ONLY GOD FORGIVES - FILM REVIEW

 

Release Date: 2nd August 2013 (UK)

Age Certificate: 18

Running Time: 88 mins

Director: Nicolas Winding Refn

Writers: Nicolas Winding Refn

Stars: Ryan Gosling, Kristin Scott Thomas and Vithaya Pansringram

Every couple of years, there's only a few films that splits the film community in half. This year that film is Only God Forgives. Some say it’s a masterpiece, whereas others would say it is the worst film they’ve ever seen. I couldn’t wait to view it and come to my own conclusion.

Julian, played by Ryan Gosling, is a drug-smuggler thriving in Bangkok's criminal underworld. However, he sees his life become even more complicated when his mother, Crystal - played by the ever competent Kristen Scott Thomas, dictates him to kill whoever is responsible for his brothers recent death. 

I’m going to say it; I loved Drive! (directed by Nicholas Winding Refn) It's become a cult film, so it's easy to say, but it was just one of those films that brought a feeling I hadn’t felt before. I would have loved to have seen it on the big screen, but unfortunately I ‘didn’t look old enough’ to get in. After reading the rave reviews I bought it on Blu-ray a couple of months later. The romance, the tension and the direction all bought something to the table, to create a great work of art. 

I sat down to watch Only God Forgives wanting to leave with the feeling.  After viewing the film I didn’t know what I felt. Perhaps it was one of confusion. I wasn’t confused about the concept of the film, it was the confusion of whether I liked it or not? 

Right from the bat, this film looks amazing. I knew it would, as I regard the cinematographer Larry Smith, as a genius. He has an eye for shots that stay with you long after the film has ended. Only a few flicks in the history of film look as good as this. It’s that stunning! Directing is also outstanding, apart from his twisted visions that he shows in his films. In addition to this, the soundtrack is mesmerising - a moody electronic vibe from Cliff Martinez, who also worked on ‘Drive’

The downside of Only God Forgives is that it is gratuitously violent; I mean there is an eye ball stabbing in this film! You don’t need that in a motion picture, personally it did nothing for me. Some of the other scenes are a bit too graphic but as Nicolas Winding Refn said, ‘violence is my fetish.’ His favourite film has been The Texas Chainsaw Massacre ever since he was 14. Enough said!

I felt nothing for any of the characters; they were are all heartless, cold and murderers. The only exception was Crystal, Julian’s mother. She’s just a bitch.  Julian was a troubled child; it is possible there was forced incest between him and his mother. Not the typical motherly love you might say. There is also another hidden truth that he has buried away; all I’m going to say is that hands have a big role to play in the film. He yearns for forgiveness.

Only God Forgives has concealed meanings and metaphors, mostly and probably all to do with God. I’m not going to say which character is supposed to represent God, but I’m sure you can work it out.

I could dive into this film describing the meanings scene by scene but I don’t want to spoil it too much. Even if one doesn’t enjoy the concept and story, just go to admire the absolute beauty of the film.

The key complement I can give, is that it’s a film that I have not seen the likes of before. There should be more films that are more ’out there’ and shouldn’t have to worry about being commercially acceptable. 

7.5/10

Score could change (it’s one of those films)

