Only God Forgives (Nicholas Winding Refn, 2013)

Nicholas Winding Refn is without doubt one of the most exciting film makers to have hit American shores in the last decade. He exploded into the consciousness of American film lovers with Bronson, a biopic of England's "most violent prisoner," at the same time catapulting Tom Hardy out of obscurity and into the roles that led him to being one of the most sought after actors working today.

His next English language film, Drive brought him out of the obscurity of the art house/independent film world and directly into a much more mainstream spotlight as Ryan Gosling starred in the pulp masterpiece, which succeeded in being one of the most stylistically magnetic films of 2011. It also helped Gosling prove he could be more than beefcake for a Nicholas Sparks film or a romantic comedy, which has allowed him to take his career to new places.

In seeing the early trailers for Only God Forgives, I had absolutely no idea what to expect of the film. Following that, the press and reviews further cemented my bewilderment. Unfortunately for everyone with an interest in film in general or with an interest in Refn and his films particularly, absolutely nowhere was it made clear that Only God Forgives was dedicated to the great Alejandro Jodorowsky. Had this been clear, everything I'd been seeing about the film not only would have made more sense, I'd have been in a much bigger hurry to see it. The trailers suggested Refn was repeating himself in a way that would have been disappointing, but that's not at all what he was doing. The two films seem more like distant relations than Only God Forgives seems like a rehash of the things that made Drive such a compelling film.

Where Drive definitely had a fairy tale aspect to it, Only God Forgives, doesn't have a fairy tale aspect to it, it is a fairy tale, through Refn's perspective, in tribute to Jodorowsky. What that makes for is a film heavy on symbolism, style and like so many of Refn's other films, set in an underworld of fringe characters. The two films definitely have some relation, obviously have come from the same genetic material, but are also very, very different. Drive is very obviously a more commercial kind of film than this with a much more mainstream vocabulary. This film is perfectly comfortable playing by it's own set of rules and leaving the audience to figure those rules out for themselves. 

Ryan Gosling stars in the film as one of two drug smuggling brothers in Bangkok Thailand who also happens to run a boxing club. When his brother rapes and kills a sixteen year old prostitute, a police officer (played with a charisma that matches Gosling's previous Refn role as The Driver by Vithaya Pansringarm) then gives the girls father free reign to deal with this as he feels he wants to. Inevitably, the girls father bludgeons her killer to death. It is at this point that Gosling's mother arrives in Thailand, played by Kristin Scott Thomas in a role unlike anything she's ever done before, and begins demanding Gosling's character acquire the revenge she believes his brothers murderer so richly deserves.

That description is very similar to the ones which were in many of the reviews at the time of the films release and which is also very similar to the one that came with press releases as well. Unfortunately, that summary doesn't get close to what is actually interesting about the film, because it is nowhere near as straightforward as is sounds, nor is it anywhere near as traditional an action/revenge film as that would make it sound either. There is throughout the entire thing, Refn's obvious love for Jodorowsky and his way of approaching the kind of film making that made Jodorowsky a legend.

To make it even more interesting, Gosling has even fewer lines in this film than he did in Drive, which is a pretty courageous move for both the actor and Refn. Take one of the most recognizable and popular young actors working today, have him play a character that is at best morally questionable, and then give him almost no lines in the entire film. Whatever anyone might have to say about Gosling and the current popularity he's experiencing, he's capable of being an interesting, charismatic screen presence without saying anything.

Kristin Scott Thomas is weird and repulsive as Gosling's mother. She's also absolutely outstanding. She plays the coiled snake matriarch with a venom and ferocity that is compelling and disgusting at exactly the same time. It's an unusual role for her, like that of Albert Brooks as he was cast in Drive, and it works equally as well as casting against type did for that film. One of the primary criticisms leveled against Refn is that he's a "stylist," and whether or not that is true, he is definitely capable of getting some of the best performances of their careers from the actors he works with.

It's also an absolutely beautiful film. The cinematography is the best kind of eye candy and the neon streets of Bangkok lend themselves easily to a world of deep darks and bright, bright lights. The film is awash in beautifully lit, shot and staged scenes that recall the kind of dreamlike, symbolic quality of Jodorowsky, but also have an immediacy that the legendary directors cinematography often lacked. It has the kind of rich, deep darks and piercing lights that create an atmosphere not dissimilar to many of the old noir films, while still dealing with the complicated world of color and eschewing black and white, where that atmosphere is a bit easier to create. Cinematographer Larry Smith (a regular Refn collaborator) executes Refn's vision with damn near perfection. Hopefully this film will see him working with other top notch directors. It would be great to see this quality of camera work more often.

