Only God Forgives (2013)

I’m similarly obsessed with negative reactions to Nicolas Winding Refn’s Only God Forgives, which debuted at Cannes last week to boos and walk-outs. Critics have repeatedly compared it, unfavorably, to Antichrist. (Incidentally, my late mother once asked me if she should watch Winding Refn’s Drive and, instead of offering a cogent argument one way or the other, I just started shrieking on the telephone unintelligibly.) Lately I’ve been jotting some thoughts about movies, and specifically about Winding Refn, at Pinboard. Even more recently—prompted by Winding Refn’s fascinating but weirdly sexist, self-effacingly gynophobic interview with New York magazine—I scribbled down some more thoughts about horror:

With horror, themes I’ll ordinarily shy from—gore, misogyny, sexual objectification, darker things like incest, torture, murder, cannibalism, voyeurism—have carved out a safe space. Horror is a sandbox for exploring every taboo we avoid contemplating and discussing as moral, decent, civilized people. And because horror is “lowbrow” we give it a pass, we’ll chalk naked screaming women up to “cheesecake,” and we’ll too happily allow (with a sigh of relief) otherwise well-adjusted people to enjoy horror for what it’s worth, which is nothing. I still don’t know when I’ll watch Nicolas Winding Refn’s ‘Only God Forgives’ but anyway, this interview is a knockout. He refers to his latest outing as a type of “pornography,” but here I think he means “horror movie.” He talks about violent impulses as something we repress as members of polite society. […] I was especially fascinated by his comments about, as a man, being unable to “control” his pregnant wife’s body, which he nimbly connected to his own fear of women being “in charge of the universe.” He also mentions castration. (Earlier reviews were especially derisive about ‘Only God Forgives’, complaining that it is hours spent in Winding Refn’s psychosexual subconscious or whatever.) I was especially moved when Winding Refn stated his interest in casting a horror movie with only women. The interview kind of throws away Winding Refn’s response, but he says something really briefly about his “male gaze” (in not those exact words), about always intending to focus his lens on female characters but his movies end up being about men anyway. I think people can make really good work especially when we identify certain prejudices and then account for those with self-correction.

I think what I’m getting at is, especially with the horror genre, it’s less important what a movie says and more important that you, the viewer, understand why you’re enjoying it. I believe in judicious self-awareness; a director like Nicolas Winding Refn knows exactly why he makes the directorial choices he makes, and he works those kinks right out onscreen.

Or, if you aren’t enjoying a piece of work—if ultraviolence isn’t your thing, or if you’re suffering a visceral reaction—it’s every bit as important that you identify what about the piece is making you uncomfortable.