 D.R. HAYES

Satan; A fall out from Heaven

Lucifer; the angel which befell upon the shelter of human civilization, struck this once place of magnificence, like a lightning bolt. Lucifer, once head of choir in heaven, bellows his destructive and diminishing foulness onto innocent persons. Do we have the ability to question the integrity of us people, when it is said to be the damning forces of Satan which condemn us to such reckless thoughts and lack of morals instilled within us. Many claim it is not us who solely embark on the journey of evil but this negativity has been enforced onto us.  Can we question the truth of this?. There are  boundless rumours of secret societies present and organizations which attribute to the worship of Satan. For instance the rumours of The Illuminati is infamous. The  idiotic yet deceiving  mannerisms of these 'worshippers' could be blinding us from the truth. Many ridicule the '666' hand gesture and masonic hand pyramid gesture. Of course as a society we ourselves cannot acknowledge what is of a true nature and what is false. Many claim the music industry and film industry, in fact the whole entertainment industry have been controlled by The Iluminati and celebrities are ordered to perform certain roles. Wether this is all true or not, we shall not be able to establish  the possible agendas of the Illuminati. We cannot be able to differentiate between what is goodness and what is evil. We shall usually act as to what we see is right.. The forces of nature becloud us from our love for good, as natural disasters are responsible for the deaths of millions. Is the almighty God not foreseeable of this disgust of a future?. Can freemasonry be worthy of the title of a new religion?. Will it be racist for us to despise their rules of religion and their worshipping? Many may infer this to hypocrisy as it is of good morals to be obedient and respectful of others. The true question we may ask ourselves is; is god real?. Surely if the presence of this almightiness is real then so should Satan's. Maybe we are not too fit of a position to speak of their presence. There is no such evidence for their evidence, except what is written in the scriptures of holiness. If  man claims to be seeing a ghost, they are either hallucinating, under the influence of a side affecting substance, or a being with insanity. There is no evidence for supernatural occurrences , so people who 'see' are damned insane. There is no evidence for God so does that not make over 3 billion of us insane?. It was stated that reasons being for Satan's exclusion from heaven were selfishness and self empowerment. These two words are quite fond in the dictionary of our brains, as we too act with selfishness and thoughts of self empowerment at times. Does this make us multiples of Satan?. Satan is usually illustrated in the colour of red. This colour popular amongst us is symbolic to hatred, blood, death, war and fire. All words of a negative aspect to perceive Satan as a diabolical presence of this universe, earth, us?. Make no mistake to indulge in a period of hate for this wicked creation, but surely remember that the colour red is also a  representative of love, passion, determination and strength. These desirable words make us wonder of the character Satan truly is. It is both positive and negative words intertwined to form a creation. These words may of been burnt into our thoughts and feelings from birth. We all have goodness and badness within us. Some more bad than others,and some with a performance of more good actions. Satan was an angel, was he not? so how does  God not have the willing power to destruct him, as Lucifer must of been his creation. Does God not have control of negative forces?. Is this the reasons being for the occurrence of natural disasters. A rapist may blame the sultry looks of the victim and a murder may blame the annoyance of its victim. It is true that many are affected by a bad upbringing and a form of psychological disorder, but are we not to blame for ourselves. Lucifer was an angel but a corruption of power distraught his good will. Who knows... does God exist? does Satan exist. That is not for us to discover but we shall act in a good manner as we can still distinguish between what is good and what is evil. If these  scriptures are speaking of truth, remember Lucifer once an angel, now a wicked force of nature. We too can easily fall into the footsteps of badness but as members of this society, we can only act upon what we have been taught. We are taught that yellow is yellow and we believe this only because we have been taught this. Real or not, stick true to the angel within yourself.  RAKULAN SIVALINGAM

Utopia - TV show

Utopia is one of those shows where a guy walks into a school and kills some children. And all for the camera to see, all for the eyes of the audience. Of course, you don't exactly SEE the shot hitting the child, but, you know it does, because he aims his gun at a child, shoots, and the starting credits roll. The first episode has what feels like a ten minute torture scene of someone putting bleach, sand and chilli into someone's eyes, after which he fully takes one whole eye out with a spoon. Offended? Good, because Utopia breaks the mould for British television. It's HARD, incredibly dark, beautiful and violent, brave enough to show scenes that could cause controversy for decades. It's a British show that DOESN'T know its limits. It isn't afraid of what the viewer might think. This show goes up there with Britain's best to offer, amongst Sherlock, Top Boy and Luther.

As well as a lot of blood, Utopia has a lot of yellow in it. One of the best features of Utopia are the beautifully framed and crafted shots that are shown to us. Each shot is like a piece of art, the framing so excellent it'd make an excellent piece as a photo on a wall. The show is very artistic. You can't help but stare in awe. And within these shots is a lot of yellow. It's hard to explain, the creators were insistent on including this colour in almost every scene. It's a recurring theme or so, perhaps, maybe. One thing's for sure is that it does make the show look even more good and even more attractive. An additional plus is that the music or score or whatever, is also brilliant, very edgy and nervy, yet maintaining and pushing the pop arty feel of the show.  

