ONLY GOD FORGIVES

Denmark/ Thailand, 2013, 94 minutes, Colour.
Ryan Gosling, Kristin Scott Thomas, Vithaya Pansringarm.
Directed by Nicholas Winding Refn.

A revenge melodrama.

What is left at the end of a revenge drama or melodrama – even thinking of Shakesperian and Jacobean tragedies like Hamlet or The Duchess of Malfi? A large number of corpses, a temporary peace and a conqueror who finds that they are in isolation after wreaking their vengeance.

Those 16th and 17th century melodramas are quite stylized in their staging and in their use of language and of poetry. We accept these conventions (or withdraw, shocked) and move into this stylized world. 20th century and 21st century films have their own conventions, vigilante action films, for instance. But, Danish Nicholas Winding Refn has his own conventions for his quite violent stories. He often pares his screenplay of words. In this film, star Ryan Gosling has fewer than 100 words of dialogue. He presents characters like icons, his camera remaining on them and their poses. Many shots are like stills come to life (well, at least, to some kind of minimal movement). It is almost like (as in his medieval drama, Valhalla Rising) that each sequence is like a video installation that could be set up in a museum hall. And, he relies on his use of colour which pervades (or is drained from) his shots to suggest atmosphere and moods.

This is particularly important for Only God Forgives with its settings in Thailand. While there are scenes in the streets and markets and vistas from building roofs, most of the action (not exactly the right word) takes place indoors, in corridors, hotel rooms, clubs, kickboxing venues, each with its distinctive colour, as well as shade and darkness. And the music, bland of west and Thai sounds, is also stylized.

Winding Refn has built up quite a reputation but, for many critics, Only God Forgives was a step or steps too far and a number condemned his violence and his style as pretentious. Be that as it may, it is certainly distinctive.

Re plot? Julian (Ryan Gosling, directed to just be, to sit and contemplate – showing the audience what we should be doing as we sit and watch) is connected with kickboxing. His older brother deals drugs. He also rapes and murders a young girl which leads to a powerful Thai policeman to initiate moves to have him killed. Which he does. That is the beginning of the revenge and its bloody consequences. There are some grisly scenes, especially in a club where a western gangster is tortured in very ugly ways. But, the officer has told all the girls in the club to shut their eyes during the brutality. Audiences may wish to do the same.

The other complication is the men’s mother, a drug gangster herself, who flies in from the US to get her dead son’s body. She is the total dragon lady, blending Lady Macbeth and Medea. And she is played to the hilt by a blonde-wigged, foul-mouthed Kristin Scott Thomas.

The ending will leave audiences puzzled. The Thai officer goes back to the police club as he does throughout the film, takes the microphone and sings. While Julian survives, the final image and his action raise both exclamation mark and question mark.

Little evidence that God forgives.

Refn has made an arthouse, bloody revenge melodrama.

1. Nicholas Winding Refn? His career? Danish sensibilities? Violent stories? Visual style?

2. The look of this film, screen compositions, colour and moods, interiors and exteriors, tableau, positioning characters like icons? Long takes, contemplation, the contrast with action, editing?

3. Thailand, as a country, real, of the imagination? City vistas, the towns? Streets and markets, the kickboxing hall, the brothels, the clubs, the affluent hotels? The atmosphere and the creation of atmosphere? The musical score, the range of instruments, Thai sound?

4. The sparse dialogue, the body language, action, manifestation of interior lives?

5. The title, revenge, a melodrama, the conventions of the revenge drama? Crime, persons associated, consequences, torture and killings? To what purpose?

6. The visualising of violence? The kickboxing fights, the murders, bashings, blood and gore, knives and torture, ears and eyes? Crystal’s death and the sword? The end for Julian?

7. The basic plot, Thailand and kickboxing, the drug world, Americans in Thailand, violence and exploitation? The exploitation of women, sexual chattels, poor families and earning money, wealthy clubs? The killings, the police and the pursuit and vengeance? Using intermediaries? The mother and her arrogance, her sons, involved in drugs, Julian and his quest, his fight with the police chief, vengeance, deaths? The police and control? The end?

8. Julian, Ryan Gosling, seemingly passive, few words, in the kickboxing world, his control, the participants? His brother and associates? Drug dealing? His brother’s death, his seeking out vengeance? His mother’s arrival and her influence, spurning him, in favour of his older brother? His girlfriend, the sexual relationship, the dress for the dinner with his mother, his mother’s insults, his letting the girl kept the press and her throwing it back at him? On a vengeance quest, the house of the policeman, killing his associate about to kill the girl? His fight with the policeman, his losing? The effect of his mother’s death? The finale and his offering his hands to be severed?

9. The police officer, his role, his men? The father of the murdered girl, his threats, severing his hand? The relationship of this theme to Julian at the end? His pursuit of the intermediaries, the westerners, the club, the torture of the man, arms, legs, ears, eyes? The personal relationship with his daughter? Going to the club and singing? The police assistants and their role, interrogations, laying down the law? The finale with him singing?

10. Crystal, hard, her arrival and long journey, her consulting the clerk of the hotel, demanding her room? Her criticisms of Julian, grief at her son’s death? The dinner, her behaviour, rude, insulting the girl, apologising? Watching Julian fight the policeman, his losing, her disdain? In the hotel room, the confrontation with the policeman, trying to buy him off, her death?

11. Julian’s girl, the sexual relationship, the dress, the dinner, giving the dress back?

12. The girls prostituted, the father and his daughters, the murder, the vengeance?

13. East and west, exploitation?

14. The cumulative effect of this kind of arthouse contemplation of characters and themes and the brutality of the revenge melodrama?