[CRITICAL] MY LIFE DIRECTED BY NICOLAS WINDING REFN

Officially, MY LIFE DIRECTED BY NICOLAS WINDING REFN of Liz Corfixen, is a making of’Only God Forgives.

First of all, Only God Forgives²⁰¹³ this is the famous film of Nicolas Winding Refn that everyone, everyone, looked like a Drive bis in Thailand…

Except that once out, it was perceived rather as a film pretentious, undermined by her until the end-ism formal. A film that was stuck in a non-rhythm and was lost in the succession of expressionist paintings – beautiful, but (seemingly) empty of meaning. A film that had not consciousness of his audience. A disappointment.

Having watched the entire filmography of NWR thanks to this retrospective, we have been able to wear a different look on Only God Forgives , that we did not have during his exit meeting. Rather than a work pretentious, Only God Forgives appeared to us as too personal to be accessible. In fact, it is a synthesis of all the themes that have nourished the cinema NWR: parenting, violence, fascination for The Woman, and the importance of the symbolic, lovers, autobiography and catharsis. Better, it is this key to decrypt his films the more obscure, abstruse, or minors, like Valhalla Rising, Bronson , and especially Bleeder.

MY LIFE DIRECTED BY NICOLAS WINDING REFN back on the filming of this masterpiece misunderstood (according to us), and takes the party to see how NWR was planning his film, between the pressure exerted by the entire world following the success of Drive, and his desire to make exactly the film he wanted. Despite its cynical title, MY LIFE DIRECTED BY NICOLAS WINDING REFN is not a study of the couple, Liz Corfixen / Nicolas Winding Refn, and even less a portrait of a lady… He generates on the contrary a huge empathy for NWR, an empathy all the more striking that one knows in advance what the host received Only God Forgives at its output. MY LIFE DIRECTED BY NICOLAS WINDING REFN paints a portrait exciting for a director to be tortured for lacking confidence in him.

Because talent is one thing : NWR knows without a doubt directing actors, conducting, directing, composing a frame, shooting a movement, iconiser its actors… But it appears through MY LIFE DIRECTED BY NICOLAS WINDING REFN, is that NWR does not know or it goes with Only God Forgives. By showing both the excitement of the film set, that intimacy is the most disturbing of the director or the interactions of it with other people, such as Ryan Gosling or his / her technicians and producers, Liz Corfixen captures with lots of emotion and such beautiful moments of hesitation between the search for success through the adherence of his audience, the need to prove his talent, and willingness to speak his / her creativity in a purpose ultimately more personal than altruistic. NWR , like his film, is trapped in this conflict of interest. He sees as we cannot conciliation, and immures gradually in a disturbing schizophrenia : a reassuring and control-freak in public, ultra-depressive in private.

“Only God Forgives wins a new light, by this empathetic film about Nicolas Winding Refn.”

MY LIFE DIRECTED BY NICOLAS WINDING REFN enlightens us on the true nature ofOnly God Forgives. A film to the image of his director: virtuoso, but whimsical, proud, and schizophrenic. A film unaware of what it actually is, which reinforces, for us at least, his aura of genius.

If we remain circumspect with regard to interventions divination of Jodorowsky, because the filmmaker seems to mostly make a transfer of his own experience on NWR;

If Liz Corfixen tired to want to desperately bring the film to her and her uninteresting daily life of the “woman artist-home”,

And if the doubt remains, as to the “staging” of the whole in order to justify the economic failure (and even artistic for some) of’Only God Forgives…

MY LIFE DIRECTED BY NICOLAS WINDING REFN , we will have reinforced the idea that NWR is a author exciting, and that Only God Forgives is actually its C H E F D O E U V R E.

Georgeslechameau

AGREE ? NOT AGREE ?

Nicolas Winding Refn is a filmmaker exciting. To try to capture the essence of his cinema, we are set to 4 (Maxime, Vivien, Georgeslechameau and Paul) to try to break down his filmography. Each writer to be watched all the films, in the order of the output, which allowed the suite to be able to work together to collect the most items. It is then with its own sensibility and its culture, as each one is launched in the drafting of critical, while being able to re-contextualize the films compared to the rest of the filmography, to the whole work.

Results in a folder full, trying to capture the essence of the work of the Danish director and allowing you, hopefully, to better understand the beauty of his cinema.

OUR CRITICS

– PUSHER – trilogy, by Maxime,

– BLEEDER, by Georgeslechameau,

– FEAR X, by Vivien,

– BRONSON, Paul,

– VALHALLA RISING, by Vivien,

– DRIVE by Maxime,

– ONLY GOD FORGIVES, by Georgeslechameau, (in progress)

with a parallel criticism of OGF, MY LIFE DIRECTED BY NICOLAS WINDING REFN by Liv Corfixen

– THE NEON DEMON

See also Our top 10 films of NWR or our different opinions on the work of the filmmaker.

Good read !

Click on the poster to view the critical