• Reviews

• All
• Music
• DVDs
• Live
• Cinema
• TV
• Books
• Comic Books
• Video Games

Feb 27, 2015 By Kyle Turner Web Exclusive

For the first time, Nicolas Winding Refn has his family with him on a film shoot. It seems that Refn as Artist and Refn as Family Man are having trouble reconciling one another’s existence in the same plane. As Refn comes off of his late breakout hit Drive, he moves to Bangkok to begin production on the follow-up, Only God Forgives. But in the context of a family drama, it’s not necessarily great. Instead, it seems to get more interesting how the two are unable to link themselves, and how Refn’s own anxieties, though they affect his family life, are attempted to be compartmentalized by him.

There’s something very plainly interesting about watching how Refn deals with these various issues, from the pressures of following up Drive to the realization that Only God Forgives isn’t what he had hoped. That earnestness of an artist who is a little crushed at the realities of his final product is kind of sad, and yet endearing. Liv Corfixen, the director’s wife, has to orient herself in terms of her own role, as mother, wife, and artist herself. It’s particularly impressive that these two roles are able to be examined and fleshed out with as much complexity as they are given in the film’s short running time.

I’m not a big fan of the recent male artist ego film, Birdman, because of its smugness, and though My Life Directed By Nicolas Winding Refn isn’t entirely similar, their greatest difference is their presentation of honesty. Refn, by contrast, seems like a sensitive soul, easily spooked, and superstitious. He often consults his friend, the director Alejandro Jodorowsky, for Tarot card readings and career advice. He is sweet, going by the name Jang by his family. There’s a knowing resistance to allowing himself to be vulnerable on screen, as evidenced by a couple of interactions between Corfixen and Refn, and yet that resistance itself is in a way a kind of vulnerability. If there’s an arc in this film, it’s the desire of an artist to get inside the head of another artist.

Perhaps my only complaint of the film is that, at a slim fifty-eight minutes, much more could have been explored. But what’s here elevates what could be a relatively uninteresting on-set diary to a concise look at different artists balancing different goals and seeing how they are and are not achieved.

radiustwc.com

Author rating: 6.5/10