relate to the protagonists, it is hard to elicit any emotion with a bunch of condemned souls, creating detachment and disdain for them. Julian’s assigned revenge is bereft of any honour, Billy is murdered because he raped and killed a young prostitute, yet his mother refuses to acknowledge this shameful deed. Chang could be seen as delivering a form of rectitude but he is working beyond the law, brandishing punishment in a calculated sadistic manner. The violence is visceral and unflinching, in particular the way Chang has a perchance for bearing his samurai skills and using available sharp objects, including a set of hair pins. Heads will be caved in, chests will be split open and Gosling face will be beaten to a pulp which may be the most disconcerting element for many of his admirers.

The Angel Of Vengence

Gosling himself can brood like the best of them, his puppy dog eyes used to the best of their expressiveness to counteract the lack of Julian’s dialogue. He is a man disarmed, unable to control himself; he is incapable of touching his ‘girlfriend’ and constant references to his hands are hinted out throughout the film and worryingly the only time Julian touches something deeply is his mother. But Gosling is pretty much sidelined by Vithaya Pansringarm as Chang, a karaoke loving force to be reckoned with, carrying menace in muted spades. Each time he is on screen, the tension is heightened and Gosling finds himself in the unlikely position of being the visual underdog.

 

 



Nicolas Winding Refn stated, a little pompously, that he wanted the film ‘to penetrate the viewer’ however it is hard to get past the glacial surface that he presents. The film would perhaps benefit from repeat viewings yet it is a world that you won’t want to return to in a hurry and therein lies the rub. Hailed as a masterpiece by many but equally derided by others, it is one to truly divide its audience; it is both an exercise in masterful bravado filmmaking but also a laborious frustrating experience. Will Only God Forgives over time open itself to reveal more to admire?

Only time will tell….

Frances Ha (directed by Noah Baumbach)

Godard style Gerwig

New York. Black & White. Greta Gerwig runs through the streets of the big city to the sounds of David Bowie’s Modern Love. Welcome to the world of Frances Ha, Noah Baumbach’s love letter to cinematic slackers and grown up life shirkers. Gerwig plays the eponymous Frances, a 27 year old apprentice dancer, who we are first introduced to, in a habitual state of marital role-play with her best Sophie (Mickey Sumner, hugely bespectacled with sardonic wit, like a hipster Deirdre Barlow). They live together, eat together, play fight together and even sometimes share a bed together, acting like a comfortable couple , even saying themselves it’s like they are married, in the fact that they do everything together except having sex. It almost seems in the beginning of the film that life would be easier if the girls were romantically involved as the men in their life seem almost superfluous.

However this buddy bunk up comes to a sudden halt when Sophie announces she is leaving their apartment to move into the district she has longed to live in, somewhere Frances cannot afford and cannot follow. This sends Frances on a sporadic journey to try to organise her life-traversing apartment switching, career dead ends and ill advised trips, whilst continually subverting the conventions of growing up. She is a woman at a crossroads of life, not willing to give up the frivolity of youth but unable to sustain the carefree existence that is attainable to the wealthy trust fund kids. She, quite literally ambles from scene to scene with no clear direction, echoing the unstable mood of a restless generation.

Greta Gerwig has her fair share of admirers and detractors and Frances Ha will no doubt strengthen both camps arguments. The admirers will revel in her breezy infectious tone, her uninhibited and unglamorous portrayal of a skittish daydreamer. The non converted will find her character self absorbed, immature and twee and to some extent she is these things, at times you want to shake her by the shoulders and try to pull her misdirection together. It’s safe to say that I fall in the former category and find Gerwig’s performance refreshingly real but also wistfully romantic, to revel in the possibilities of life, while mundane realities seep into the consciousness.

What is also refreshing about Frances Ha is the film does not make it its mission to find our heroine a man. She is often referred to as ‘un-dateable’, which would hint that this theory would be proved wrong later in the film. Frances does not end up with a boyfriend and the film tackles the often more problematic relationship- the best friend and how this bond copes when one is ready to move on before the other does.

Being shot in black and white not only makes Frances Ha look gorgeous but lends itself to the minimalistic sensibilities of the film and adds emphasis to the thread of malaise that runs through the narrative. The scene where Frances wanders the streets of Paris to Hot Chocolate’s Everyone’s a Winner becomes more significant than a scene with a Hot Chocolate song has any cause to be, the elegant cinematography highlighting the loneliness of Frances irrational choices. Baumbach gets the best from his Miss Mumblecore and directs her and the supporting players with a zesty realism, they may not be the people you want them to be, and perhaps we as an audience do not like to see our characters like real humans, selfish and childlike as many of us can be. But Baumbach presents them as they are, their setting may be unlike ours, yet the feelings will be familiar. This makes Frances Ha a melancholy gem, one for the dreamers and the jaded. And one especially for the Gerwig lovers.