And like Drive, the music plays an important part of the films overall feel and impact, and again, it's excellently chosen and composed. Cliff Martinez returns as composer and again, delivers a knock out score. It has the same sense of rhythm that gave the Drive soundtrack and score such a great feel, but it definitely understands the nature of Refn's more dreamlike, symbol rich goals with this film. Beyond that, it adds depth and dimension when it needs to, but also fades away to the background completely when it needs to as well. Martinez and Refn are proving to be a powerful partnership in creating films and the music for them that compliment and elevate both mediums when they're presented together.

All in all, anyone who can appreciate a narrative style that is slightly left of center, gorgeous imagery, a brooding sense of the inevitable and watching Kristin Scott Thomas give a deliciously dastardly performance is going to appreciate this film. It is far less straight forward than Drive was as a narrative, so it's not shocking that some people who came looking for more of the exact same might have been disappointed in what they got, and the marketing for the film also failed to make clear just what kind of film it is, so the initial lukewarm reaction is somewhat understandable, but over time this film is going to find it's following, and an audience that appreciates what it is. It has some relation to Hanna in certain ways, though with a much more definite lean toward the pulp and exploitation films of the past. It's also not at all shocking that the film didn't reach and wasn't even really marketed to a wider audience after the success of the previous Refn/Gosling collaboration that was Drive. In some ways, Drive's less traditional approach to being an action drama was a much more straightforward film and overall narrative. There are aspects of Only God Forgives that would have been beyond the reach of the average, casual film goer. Having some sense of the likes of Jodorowsky and Buñuel definitely helps in not becoming completely lost in the first twenty minutes of the film.

Refn is continuing to take much more traditional kinds of narratives into interesting and engaging cinematic territory. Some of those experiments and attempts are going to work better than others, without a doubt, but so far, all of his work has at least been interesting and oddly beautiful at worst. At best, it's been engrossing and emotionally engaging while also being visually stunning. Let's all hope his work can continue to exist between those two poles.

Only God Forgives is currently available to stream via Netflix Watch Instantly. It's also available on DVD and Blu Ray (this is definitely one to see in hi-def). Links to the streaming rental via Amazon, DVD and Blu Ray will be below.

Related articles

• Nicolas Winding Refn Hires Polly Stenham to Write "All-Female Horror" Film 'I Walk With the Dead'
• Nicolas Winding Refn Interested In Making All-Female Horror Movie
• Nicolas Winding Refn and Cliff Martinez Explain the Intersection of Art and Finance, and 'Only God Forgives'
• Nicholas Winding Refn: Interview

12 Years A Slave (Steve McQueen, 2013)

One of the reasons I've continued writing reviews through the years (aside from the fact that it's something I enjoy) has been that I've wanted to give the people who are reading them some alternative to the kind of film geek culture that's emerged since the advent of the internet and the explosion of film journalism and social media on it. There's a lot of good film journalism out there, don't get me wrong. There's also a whole lot of what I now refer to as the "Reign of Geekdom."

Where the kind of people who tend to be obsessive about film, and especially genre film, in the way I am were the outsiders and generally looked down upon in relation to the rest of the culture at large (and within the film community) for the majority of my life, we've now become the ones who are running the websites, writing the articles, and driving a lot of the film culture. In some ways, that's great. I can't imagine what without the last ten or fifteen years worth of shift in film culture hadn't happened, something like John Dies At The End would have gotten made and/or distributed. Edgar Wright is a successful film maker. Genre film has come out of the basement in a big way.

At the same time, something kind of ugly has come out of the basement with it. The vile side of film geekery. Now we actually have popular and well respected film websites dedicated space to parsing the finer points of "fake geek girls," and the kind of bizarre, self righteous, self aggrandizing attempts at attempting some kind of geek hierarchy. It's roughly described as the kind of attitude that feels that anyone who does not share ones opinion about the quality of one piece of culture or another is somehow automatically, inherently inferior and treated as such. And really, worst of all, it can be incredibly mean and cruel. It won't take too long sifting through the more popular film sites to come across some articles that are written from this kind of perspective and it only takes a quick look through the comments section on any article on any film site to find this to be true.

The Woman (Lucky Mckee, 2011)

In 2002, Lucky Mckee unleashed May. A concentrated blast of modern social discomfort and disquieted rage at the traditional female roles and portrayals, it's one of the most under rated and under appreciated films of it's generation. We've seen the awkward outcast story done with male protagonists thousands of times, but May takes a unique look at it from a female perspective and has some incredibly interesting things to say, while being a deeply compelling, startlingly intelligent film. Angela Bettis embodies the title character with all of her quirks and ticks in a way that is less about being showy and trying to gain acclaim for her talent than it is about making May human. It's not available for streaming on Netflix currently, but it is available as a streaming rental on Amazon. Click here and go watch it now if you haven't seen it, you won't be disappointed.

