"In the blue corner!"
Chang offers the father of the dead prostitute a chance for vengeance, leaving him alone with Billy to do as he pleases. If the father can forgive Billy for brutally raping and murdering his beloved daughter then the film would be done. However, some things are easier said than done, and man's opposing forceds of vengeance and forgiveness are very rarely in sync. Vengeance rules and the father beats Billy to death before losing his own arm to Change for his weakness. Enter the mother figure. Clearly distraught over her son's death, Crystal flies out to bangkok and demands Julian avenge his brother. Sadly, it's not that simple to kill an angel. Particularly the "Angel of Death".
"In the red corner!"
Drive was infamous for its stunning soundtrack, however Refn has rightly traded the electro-pop score for a more ethereal cacophony of wind pipes and tribal drums. Most of the actual music in the film comes from interspersed sequences - strange, yet incredibly fitting - of Chang performing a somewhat menacing karaoke set to his fellow law enforcement officers. The lighting in the film is also extremely expressive - bright neons and shady black lights fill each frame almost exclusively with reds and blues. No surprise here to find the boxing motif of two opposing forces continued in traditional "corner" colours. Colour, alongside music, place the film in a hyperreal Bangkok - beyond the traditions and morals of the everyday world.
sadly, no, he doesn't sing Vindaloo.
The film is, most obviously, a tale of vengeance/forgiveness with a dash of an Oedipal metaphor thrown in there. Not to discount its intention or deliberation, the metaphor is plain to see. Crystal, at a sit down meal with Julian and his prostitute girlfriend, frequently laments that Julian's penis is just not quite in the same league as his dearly departed brother's. Crystal goes on to imply a sexual relationship between herself and Billy, and the metaphor is completed when she claims Julian murdered his father under her wishes. After a lovely dinner, Julian's lady friend challenges why he lets his mother treat him like that, to which he explodes in a fit of outrage. Julian desires nothing more than his mother's acceptance (particularly after she admits she tried to abort him), and in Crystal's final scene he finally gets what he wants...kinda.
oedipus scmedipus
Every single frame of Only God Forgives is exquisitely composed. There are frames within frames that even Kubrick himself wouldn't have thought of. Although at a mere 87 minutes, the film may seem a touch superficial to the untrained eye, with a little bit of hindsight and a few hours to digest the yummy mummy metaphors, the film takes on a reverence much stronger than Drive. It's definitely a psychoanalysts wet dream, and it may just be Refn's best film yet.
44/50 STATES
