Which films had visceral impact? Greg Dolgopolov begs to differ with the SFF jury, tries to calm a mind roiled by An Act of Killing, and hoists a flag for the valiant Rocket.
Invariably the jury gets it wrong. Terribly wrong. To award Nicolas Winding Refn’s Only God Forgives the top prize at the 2013 Sydney Film Festival was simply weird. Sure it was stylish and… yep Bangkok neo-noir stylish and bloody and minimalist. But courageous, audacious and cutting-edge filmmaking it was not. For gangster film fans there was something there, for many others the bar at the State Theatre was far more appealing. This is the second time Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn has won the $60,000 Sydney Prize, previously winning it in 2009 with the British prison thriller Bronson, without bothering to turn up.