Horror on Netflix Watch Instantly

Netflix has become the most popular streaming service. With that in mind, I put together a list of the horror films they currently have available through their Watch Instantly streaming service. This is just a list of the films that are worth watching for one reason or another. It may be that the film is particularly creepy or funny, disturbing or thought provoking, had a particular cultural impact or is just plainly well made. It just means that for one reason or another I'd suggest seeing the film. They're only listed in the order I found them, with the exception of sequels or franchise entries, they'll be listed together. I've also included links directly to the films through Netflix. If I've reviewed the film previously, I've also included a link for my original review.

Carrie (Kimberly Pierce, 2013)

"They're all gonna laugh at you."

For most American teenagers, few things are possibly as frightening to consider. Take into account the number of people who routinely suffer nightmares of suddenly being stuck in their high school or college class naked, and the fact of this truth comes home in a new way. For some reason, it seems to be almost hard wired into adolescents and young adults that embarrassment and being laughed at are quite possibly the worst things a human being could experience. Carrie, the 1976 film brought the novel to the screen and turned the phrase into a maxim of terror.

Cover of Stephen King

Stephen King's Carrie was a novel taking that fear to its furthest logical conclusion, but was also a morality tale about the kind of bullying that's become such a hot political topic so many years after King more or less gave readers a pretty good explanation for the kinds of horrendous acts of violence we've come to know as "school shootings." Strangely, even as King's character is portrayed as the sympathetic protagonist, whom we're meant to understand and empathize with as she slaughters an entire senior class as an act of vengeance, no one has ever attempted to link Carrie, the film or novel as some kind of responsible party for a kind of violence that could very easily be characterized as being modeled after it.

American Mary (Soska Sisters, 2012)

(Note: This review originally appeared on Truly Disturbing. I haven't had time to go through the normal formatting.)

AMERICAN MARY is an unexpected experience. With it, the Soska sisters are continuing a new generation of film makers attempts to merge the art house and the grind house. Steeped in the visual aesthetic of film noir and the tropes of the long, lurid and wonderful history of grindhouse cinema, AMERICAN MARY’s mind and soul belong to the art house. With Katherine Isabelle as their sharpened scalpel, they go about dissecting the experiences of a talented young woman in a world dominated by men. Don’t be worried though, it’s not a broad, obvious feminist screed. One of the most impressive things about the film is that it uses story, character, atmosphere and imagery in order to avoid turning into a heavy handed approach to these thematic elements. Also, to their credit, the Soska sisters give their main character a degree of complexity that’s often absent from even the best horror films that are inspired from the history of grindhouse. It may or may not have been intentional, but AMERICAN MARY would be perfect when paired with AMERICAN PSYCHO on a double bill.

Mud (Jeff Nichols, 2012)

Writer/director Jeff Nichols began developing a name for himself in 2007 with Shotgun Stories. The family drama took a subtle approach, and stayed away from the standard histrionics that would have plagued a studio film of the same variety. In 2011, he blew away festival audiences with the superbly written and performed Take Shelter, his second collaboration with another up and coming talent, Michael Shannon. This time, the story of a man who seems to be very slowly descending into a mad fear of a storm that will end the world, a storm he's having visions of, was also played with a perfect level of understatement, but able to expand it's scope when necessary. It was intense, disquieting, tender and frightening, at the same time.

Nichols latest film, Mud, has obviously benefited from his previous recognition and success. If in no other way than being able to attract a cast full of recognizable stars who are willing to let the film and story be the thing that are actually front and center, instead of their "charisma"and "star power." Having now made his third film, in certain ways similar to his first two, and in other ways very different, it's safe to say that Jeff Nichols is a first class film maker and storyteller. There is very little that stands out as spectacular about the film, except the film itself and just how incredibly engaging it is able to make a relatively traditional story. If he continues the streak he's on, Nichols may go down as the best pure storyteller of his cinematic generation. He takes what is essentially a kind of variation on Tom Sawyer, in a story about two boys who choose to help a man in what can best be described as a questionable circumstance that when combined with the natural course their lives are already taking, forces them on the beginning of the road to adulthood in a way they could never have seen as possible, and is able to wring every possible piece of texture and humanity out of it. It is, in more ways than not, about the things that become part of who boys are as they become men, and how the people around them and choices they make effect who they become. And it is beautifully understated and without judgement in the way it weaves those elements together.

