Introduction: "——What kind of film will get a mixed and extreme evaluation? — You will understand after watching "Only God Can Forgive"!" This is the most dramatic dialogue at this Cannes Film Festival One, knowing that people naturally applaud, praise the spiritual world after the violent aesthetics in the film; those who don't understand will swear formalism empty, ridicule the film is really only "only God can understand." The polarized evaluation attracted a lot of onlookers from the audience, and the plot of the movie was chaotic. What kind of story is "Only God Can Forgive"? I am afraid that only by personal experience can we know the answer.
Following the 2011 "Drive", this film is the second collaboration between Ryan Gosling and director Nicolas Winding Refn. Unlike "Drive" which has a lot of bloody smell, "Only God Can Forgive" relies on strong light and shadow to tell the story, so that the cold and warm tones are brought to the extreme in the film, with the viper-like electronic sound, showing the psychedelic and gloomy violent aesthetics. Let Bangkok, the sensual capital, instantly evolve into a hotbed of crime, charming and dangerous. However, this style has gained a polarized reputation at the Cannes Film Festival. The negative comments are mostly based on "violent scenes are more like personal image expressions, and the purpose is nothing more than to cover up the void in the storyline. Gosling is not clear at all. Is it rebelling against God, or is it groaning without illness". I would not be surprised by such an evaluation. After all, some people watch a movie with a compelling plot, while others are looking for an empathetic experience. To put it another way, just as some people like to stimulate the spiciness of the tongue in their diet, and some people pay more attention to the inherent nutritional value of the ingredients.
Obviously, Refn from Northern Europe obviously pays more attention to the inner nutrition of the film. At first glance, it looks like David Lynch possessed, making the work casual and sharp. It is just that he is still young and does not have the careful thought of film scheduling. Talking about why the background of "Only God Can Forgiveness" was placed in Thailand, Refn said that he had vacationed in Bangkok with his family before, and his daughter frequently met ghosts in the room, and she was in a state of wandering gods every day. "Encountering ghosts", a thing that was accustomed to Thailand, turned into an incredible thing in the eyes of a Westerner, Refn. To a certain extent, it has also affected the creative style of the film, just like ghosts and ghosts.
Although the film is playing the sign of "Rebelling against God", it seems that Gosling, as the protagonist, is fighting with his own power, and has similarities with the protagonist in the previous "Drive"; in fact, "Only God Can Forgive" "The original intention of the creation of "is a film about the theme of "feminism". It can be seen that the "Oedipus Complex" proposed by Refn Great Love Freud portrays Gosling as the prince of Greek mythology, Oedipus, and staged a plot of murdering his father and marrying his mother. As early as 1913, Freud pointed out in the book "Totem and Taboo" that the object of male sexual pursuit in the early days was his mother. He always wanted to occupy the position of his father and compete with his father for the love of his mother. Oedipus plot. According to Freud's theory, this kind of plot that originally only happened to neurotic patients has actually become a common phenomenon in human society. As early as the early stages of human development, fathers had exclusive rights to the women of their families. So the son rebelled, killing his father and eating it. Feeling guilty, the son suppressed his sexual desires towards his mother, sisters and his daughters, and incest taboos and extramarriage arose from this. Going back to the film, it’s not difficult to see that Julian played by Gosling is obviously in Oedipus, not only in the process of getting along with his mother, he listens like a little boy; but also in all kinds of physical contact with his mother, he is sensually like a male. animal. At the same time, the mother Crystal also acted very cooperatively with this kind of Oedipus feelings, and encouraged her sons to be obsessed with her, and even openly discuss the size of the sons’ penis at the dinner table, which made the outsiders at the dinner table quite embarrassed. Only Julian can show the embarrassment of failing to satisfy the female animal in sex life, as if forgetting that the woman in front of him is his biological mother.
Going back to Julian's father-killing part, which is defined as "With his bare hands" in the film, it can be seen that Julian used these hands to kill his biological father and torture his mother. From this, it can be understood why Julian had a relationship with a prostitute three times in the film, all through the hands, not the penis. The "hand" in the film is more like Julian's sexual device to release male hormones, which explains why Julian's sexual behavior in the film is always accompanied by the illusion of being chopped off his hands. And when Julian saw that his mother was killed, instead of crying, he cut the corpse with a knife and put his hand in it, as if having sex with the corpse, and as if touching the mother’s ovary. Only then can Julian find the root cause that brought him into the evil world. So, who made Julian so sick physically and mentally? There is no explanation for this in the film, but through the dialogue in the film, we can try to guess: Maybe it is the mother and the dead brother who have long been in love with each other, which made Julian, who was weak and weak since childhood, feel jealous. Take the courage to show your strength by killing your father? Or maybe the mother had already sexually hinted at Julian in his childhood, and encouraged her son to kill her father and seize power in the hint? At this point, the director Refn has no way to explain. All the uncertainties around him make those audiences who are used to defining movies as "good taste" will definitely feel uncomfortable in watching the movie.
And another key figure in the film, Chang, the judge in the police station, often shows the big knife behind his back when trying criminals. Amidst the music that resembles the Buddhist scriptures, he does something to the "sinners" present. Trial. In the film, the verdict is divided into three parts. With each appearance of Chang, the audience will gradually understand what "only God can forgive" is. In the first referee, Chang used a knife to chop off the hands of a Thai man to punish the act of killing with his hands. In the second referee, after cutting off his hands, Chang also used his eyes, cut his ears, and pierced him. The palm of the hand and other methods used to warn Crystal's ignorance; in the third referee, it was Chang and Julian's turn. Unlike the previous bloody storm, Julian calmly put out his hands and completed a redemptive castration. At this moment, the camera did not make a face-to-face record of cutting the hands. Instead, it turned Julian's most terrified hand cutting into a peaceful forgiveness ritual. Finally, the camera turns to Chang on the golden stage again, a song "You're my dream", the world returns to the light again under the protection of God. The God in Refn's lens, namely Chang, is different from the image of God in the past. He is neither kind nor fraternity. Instead, he faces evil forces with righteousness and evil, and chooses to use violence against violence to act on behalf of the heavens to become the main business. The big boss. What's interesting is that whenever God uses a knife to make an execution with a blank face, Renn will use his registered trademark slow motion to freeze the violent scenes, so that the picture is covered with stylized red, just like Wang Jiawei's violent romance. .
In the film, there is nothing more dramatic than the blood-spraying fighting scenes. There is nothing more than the metaphors of Shakespeare and the Greek mother and son incest tragedy. Various details make you feel uncomfortable and shocked. The technique has the deep Danish black, accompanied by The desire under the hot air in Thailand is much better than Lars von Trier, who was also born in Denmark. I hope that in the near future, I can see more and more movie works that combine things with different things. Who calls "half sea and half flame" can always create unexpected chemical effects!
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