Only God Forgives (2013, dir. NIcolas Winding-Refn)

Quote :

Nicolas Winding Refn says he made Only God Forgives 'like a pornographer'




Two sounds provided the keynote of the first screening of Nicolas Winding Refn's follow-up to Drive: the screams of characters being subjected to grotesque acts of dismemberment and torture, and the slap of seats springing upright as members of the press walked out of the grandest cinema at the Cannes film festival. One American woman exclaimed loudly as she exited: "This is shit."

Even its British co-star, Kristin Scott Thomas, said: "Films where this kind of violence happens I don't enjoy watching at all" and joked that as the film was made "it got more and more despicable". But its director, Nicolas Winding Refn, said that he approached filmmaking "like a pornographer: it's about what arouses me. Certain things turn me on more than other stuff and I can't suppress that." He added: "I have surely a fetish for violent emotions and images."

Only God Forgives, which reunites Winding Refn with Drive star Ryan Gosling, is the first great schismatic movie at Cannes, with critics either panning its violence or dazzled by its stylised brilliance – or else wildly vacillating between the two positions.

Challenged on the film's violence, Winding Refn said: "Well, art is an act of violence. It is about penetration, about speaking to our subconscious and our moods at different levels."

He added: "I don't consider myself a very violent man … but I have surely a fetish for violent emotions and images and I just can't explain where it comes from. But I do believe it's a way to exorcise various things. Let's not forget that humans were created very violent: our body parts are created for violence, it is our instinctual need to survive. But over the years we no longer need violence but we still have an urge from when we are born – which itself can be an act of violence."

Set in a Thai underground world of fight clubs, prostitutes and seedy American crooks, it is a visual feast, with little dialogue and the Wagner-influenced score taking a prominent role – more in harmony with the director's earlier, more recherché work than the commercial hit that was Drive.

It stars Ryan Gosling as owner of a Bangkok boxing club, and Scott Thomas as his mother. She is a peroxided Clytemnestra of a character – trashy, American and emphatically nothing like the cut-glass-accented aristocrats she is most famous for playing. She had given such roles a "kick in the teeth" with this part, she said.

At one point she is required to say a deeply offensive and misogynist phrase that Gosling told Winding Refn was "the worst thing you can say to a woman in America". She struggled with the line ("cum dumpster"). "It took me about eight takes to pronounce the words", she said. Asked by Winding Refn if she would repeat it there and then, she said, "No."

According to Winding Refn, Scott Thomas "had no problem turning on the bitch witch". She added: "It wasn't like I need to find a part that means I can break the terrible shell I have been trapped in: it wasn't like that at all. It was more organic than that. Every day we would get braver.

"When I first read the script I was excited about playing someone far away from the upper-class thing that English people seem to love seeing me in. As we got nearer it got more and more despicable."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2013/may/22/nicolas-winding-refn-only-god-forgives

Been stoked about this for a while. Can't wait to see it.

I really liked DRIVE but I'm unsure about this one, based on the critical reaction.

Quote :

Two sounds provided the keynote of the first screening of Nicolas Winding Refn's follow-up to Drive: the screams of characters being subjected to grotesque acts of dismemberment and torture, and the slap of seats springing upright as members of the press walked out of the grandest cinema at the Cannes film festival. One American woman exclaimed loudly as she exited: "This is shit."

Sounds like shit.

I had a bad case of winding-refn after eating a dodgy kebab.

Jack Wade wrote:

Quote :

Two sounds provided the keynote of the first screening of Nicolas Winding Refn's follow-up to Drive: the screams of characters being subjected to grotesque acts of dismemberment and torture, and the slap of seats springing upright as members of the press walked out of the grandest cinema at the Cannes film festival. One American woman exclaimed loudly as she exited: "This is shit."

Sounds like shit.

This is the same film festival that booed L'Avventura and laughed at To the Wonder.

HJackson wrote:

Jack Wade wrote:

Quote :

Two sounds provided the keynote of the first screening of Nicolas Winding Refn's follow-up to Drive: the screams of characters being subjected to grotesque acts of dismemberment and torture, and the slap of seats springing upright as members of the press walked out of the grandest cinema at the Cannes film festival. One American woman exclaimed loudly as she exited: "This is shit."

Sounds like shit.

This is the same film festival that booed L'Avventura and laughed at To the Wonder.

And gave PULP FICTION the Palme d'Or.

Largo's Shark wrote:

And gave PULP FICTION the Palme d'Or.

And rightly so.

Loomis wrote:

Largo's Shark wrote:

And gave PULP FICTION the Palme d'Or.

And rightly so.

It should have gone to Zhang Yimou's HUOZHE.

Pure violence shot like pornography. This will go over well with the latest generation of film-goers.