The Lords Of Salem (Rob Zombie, 2013)

 (Note: This review was originally posted at Truly Disturbing Horror.)

Rob Zombie is one of the more singularly divisive figures in modern horror. He inspires frothing anger and gleeful loyalty in equal measure among horror fans worldwide. What ever other criticism can be rightly leveled at him (and he certainly has some significant failings as a film maker), it can't be said that he's someone who is guilty of finding a successful formula and then milking it until audiences are so tired of it that they just can't stand it any more. Every Rob Zombie film is significantly different from the others, with the possible exception of the stable of actors who have now become regulars in his films, including his wife, Sheri Moon Zombie.

The Lords Of Salem is a vastly different film from anything he's done before, and with the possible exception of Ti West's The House Of The Devil, it's a vastly different film from any we've seen in a long time. There are some truly great, iconic moments and images in the film that go far beyond anything his previous films even hinted at. There are elements of the film which could have almost taken it over the line and into greatness. There are also things in the film that don't work and are reminiscent of problems with some of his previous films, but he either got very lucky and came up with a story that allows for him to rely more on his strengths than he has before or the experience he's accumulated through the years allowed him to start developing stories that minimize the parts of film making that he is least successful in. Either way, because of the nature of the story, those failings are evident, but they aren't quite as damaging to the story or to the experience of seeing the film as they have been in some of his other films.

Kiss Of The Damned (Xan Cassavetes, 2012)

The vampire craze seems to have no end. The popularity of the sexy undead has probably never been any higher. As soon as someone decides to bring back the old radio dramas with a vampire show, they’ll have conquered just about every conceivable form of media. KISS OF THE DAMNED is the latest cinematic outing for everyone’s favorite nocturnal bloodsuckers. It’s generated favorable buzz on the festival circuit and with the indie horror set.

The marketing campaign for the film has been targeting horror fans though, which might be a bit misleading. If you’re a horror fan who enjoys TRUE BLOOD or Tony Scott’s THE HUNGER, the chances are pretty good KISS OF THE DAMNED is going to be right up your alley. But, if you’re looking for the kind of vicious vamps that populated films like 30 DAYS OF NIGHT, this isn’t going to satiate your thirst.

Evil Dead (Fede Alvarez, 2013)

The Evil Dead is a seminal classic in the world of horror cinema. It announced the existence of Sam Raimi to the world, became embroiled in controversy due to what was considered graphic content at the time, and initiated at least two generations of horror fanatics into the idea that a horror film could also be joyously creative. If there's one thing that drives the original film, it's the feeling that Sam Raimi was completely intoxicated by the opportunity to try many of the things that had been lurking in the back of his imagination for years, and not just in the way of gore and gross out, but even in the nuts and bolts of cinematography, sound design and so on. It was a feeling of hysterical glee, as if Raimi himself had been trapped in some unseen dimension for centuries and was finally free to pour all of his creative energy into something. It's two sequels became increasingly goofier and were instilled with more and more of Raimi's love of The 3 Stooges, but the first film is a horror film through and through, and some of the sense of danger that it conveyed was due to the audience being completely unsure of where the madmen behind the camera were going to be willing to take them. It served Raimi and the film well that it had a barely perceptible aroma of sleaze about it as well. It's the kind of film, especially at the time, that upon first viewing, truly left all possibilities open. The audience could not be at all sure they were not going to end up seeing anything they would want to "unsee." Luckily, the film hits hardest in that particular way early on and then abandons it for the rest of the film, relying on tension, creative camera work, the charisma of Bruce Campbell and it's over wound energy to deliver all of the things it does.

The Collection (Marcus Dunstan, 2013)

Marcus Dunstan and his writing partner Patrick Melton came to fame on the now defunct reality show, Project Greenlight. It followed the entire production of a film that would be produced by Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, from the choosing of the script all the way through post production. Dunstan and Melton's script for the film, Feast, was picked up in Greenlight's final season, and hilariously documented through it's creation. But, Feast, was without doubt the most successful of the Project Greenlight films (not to mention being a really fun horror/comedy). Dunstan and Melton then got to try their hand at doing some writing for the horror franchise that was the heavyweight champion of the box office at the time with Saw IV. Dunstan and Melton ultimately helped write the final four films in the Saw franchise.

It's Not for the Children

I recently had a conversation, the result of an opinion I had about a particular film, that boiled down to being a question about violence in media and it's effects on children. On the one hand, the person I was conversing with was pointing out that people model the behavior they see, especially the behavior they see repeatedly and often. This is a fair point, and often true. He was suggesting that because children are probably going to be exposed to it, that it's irresponsible to create things, film, television, and fiction in general that depicts violence.

