FILM list.co.uk/film
ONLY GOD FORGIVES Nicolas Winding Refn and Ryan Gosling fail to repeat the success of Drive
W ith previous features such as Bronson and Drive, Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn has proven himself adept at engaging with and exploring the nature and seductive appeal of cinematic violence. While his latest feature Only God Forgives returns to familiar territory and visual style, it retains none of the emotional punch of his prior work.
The film is certainly lavish to behold (although set in Bangkok, its world is more of a neon-lit, hazy dreamscape than a definitive place), but it contains negligible substance. Winding Refn has claimed that the central protagonist Julian (Ryan Gosling) is a kind of sleepwalker, a man crippled by his inability to act in response to his brother’s murder and his mother’s (Kristin Scott Thomas as you have never seen her before) vitriolic and sexually inflected recriminations. Clearly, Refn’s intention is that the film takes the viewer into the heart of an Oedipal nightmare from
which Julian is trying to escape. This idea is an interesting (if somewhat hackneyed) one, but fails to translate onto screen, making it nearly impossible to attribute anything like an existential or ethical dimension to the main figure’s actions.
Much has been made of the film’s excruciating scenes of violence and outright misogyny and Refn does seem to revel in a kind of unnecessarily macho viciousness here, but these issues are the least of the film’s myriad problems: for instance, the film’s script (or what there is of it) is so utterly risible that once the characters do start talking, one wishes they had not bothered. Undoubtedly the viewing process laboured, but the fact that the film is simply dull also makes watching it a chore. (Anna Rogers)
this makes
(18) 90min ●●●●●✌ Limited release from Fri 2 Aug.
HITLIST THE BEST FILM RELEASES & EVENTS
✽ Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa Anticipation is high for AP’s big screen
debut in which the utterly useless DJ becomes embroiled in a siege at Radio Norfolk. See feature, page 12 and review at list.co.uk General release from Wed 7 Aug.
✽ We Steal Secrets: The Story of WikiLeaks The recent story of FBI
fugitive Edward Snowden adds an extra layer of significance to this intelligent documentary from Oscar-winner Alex Gibney about the story of Julian Assange. See review, page 68. Limited release from Fri 12 Jul.
✽ Wadjda Notable as the first Saudi Arabian feature film to be directed by a woman, Wadjda is a winning tale about a defiant tomboy in pursuit of a green bike. See review, page 68. Limited release from Fri 19 Jul.
✽ The Act of Killing A startling
documentary in which filmmaker Joshua Oppenheimer explores the legacy of Indonesia’s anti- communist massacre of the 1960s by asking war criminals to re-enact their killings. See review, page 69. GFT, Glasgow, Tue 16 –Wed 17 Jul.
✽ Frances Ha Noah Baumbach’s latest is a glorious portrait of a loveable
underachiever. See feature, page 66 and review, page 67. Limited release from Fri 26 Jul.
✽ Blancanieves The Snow White fairytale is transported to 1920s Andalucia in this
lush, black and white, silent fantasy which swept the board at this year’s Goyas (Spain’s answer to the Oscars). See review, page 70. Limited release from Fri 19 Jul.
11 Jul–22 Aug 2013 THE LIST 65