Utopia is a conspiracy story of a group of people who are brought together by a cult graphic novel, due to the fact that these people are the only only known humans to know of this mysterious and rare comic, and there is a known sequel that they all wish to read, so they are brought together to share their appreciation, because they al think that the story is incredible, the artwork fantastic and the back story to the author scary. At the same time, another group of people, called "The Network" are seeking the sequel to this comic, because it holds information that is vital to their intentions. The Network are ruthless and brutal. They pretty much just kill anyone who gets in the way and torture anyone with information. The people in possession of the sequel are in constant danger. And so finally it lands in the hands of six people who just wanted to read a comic. Though through reading, they discover a deep, dark and nasty secret that puts the lives of millions of people at risk, thus begins their plan of trying to stop the conspiracy of The Network. 

Edward Nigma 

Invisible Cities: Italo Calvino

Jeanette Winterson once wrote that Invisible Cities by Italian writer, Italo Calvino, is the ‘book I would choose as pillow and plate, alone on a desert island’, and while I wouldn’t recommend eating off this book (it’s quite small) or using it to rest your head upon (again, it’s quite small – and hard), I would definitely recommend reading it.

Published in 1972, the novel takes the form of a conversation between the 13^th century explorer Marco Polo and the Chinese emperor Kublai Khan (also immortalised in Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s virtually indecipherable, opium-fuelled poem Kubla Khan, but that’s another story), during which Marco Polo describes a number of cities he has supposedly visited on his travels. These descriptions become increasingly imaginative and imaginary as the novel progresses. For example, take this description of the city of Argia:

What makes Argia different from other cities is that it has earth instead of air. The streets are completely filled with dirt, clay packs the rooms to the ceiling…We do not know if the inhabitants can move about the city, widening the worm tunnels and the crevices where roots twist…everyone is better off remaining still, prone; anyway it is dark.

From up here, nothing of Argia can be seen; some say, “It’s down below there,” and we can only believe them…At night, putting your ear to the ground, you can sometimes hear a door slam.

Or this one of Eutropia:

On the day when Eutropia’s inhabitants feel the grip of weariness and no one can bear any longer his job, his relatives, his house and his life, debts, the people he must greet or who greet him, then the whole citizenry decides to move to the next city, which is there waiting for them, empty and good as new; there each will take up a new job, a different wife, will see another landscape on opening his window, and will spend his time with different pastimes, friends, gossip.

Calvino’s fictional Polo goes on to describe a city built on a cosmic plan, a city built on stilts, a city that never ends, a city constructed entirely of water pipes, a city divided between the living and the dead, a city divided between work and play, and many more (including Octavia, ‘the spider-web city’). In these descriptions history, fantasy and reality are inextricably intermingled; they are, in the words of Kublai Khan, ‘consolatory fables’.

This is the second novel by Calvino that I have read (the other being If on a winter’s night a traveller – which consists of the opening chapters of ten different novels!) and there are definite similarities between the two books. Both are incredibly original, imaginative and inventive, and both dispense with a traditional narrative structure in favour of an episodic approach with the different elements of the novel held together by the themes and ideas that Calvino is exploring. In the case of Invisible Cities, it seems to me that it is the nature of cities and the importance of travel and consequently of home that is being explored; Polo has travelled extensively across the world, but it is his home, Venice which seems to be always on his mind as he tells Khan that ‘Every time I describe a city I am saying something about Venice.’ It is the schizophrenic nature of cities, in all their multifarious splendour that interests Calvino (as well as Polo, Khan and the reader); it is their duality, their insatiability, their unlimited capacity for expansion, their horror and their delight.

Cities, Polo contends, are the ‘inferno of the living…the inferno where we live every day, that we form by being together.’ What could be a more appropriate description of London in 2013? There are, Polo tells Khan, ‘two ways to escape suffering it’, but you’ll have to read the book to find out!

 

Mr R.

Ivor Cutler: I'm Going In A Field

When he was alive, Ivor Cutler (1923-2006) was a quite brilliant poet, singer, songwriter and musician. He was also Scottish.

Cutler first experienced nationwide fame when he appeared in The Beatles’ film Magical Mystery Tour as bus conductor Buster Bloodvessal. Following his role in the film he made an album with Beatles’ producer George Martin, called Ludo, on which ‘I’m Going In A Field’ appears.

Cutler’s music is gloriously silly, and seems to hark back to a simpler time and a simpler life and serves in the 21^st century to remind us all that everybody takes everything FAR TOO SERIOUSLY. It’s not all work, work, work you know…or at least it shouldn’t be.

Mr R.