The Perks Of Being A Wallflower (Stephen Chbosky, 2013)

In the 1980's, John Hughes came along and gave a generation of kids an iconic voice that many of them believed understood them. Hughes, at his best, was warm, funny, insightful and at the very least, had a grasp on the kind of confusion and sense of isolation that accompanies many kids through adolescence and all through high school.

It's understandable, in thinking back on his films, that they were as popular as they were with middle class kids who essentially had their whole lives ahead of them and for whom high school quite possibly was the hardest time in their lives. There were certain problematic cultural and social aspects to his films, but from a story and artistic standpoint, given how well he did tap in to those less enjoyable aspects of adolescence, the largest problem with them was that they were ultimately fantasies. They tended to present a kind of epic victory, which only coincides with reality on the most rare occasions. The real victories for most people who experience adolescence as a very painful period of existence, are much more subtle, and many of them only come later, after the pain of the initial experience has dulled somewhat and we can gain some perspective on that experience, what it taught us and what happens when we choose to shape how it effects who we become.

The Perks Of Being A Wallflower, is in many ways a much less superficial and fantasy generated John Hughes film. It's a much more honest film, that doesn't look away from the ugliest aspects of being an adolescent or that it's an extremely complicated period in life in which the more horrible aspects of human behavior and social interactions begin to come crashing down and threatening to create the parameters in which one may define themselves for the rest of their lives. It doesn't attempt to ignore the fact that it's a period of new freedoms, and with those freedoms sometimes come emotionally bruising and horrifying discoveries. It's an honest and, dare I say it, beautiful film, in that it's also not completely overtaken by those darker aspects of its story. The good, great, bad and ugly are all given equal attention, and become undercurrents, instead of signifying moments on which the entire plot turns. None of them is so particularly dominant as to define it as a whole. It is at the same time a somewhat hopeful film, but without having to resort to outright fantasy and the kind of epic victory Hughes installed at the end of basically all of his films.

Spring Breakers (Harmony Korine, 2013)

When I first started seeing the marketing images for Harmony Korine's Spring Breakers, I was wondering exactly what James Franco was doing jumping into the seedy pool of the celebratory ritual that is the "spring break film" or really any youth oriented sexualized exploitation. Franco definitely doesn't seem to want to play by anyone else' rules, but so far, he seems to be relatively thoughtful in choosing his roles, and it just didn't fit. Was this maybe some kind of attempt to give the middle finger to some perceived image of him as someone who wasn't willing to go against the grain of "political correctness"? I wasn't sure. It wouldn't completely shock me, as Franco has resisted almost all attempts to corner him as anything other than an actor who can carry a film.

Then, I realized it was a Harmony Korine film, and the state of confusion only deepened. I've seen Kids and Trash Humpers. Nothing in the marketing made any sense in connection with what I understood of Harmony Korine's films. Did he just get tired of languishing in relative obscurity and decide he was going to go for the big money? His films have almost always been in complete opposition to what the trailer and marketing were suggesting. He has no trouble dealing with tough, controversial material, presenting things with complexity and even when he's not at his best, he's still never produced anything that any amount of consideration can call exploitation. I had to hope there was something else going on here.

Luckily for all of us, there is.

The Frankenstein Theory (Andrew Weiner, 2013)

In the last decade, the found footage sub-genre has suffered from it's own success. Most famously, the Paranormal Activity franchise became a Halloween behemoth. Spawning three sequels of varying quality, the little found footage indie that could became a bonafide phenomenon and then suffered the inevitable consequences visited upon anything that gains any degree of popularity these days, including a backlash against the genre it's a part of.

The entire sub-genre owes a debt to The Blair Witch Project, a film that although it's still controversial, proved there could still be inventive, crowd pleasing ways to approach familiar stories and icons, and succeeded in scaring audiences out of their wits. Had it not become the most profitable independent film of all time (before Paranormal Activity stole that title), found footage wouldn't be a sub-genre at all.

The Frankenstein Theory is a film that is intimately familiar with the sub-genre it belongs to, and it's best elements result from that understanding. It takes the things in other found footage films that have worked and uses them well. It also avoids some of the common problems of found footage through it's cast, location and script. Most notably, it uses the aspects of The Blair Witch and The Last Exorcism that were most effective and avoids most of their mistakes. Some of the creative team behind The Last Exorcism (definitely among the better found footage horror films) are also involved with The Frankenstein Theory.