An in-depth analysis of Only God Forgives

*** SPOILER ALERT ***

(Not only does this spoil the movie, it will be incomprehensible if you haven't seen it first)

So we’re about to get into something unusual for BMC: actual film criticism. Yes folks, it’s that time of year again. I’ve seen the One Serious Movie that I’ll probably see this year, which also happens to be one of 2013’s most divisive.

I saw Only God Forgives with a film student friend, whose initial reaction was: ‘Well… it was no Drive.’ And he’s right – it isn’t. However, people are wrong in expecting it to be simply because of the Nicolas Winding Refn/Ryan Gosling pairing. As such, it cannot be judged on the same merits. These are entirely different –in fact thematically opposite – movies (more on that later).

I was more disappointed by is the lack of critics truly probing this film than by the film itself. Analyses I’ve seen so far have been cursory at best, except Chris Stuckman, who is an avowed Refn fan and seems to have drawn a lot of the same conclusions as I.

The following is my interpretation of the film – and there are bound to be many – which hinges heavily on two points.

1. Everything we see is deliberate. There are a lot of critics who felt the movie was light on plot, that Refn didn’t have the same degree of control or assuredness with this movie as he did with Drive, or that OGF was just a flat-out poorly executed revenge tale. I think the opposite. When you look at a film as meticulously crafted as Drive, and observe the quality and care in the cinematography and production design here, it’s impossible to conceive of anything haphazard being in this movie. I believe we are seeing exactly what Refn wants us to. This is not to say that all his decisions are good, merely that they are all purposeful.

2. This is an allegorical tale. This is the main way in which Drive and OGF differ. While the former is a literal tale with symbolism inserted tactically, Refn’s latest is entirely symbolic, with minimal situational elements thrown in for it to have some basis in real life.

Considering Refn’s previous work, I don’t think these are such radical assumptions to get behind.

Only God Forgives is, unsurprisingly, about redemption (no shit dude it’s in the title). Specifically, it’s about Julian’s redemption. This man clearly has a tortured past and is being pulled in two directions. We see this manifested in an idealised, compassionate self, and a brutish, violent self.

Assuming nothing is an accident in this movie, I think that costuming plays a big part. For the opening act of the movie, we see Julian in either a plain black or white t-shirt. I considered the actions we see Julian perform in the white shirt:

• He feeds the stray dog (something that is more of a folkway in developing countries)
• He lets his brother’s killer go free and later tries to reason with his mother about it
• He imagines himself touching Mai delicately (something he does not do in real life)
• He gives Mai a dress and proposes they pretend to be in a relationship

Then of course we are introduced to the dark side (dark shirt), in which he:

• Oversees drug deals
• Mimics/idolises the muay thai fighter statue (in fact he's always clenching his fists in this shirt), which I would argue is tantamount to worshipping violence
• Has his hands tied by Mai (I don’t remember him ever touching her or behaving affectionately while wearing the black shirt)
• Has a vision of his hand being severed by Chang (i.e. his guilt manifests itself darkly)
• Beats the shit out of two guys for no reason

And drags one of them by his teeth through this fucking gorgeous shot

With practically no dialogue, we are introduced to the two warring sides of Julian. We later meet his mother, who obviously brings out the darkness in him (and is implicitly the cause of it).

The relationship between Julian and Crystal is pretty unmistakably Oedipal. The similarities are glaring:

• Parents contemplating infanticide
• Relationship of sexual nature between mother and son
• The son killing the father
• After committing said murder, the son enters a self-imposed exile

Freud argued that the Oedipus complex was a man’s subconscious desire to return to the womb. He asserted that this desire manifested itself sexually, but in OGF’s most shocking scene we see Julian doing this more literally but cutting Crystal’s stomach open and immersing his hand in it.

But before that she looks incredible in this movie. EVERYTHING looks incredible in this movie.

 

These parallels are clear and, as per my initial assumptions, almost certainly deliberate. I feel the link to Greek mythology is paramount, as it carries deeper implications and meaning for the rest of the film.

The Greek notion of the Underworld is not one of burning for eternity; it is more like a waiting room for the damned. The realm of Hades is where souls wait to be judged for their actions during life, and they are either rewarded or punished for these. Hades himself is the ruler of this Underworld, acting as judge, jury, and executioner.

No critiques or interpretations of the film that I have seen have given any consideration to Chang’s name, which I’m certain is also no accident. Chang is the Thai word for ‘elephant,’ an animal that is a symbol of royalty, power, and purity in their culture. This explains not only who Chang is in this movie, but also why everyone treats him with deference or reverence.

The Greek vision of the Underworld is a facsimile for Refn’s ominous Bangkok. Chang is the acknowledged ruler of this Underworld, and therefore the de facto lawgiver or moral epicentre of the film. 

You know what else rules? This shot.

He distributes justice as he sees fit, specifically (and this is super important) punishing people who mistreat children and sparing people who tend to them.  

In the film’s third act we see Julian don the three-piece suit, which sees the light and dark garb intermingled. This is appropriately the moment where we observe the conflict in him surge. He lashes out at Mai, challenges the God figure to a fight (which Refn has straight-up said was a thematic driving force of the movie), and appears ambivalent about exacting revenge on Chang. We see in these moments the dark influence of his mother opposing the desires of his idealised self.

