Why was this pure kino so poorly received?
Because it was fucking dreadful.
Mainstream reviewers didn't understand it and whenever they don't understand something it must be because the film is pretentious and definitely not their own ignorance.
This nonsense is so inorganic to any sense of globetrotter restlessness or anything explicitly or metaphorically to do with British or American colonialism that it just feels derivative. That Kubrickian scene in Drive of dead-eyed strippers watching an assault gets extended here in a more elaborate whorehouse sequence where catatonic hookers bear mute witness to instances of police corruption. Refn’s tableau of organdy-gowned call-girls listening to pop while watching violence in a bouquet-bedecked whorehouse is the ultimate David Lynch parody.
Gosling and Refn have art ambitions–a strange sense of fun. But how can film culture progress with fantasies like this? There’s no shock or outrage left. Refn relies upon a level of menace (unerotic, non-provocative) that precludes caring about or responding to violence, vulnerability, mortality. This is cinema for unsophisticated viewers who don’t already know Bunuel’s eye-slashing, Altman’s Coke bottle assault or Shakespeare/Julie Taymor’s Titus. Children of Kubrick, Friedkin, Lynch and Tarantino, they remain infantile about movies.
>>72051556
It's really not a great film.
>>72051605
What's the movie on the right?
>>72051556
it was so pretentious and try hard-y that not even critics liked it. thats when you knowna movie is truly shit
>>72051582
>>72051609
>>72051638
>>72051605
But the movie is a simple and straight-forward story, it's just told with very little dialogue
Hardly pretentious
>>72051556
Great movie, the theme of HANDS either being righteous or villainous was well done throughout.
>>72051726
The fact that it's a straight forward story isn't the issue, it's that it transparently tries to purport itself as something much bigger that makes it pretentious.
>>72051556
Are we to believe that this manlet thai could realistically beat the goose in a fight?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ktIzXU4N0Gk
Terrible, unrealistic movie.
>>72052059
When does it do that
>>72052112
Wrong link, here's the fight scene
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eh45O6mcb-o
>>72052112
Canadian vs. Tai, I know who my moneys on.
>>72052112
>>72052168
>experienced cop who is the embodiment of vengeful justice versus a young guy who "never was much of a fighter"
Being a handsome, tall Aryan like Gos only goes so far
>>72052167
Throughout its entire run.
>>72051556
Because reddit wanted "Drive 2: East Asia Drift"
Shit movie and Gosling has all the charisma of a block of wood. Plus it seemed like it was building to a big fight which was a one sided curb stomp.
Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn's new film "Only God Forgives" comes across as that annoying friend we all had at college, who kept droning on about the beauty, grace, and honor of martial arts, all the while tending to his bloodied knuckles. In a recent interview with our own Simon Abrams, Refn said, "Emotionally, our artistic expression consists of sex or violence. It all boils down to those two pure emotions that we have." Not only is this take on human relations unoriginal, it's also sophomoric and blatantly untrue. In "Only God Forgives," the director goes even further to suggest there is elegance to brutality. Tell that to the guy who just had his hands lopped off.
>>72052059
>it's that it transparently tries to purport itself as something much bigger that makes it pretentious.
It never does that you idiot, i fucking wish you were here right now so i could rip your fucking shitposter face off you little stupid cunt. Stop posting on this board
It was just boring.
I understood the story on my first viewing and the not-so-subtle metaphors weren't that great either. It just didn't have anything interesting going on except the cinematography.
>>72051556
Because this board is full of plebs.
>>72052523
>>72052609
>>72053577
proof
>Look it's just God creating Adam
>Hardly deep
>Really, pretty straightforward
>Yeah, but it's beautiful
>IT'S PRETENTIOUS
This is how you guys sound
>>72052609
Tell that to the Zod who just had his neck snapped off
>>72051556
People will start appreciating Refn after he kills himself.
>>72053747
this
