Only God Forgives

Only God Forgive is about Julian, a drug-smuggler thriving in Bangkok's criminal underworld, sees his life get even more complicated when his mother compels him to find and kill whoever is responsible for his brother's recent death. 

What still puzzles me about this movie is the reception of it at Cannes this year. It was booed, and critics almost unanimously called it the worst movie of the festival. Surely, I did not have a chance to see Blue Is the Warmest Colour, the absolute winner this year which received an impressive amount of accolades and seals of approval from everyone. But the more I think of the movie, the more I see its ingenuity and, simply put, greatness.

The Ides of March

The politics is a dirty business. This assertion goes without proof, it is an axiom. And this assertion also means that politics is a perfect topic to explore in a movie: it is only natural to recall Shakespeare and the tensions and emotions of his plays. The topic, I believe, remains underexplored despite the lack of good and fresh ideas obvious in the cinematography now.

The Ides of March is based on the play “Farragut North” by Beau Willimon, and the influence of theatre can be sensed throughout the movie. Relatively short at approximately 100 minutes, it sets fantastic example to numerous recent movies in terms of how to keep attention of the audience. Just like in a theatre, the movie throws you right in the middle of the action, gives you a couple of minutes to familiarize yourself and then quickly throw a few problems in, and before you even decide for yourself what would be the best course of action, the movie proceeds to catharsis, leaving you pondering about the nature of human beings.