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Released by: Anchor Bay Entertainment
Released on: October 22nd, 2013.
Director: Nicolas Winding Refn
Cast: Ryan Gosling, Tom Burke, Rhatha Phongam, Kristin Scott Thomas
Year: 2013
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The Movie:
Julian (Ryan Gosling) is a man of few words. He lives in Bangkok where he manages a fight club that is actually just a cover up for a pretty substantial narcotics trafficking organization but despite his criminal ties, he has a code of his own. He is not a man without morals nor is he a man without a sense of self. Julian's reasonably calm existence gets rattled when his brother, Billy (Tom Burke), murders the daughter of a dangerous pimp and is killed in turn for his sin. His mother, Crystal (Kristin Scott Thomas)¸ is understandably distraught over this and maybe not so surprisingly, she wants Julian to get blood for blood.
And so Julian heads into the Thai underworld in search of the man who killed his brother. He does this more out of a sense of obligation to his mother than to himself but he does it just the same. When he finds the culprit, however, he has a change of heart. This upsets Crystal even more, to the point where she's willing to bring Julian's girlfriend, Mai (Rhatha Phongam), into all of this to twist things to meet her already twisted desires. And then there's the not insignificant matter of a certain cop...
What starts off as a typical revenge movie soon falls hard and fast into a strange blend of arthouse style and mind altering multi-layered storytelling. On the surface, this is plainly an exercise in style over substance. The movie is ridiculously good looking, making great use of some incredibly compositions and demonstrating a command of primary lighting that would make Mario Bava blush. Refn's love of genre cinema is well documented at this point in his career (if the man appears in the extra features on the Snuff Blu-ray, you know he's got a taste for trash) but he manages to make something more than an homage to exploitation pictures of the past without skimping on the requisite nastiness a good revenge movie ought to have in order to deliver the thrills that an audience wants out of it.
Pay attention to the movie's subtext, pay attention to the way that characters react to certain events in the movie. Look past the blood and gore and try not to be distracted by the admittedly distractingly beautiful look of the film and it becomes apparent that Refn has taken as many notes ultra-stylish film noir movies like The Big Heat as he has from something like Rolling Thunder. At the same time, he's asking us to question the morality of all of this. The characters don't just go through the motions here, they do evolve and they do change and the conflict that arises as this occurs provides more story than is readily apparent at first glance.
At the center of this is Ryan Gosling, fresh off of his work with Refn on Drive. He does the 'man of few words' character well in that when he says something, there's weight to it. He doesn't speak for the sake of speaking but instead his character values his words and ensures that they have meaning. He's believable in the movie, a nice enough looking guy on the outside but that, like everyone else in the movie, is capable of as much harm as he is good.
While in many ways the movie may seem self-indulgent and it may completely fetishize the violent side of its story, Only God Forgives is clever in how it twists genre conventions while at the same time completely subscribing to them. It's intense stuff, and those expecting Drive 2 will no doubt walk away not only disappointed, but likely very confused. But this heady, atmospheric brew that's unafraid to take chances and experiment to deliver a thoroughly bizarre but completely engrossing take on what can and does go horribly wrong when oedipal allegiance and maternal control collide with impotence and subsequently violence.
Video/Audio/Extras:
Only God Forgives looks gorgeous on Blu-ray framed at 1.85.1 widescreen and presented in AVC encoded 1080p high definition. Parts of the movie are bathed in red lighting and these don't show the same level of crisp detail as some of the other scenes but that's obviously part of the movie's intended style rather than any sort of flaw in the picture. There are a few spots where shadow detail looks just a tiny bit muddy but outside of that, this looks right. Colors are fantastic and consistently bright and bold and appropriately garish when called for while skin tones stay natural looking, never waxy. There's no print damage, this was shot digitally, and neither are there any issues with edge enhancement or noise reduction. Texture and detail are strong throughout, there's nothing to complain about here, the visuals are done proper justice by this Blu-ray.
The only audio option on the disc is an English language DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio track with optional subtitles provided in English SDH and Spanish. Bass is a bit overpowering in the opening scenes but that again would appear to be intentional. Sound design plays a big part in the atmosphere that this movie is able to conjure up and that unsettling low end is definitely there for reason. Dialogue is generally crisp, clean and clear and the levels properly balanced throughout. There's excellent use made of the surround channels not only during the more active fight scenes but also during some of the more subdued moments where you'll notice some subtle and discreet background activity in the rear channels helping to bring things to life. As you'd expect, there are no issues with any hiss or distortion and all in all, this mix delivers.
Extras kick off with an excellent audio commentary from writer/director Nicolas Winding Refn moderated by Damon Wise that covers pretty much everything you could want to know about Refn's creative process and his motivations behind making this particularly film in this particular fashion. Of course, there are the inevitable comparisons made to Drive, and with good reason, but there's a wealth of information relayed here in regards to the look of the picture, why certain scenes use the angles and colors that they do, why Gosling's performance takes on the qualities that it does and much more. This is very thorough and very interesting and it answers a lot of questions some might have about the picture.
Refn also appears in two Director Interviews, the first of which is the six minute Talking About Thailand With Mark Dinning, in which he talks about shooting in Thailand and some of the details regarding that situation, and the second of which is the six minute Discussing Genre Films With Bruno Icher where we learn about some of his influences.
Twelve short Behind the Scenes segments are also found and each explores a separate facet of the picture: The Drug Trade, Staging The Brothel Scene, Framing The Gun Fight, The Sword You Execute People With, Slicing The Arm, Prepping For The Shootout, The Sincerest Form Of Flattery, A Face For Radio, On The Sets With Refn, The Tongue, Kendo Techniques and Violence Is Like Sex. These run anywhere from just short of a minute to just over four minutes in length. Their specificity means they cover some ground not covered in the commentary, which makes them quite worthwhile. We also get a nine minute featurette entitled The Music Of Only God Forgives With Cliff Martinez in which the film's composer discusses in some detail his contributions to the picture and what he was going for with his compositions. Menus and chapter stops are also included and inside the keepcase is an insert with a download code redeemable for two tracks from the soundtrack in MP3 format.
The Final Word:
Only God Forgives is as stylish and remarkably violent as it is genuinely moving and thought provoking. This is more than just beautifully photographed exotic bloodshed if you're willing to look beneath the surface and despite the similarities to Drive it sees both Refn and Gosling going in different directions than they did in that earlier film. Anchor Bay's Blu-ray is not only beautiful but it sounds fantastic and offers up a good array of supplements as well that both document and explore the history of the movie and its intentions. Watch this one, then watch it again with the commentary on, then watch it again with the commentary off. There's a lot more to this than it first seems, and peeling back the layers of the picture is a rewarding experience.
Click on the images below for full sized Blu-ray screen caps!
That is some depressing shit. I need a shower. Or five showers. And maybe a Sonny Chiba or Van Damme palette cleanser.
<spoiler>Any idea what was up with him putting his arm in his mother's abdomen? I'm sure it has something to do with his mommy issues. I just don't know enough about the psychology of having a castrating mother to know if he was crawling back in her womb or looking for his own testicles in there. </spoiler>