His ultimate test, and the act upon which I posit he is judged, is the last decision he makes in this movie: whether or not to murder Chang’s kid. Crystal orders Julian and another lackey to ‘kill them all,’ and here we witness his first decisive disobedience of her. He overcomes the hold she has on him and saves the child from death. Tellingly, this is the structural climax of the film, rather than his fight with Chang.

The final scene shows Julian offering himself up for judgment in a peaceful environment. Whereas earlier in the movie, his visions of judgment by Chang’s sword came from a dark, cavernous, frightening place, he now meets it in the light, graced by an abiding calm. Chang does not kill him; instead, he severs Julian’s hands, much as he did with the young girl’s father at the beginning of the film. I interpret this as an acknowledgment of sin and repentance, but one that spares Julian’s soul, since he has proven himself as a moral being. This is the diametric opposite of Drive, the point of which was that Driver couldn’t really escape his nature.

Redemption is perhaps the most commonly recurring narrative theme in film. Only God Forgives, however, demarcates itself by stripping the plot bare and dealing with it in a far more mythic and appropriately violent fashion (theology is brutal, for those who need reminding). Julian’s road to redemption is told not through words, but striking imagery, significant allegory, and more than a few dashes of blood.

Interpreted this way and judged on these merits, I feel that Only God Forgives is a strong, if flawed, piece of filmmaking. More importantly it is a case in point for why critics are assholes. Two years ago critics lined up to suck Michel Hazanavicius’ dick for The Artist, saying his return to the silent film was stylish and triumphant. Here and now, you have Refn basically doing the same thing (trying to tell a story non-verbally) and everyone is treating him like a fucking chauch.

There are admittedly many things in the film I didn’t like:

• The violence is gratuitous and, by Refn’s own admission, fetishistic
• Gosling’s performance would arguably not have suffered from him being a little more expressive
• The karaoke scenes are lost on audiences who don’t understand their place in Thai culture (like me)
• The film doesn’t treat women with much sympathy. Strictly speaking I suppose you don’t have to, but come on dude. Women exist in this movie either to be brutally murdered and/or have their bodies defiled. To be fair, the men don’t get much better but there are at least some male characters to like in this movie.

But even when I don't like it, it looks like fucking THIS.

All totalled, the film does more things well than it does poorly. Its imagery is lush and rich, its proceedings have palpable intensity that keep you captivated, the Cliff Martinez score is sure to be one of the year’s best, and stylistically it is one of the most distinctive films you’ll ever see. Despite its detractors, it is a bold piece of work that I’m convinced will be studied and discussed for years to come.

How to make movies make money again

The summer blockbuster has been a ‘thing’ since a little movie called Jaws hit the screens in June of 1975. The highest-grossing picture at the time (not adjusted for inflation), it is credited with providing the operational framework employed to this day: pitch audiences simple, straightforward action-adventure, replete with visceral set-pieces, big thrills, market the shit out of it, and follow it up with lots of sequels in subsequent summers. It is a recipe that delivered big bucks and big (sometimes classic) movies through the 80s and 90s.

Today, however, this model is one of diminishing returns. Films and franchises that may have been big hits ten or twelve years ago are tanking left and right. Disney, in particular, has doubled down on the back-to-back failures of John Carter and The Lone Ranger, both of which performed spectacularly badly when you consider their production and marketing budgets.

Staggeringly, rather than observe market trends and draw the same conclusions that pretty much everyone else has, the big production houses seem to be digging themselves deeper into the hole by going all-in on sequels and big franchises. That’s not a strategy that I think is effective. The entertainment world is changing and studios are trying to adapt, but they’re not adapting appropriately.

I think another simple money-making formula is out there, but a lot of important people with a lot of money are ignoring it. And let’s face it, when I actually put the bottle down I do tend to have some good ideas. Here are some:

1. Start with an inventive script.

One of the big mistakes Hollywood is making is underestimating the intelligence of their audience. For a start, the first people are going to see the film (the critics) are probably some of the smartest and the least tolerant of rote, unimaginative filmmaking. And it’s not so easy to say ‘Whatever, fuck those guys, what do they matter?’ anymore because that’s not the tale Bruckheimer and Depp are telling.

Chris Nolan is a shining example of how to get the job done by starting with a great idea. In 2000, having at that point made a single, low-budget, below-radar B&W indie feature, released Memento. He filmed this in 25 days on $5 mil using low-profile actors, locations, and basically no effects. The movie made back $40 mil at the box and more still in DVD sales with virtually no marketing budget. The festival circuit buzz, glowing reviews, and steady word-of-mouth were the wave that carried this movie. 

This has been Nolan’s (extremely successful business model) since. The budgets have gotten bigger but Nolan has continued to challenge and innovate, never belittling his audience. The fact that a picture as heady and meta as Inception not only got made but earned over three-quarters of a billion dollars is a testament to the strength and profitability of imagination.

