Only God Forgives
This is a love it or hate it film. Nicolas Rending Refn is a visionary and a talent that is going to be making interesting films for years but he's going to stumble every once in a while. Yet, his stumbles are beautiful. It's like watching an olympic figure skater fall with grace. The film is gorgeous. GORGEOUS. It is also very brutal and benefits from a wonderful soundtrack from Cliff Martinez who worked with Refn on "Drive". Your eyes and ears will love this film but your brain is going to have some problems. First off it's very ambiguous and full of mysticism. The film was dedicated to Alejandro Jordoworsky and it shows as a lot of actions taken by the characters have no real meaning or reason behind them. There is no protagonist or antagonist and one of them may or may not be "God". These are a lot of questions without many answers which is why the narrative of the story falls flat. The film does deliver as I said on the eyes and ears and is full of twisted and disturbing scenes of violence and immoral actions. It's provocative without being obscene or trashy. It's a film that most audiences will hate but few will love. I'm somewhere in the middle and as always, looking forward to his next experiment with the camera.
3/5