Nicholas Winding Refn has a mission. As a writer and director, he wants to take the subject matter of action films and raise it to high art. It's a really interesting cinematic philosophy so far removed from anything else happening in mainstream or arthouse filmmaking that it's going to be totally hit or miss in its impact. The flaws are perhaps the most endearing parts of films like Bronson and Drive.
Only God Forgives does not have much of a story. It's a spiraling revenge fantasy where every action has a more extreme reaction. Billy and Julian are American brothers living in Thailand. They run a kickboxing gym as a front for a drug smuggling operation. One night, Billy decides he wants to find an underage prostitute and winds up murdering her. Chang, a high ranking police officer, decides to let the girl's father have his way with Billy before punishing the father for letting his daughters enter the sex trade. Billy and Julian's mother arrives from America to claim Julian's body and revenge for his murder.
There are no real levels in Only God Forgives. It's a visual experiment in slowing down a typical (if a bit darker) action/thriller and telling the story solely through mood and physical business. The nuance of the story is lost to the overwhelming visual and audio design. It's like Refn is playing with the alienation effect, forcing the audience to realize they are watching a totally manufactured story in every frame and refusing any semblance of emotional connection to the characters onscreen.
Put the story aside. It's not worth it. So much is trimmed down and altered by ripping the audio of the dialogue out of the film--literally, mouths moving and no sound coming out in more scenes than not--that there's no way to make sense of it. It's like selections from Only God Forgives presented as the full project of Only God Forbids just to see what would happen.
You're watching Only God Forgives for the quality of technical filmmaking. You cannot knock the composition of light and action onscreen. It's gorgeous. Larry Smith's cinematography is jaw-dropping.
Very few scenes have anything remotely resembling natural light. The walls, the floors, the people are covered in layers of vivid colors--red, green, orange, and purple. The aspect ratio changes from scene to scene just from the placement of light on the frame. It's all the more stunning when a character facing inner turmoil is disfigured by the contrasting lights that only appear on their bodies.
Even more impressive is the sound mixing. The dropped dialogue is shocking in the best way possible because you suddenly hear nothing but the original score. This is only broken by a sword being unsheathed, a gun firing, or a punch landing. Tiny details--a lighter flicking open, a glass hitting the table, jewelry rattling against the body--overpower the dialogue, further pushing the audience out of the story. You can't predict what's going to happen next because even the sound mixing shifts from scene to scene to refocus your eye and ear on a different level of the production.
The one constant is Cliff Martinez' stunning score. Typically, a good film score doesn't draw attention to itself. In Only God Forgives, there's nothing else to focus in on for most of the film. The unexpected blend of folk instruments and synthesizers creates an otherworldly nightmare of sound that just doesn't sit right. The score becomes even more impressive when placed against the traditionally Thai-sounding karaoke tracks Martinez wrote for the film. Something so peaceful and organic against the alien blend of the underscoring is confusing more than calming.
The big problem with Only God Forgives is that it clearly has a big story to tell and intentionally chose to leave it in the editing bay. It's hard to even say if it's the fault of expectations or execution, but an action story like this cannot survive without a more pronounced plot. Drive wasn't perfect by any means, but the presence of the story at least gave you something to latch onto. Only God Forgives has no guy-wire to hold you up and no safety net to catch you. It's radical experimentation with no real results beyond confusion and eerie beauty.
Rating: 3/10
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