Other recent examples include Cloverfield, Chronicle, Looper, The Hangover, Saw, The Sixth Sense, Before Sunset, District 9, and countess other movies that were produced on a shoe-string budget by today’s standards and were runaway hits. This business model carries two important implications: when one of these projects fails, the financial losses are a pin-prick for the big studios and…

2. Actors need to take a pay cut.

Most of us remember the days when Tom Cruise or Arnold Schwarzenegger could easily command $30 mil a picture. Well, those days are over. Bruce Willis recently got called out and fired for asking for $4 mil for four days work on Expendables 3, which is about as big-budget a movie as you’re going to find. Even these guys are spending judiciously.

This headdress alone must have cost 50k.

The golden age of the blockbuster adjusted our thinking, but we need to adjust it again.

We need to remember that movie stars didn’t always take home such big pay checks. At the height of his fame’s ascent in the 1940s, Cary Grant made $300,000 for starring in a studio picture, which is just shy of $4 mil adjusted for inflation. Elizabeth Taylor famously made a cold million for Cleopatra, which also famously came a hair’s breadth from bankrupting Fox Pictures. One million bones in 1963 is the equivalent of $7.6 mil today. Here are two of the biggest movie stars ever, at the height of their fame, making a third of what studios are paying their leads a generation later.

These inflated salaries aren’t tenable anymore, nor are this generation’s big stars the guarantors of big grosses they once were. Tom Cruise doesn’t get the draws he used to, and Will Smith’s latest, After Earth, underperformed earlier this year. Something that the above-mentioned sleeper hits had in common was the absence of major stars, or having stars who are willing to work for share or just a smaller paycheck. If you have a production budget of $30 mil, like Looper for instance, having JGL working for $1 mil as opposed to $5 (totally inventing these numbers, btw, but not in an inconceivable way) – that’s a smart way to get a great movie off the ground without breaking the bank. And, let’s face it, even after a 500% pay cut JGL is still not hurting for cash.

This doesn’t even necessarily matter because…

3. Star power is scarcely correlated with a film’s financial success.

This is perhaps one of the best-kept secrets in Hollywood. The name at the top of the movie poster is far from deterministic of the box office grosses. Arthur De Vany (PhD Economics) has performed some of the most in-depth studies on the movie industry and concluded that there are no significant results linking star power to the financial success of a picture. It is perhaps one of the least deterministic factors in the business, far less than the month of the year when a film is released, something that can apparently skew the results by as much as 20%.

The only correlation between star power and revenue is a loose one: star power is more likely to impact a critical review positively, and positively-review films are likely to perform better. That’s it.

Speaking of non-deterministic qualities brings us along to my favourite point…

4. Fuck 3D movies.

Seeing 3D movies is so far down on my list of preferred activities that most of the things beneath it involve beastiality. Seeing 3D movies makes me hate my life, and my life rules pretty fucking hard so this is a staggering feat. Most people I talk to feel the same way (about 3D, not necessarily their lives).

And yet, because some of the most profitable movies of all time have performed well in 3D, studios continue to churn them out in overwhelming numbers. In most markets, 3D movie revenues account for about 25% of a picture’s total gross. That number has been on a downward trajectory since Avatar, which is the same as saying it’s never really gone up.

More importantly, movie tickets, like any consumer good, have a threshold price point beyond which lost custom outweighs incremental gains. According to a recent Times article, 3D movies may have pushed the average ticket cost over the edge.

Many critics of the technology cite its inconsistency from film to film as a deterrent, and a lot of that has to do with the downfall of visual effects studios. It’s well documented that CGI-heavy films have a tendency to bankrupt the visual effects studios they contract. Notably, the Oscar-winning team at Rhythem & Hues filed for bankruptcy before they could even enjoy the accolades. It is a known fact in the industry that there’s no benefit in doing this job well, or at all, really.

In a grand scheme, all of this adds up to…

5. Studios need to use their money more tactically (less is more).

I believe that you have to spend money to make money; studios just need to look harder at where they’re spending it and whether those expenses are necessary.

Let’s look at two action-adventure, summer blockbuster success stories: Die Hard and The Fugitive. By today’s standards, these movies had incredibly modest budgets. These films were high-risk, non-franchise pictures with leading men of questionable bankability. (Before you say anything: Blade Runner, Frantic, Regarding Henry, Mosquito Coast – QED, k?)

And look at where these productions spent their money: the roof exploding and the train derailment, respectively. These are the two big money shots in either movie and more than two decades later they are still gripping cinematic moments. For the remainder of their running times, these films relied on competent direction, suspenseful pacing, and smart casting.

And Bruce Willis looking RMH.

The more-is-more paradigm is failing Hollywood execs, yet they seem oblivious. It reminds me of a scene in That 70s Show where Kelso tries to put out a barrel fire by dousing it with a splash of hard liquor. Upon seeing the flames surge as opposed to drown, he pauses for a moment, then comically says: ‘Gimme more!’

I guess for now we will have to meet our entertainment needs by seeing Hollywood producers throw ever-larger quantities of 90-proof spirit atop a conflagrating empire, because the movies themselves are less entertaining year after year.