Only God Forgives

Why the one star reviews? It's obvious.  Hardly any dialogue, hardly any acting, Ultra violent, totally without cathartic potential.  Distant. Alien.

5 stars? Peter Bradshaw praises the production design, the cinematography, the mixture of bad taste, subtlety and vivid visuals, the visceral emotional  response it pulls out of you(?), the back story (gosling and his brother and their mum are 'very bad people',apparently), the supernatural-like police officer character Chang.

Bradshaw could have done without making that link to Shakespeare as well as making too much of the films 'formal brilliance' but he's right to praise the film for being art and not just celluloid consumptive fodder.

Having established that it's art then, what is it about (the art rather than the plot) and is it any good (the film not the art)?  I'm afraid simply being art doesn't get you off 'that' hook.

In answer to the first question Refn seems to be very intent that the camera does all the talking; an idea as straightforward as it is revolutionary.  This seems to be behind the visual virtuosity and the lack of dialogue.  So stylistically it owes much to animated features or even quattrocento icon painting which was designed to present the bible to illiterate people.  The plot as Refn tells us is a 'western' but told from the point of view of the 'outlaw' gang, with whom we sympathise because they are 'westerners' (I.e Americans) a in a foreign country.  This is the most interesting aspect of the film (as even the 'visual virtuosity' thing has been done in different ways by other directors (Mann, Del Torro, even Paulo Sorrentino).  The hero is actually the fearsome creepy retired policeman Chang, but his code of ethics (presumably Thai) is alien to us and we can only identify with parts of it (he chastises the father of a murdered prostitute for allowing his daughter to become a prostitute but than cuts off his arm (as if the brutal death of his daughter was not punishment enough).  So we think to ourselves maybe a man who encourages his daughter to become a prostitute for economic reasons on the dangerous streets of Bangkok, isnt particularly 'punished' by the loss of a cash cow that was probably on borrowed time- daughter or no-, particularly when he has another 3 daughters, as Chang reminds him when he chopped off his arm.  Thus as westerners we are being critiqued as we watch this film. As the film unfolds we find that a bloated, decadent, corrosive western culture (something that is only reinforced by the pseudo erotic tension between Scott-Thomas' -well cast- and her sons ) is being critiqued.

So is it good.  In retrospect yes but it's not an enjoyable film, although it has its moments. The visual brilliance (which includes the violence) suits the 'academic' film watchers like Bradshaw -who want to nod and wink at fellow thesp connesieurs- as well as it does the high-violence thresholders, but it's a trap.  These are not solitary 'cock-a-snooks' but essential elements in the strategy of alinenation that underpins the film.  Those who realise that the visual style , and lack of dialogue doesn't really work, that Gosling doesn't really do very much in the film (Evans would have been interesting simply because of how he looks), and doesn't convince us of his essential internalised rage (again Evans natural features may have communicated that better), but instead comes across as a sad damaged little boy.  

The fact Chang's 'arc' through the film comes as a genuine shock, tells us much about our cultural prejudice .  We are forced to consider which is the greater crime; violently killing  a few bad people with whom we identify, allowing the drug business to continue by letting our western rogues off lightly(not to mention letting them get away with murder). Again our western prejudices are highlighted one only has to recall the predictable shock when some 'poor' British girl faces the death penalty for trying to smuggle drugs out of some eastern country.  It may be Ryan Gosling and Scott Thomas are both appealing but they're also bad, not loveable rogues, not noble savages....just bad.  In fact Bradshaw is wrong about the who comes out of it well.  Chang has stopped the death and misery that comes with the  drug trade via his 'sword of justice' and Gosling seems to recognise the decadence his family embodies by the end if the film, perhaps changed for the better by his life in Bangkok (that's not very western like...the bad guys should simply be bad-but this redemptive quality is perhaps the one familiar celluloid consumptive trope that Refn allowed himself so that he could avoid completely alienating the watcher.  Mai, is perhaps the one thing in the film we can relate to, but that isn't the same as saying she's comes out of the story well (as Bradshaw says), and it isn't saying much.

So this is a film about film and about culture as depicted by film, it's difficult watch in that takes us to an alien place and uses alien -if insisting that the camera takes primacy can be called alien- means.  Perhaps Refn is also trying to say that formulaic plots have corrupted the purity of film as much as glamourised gangsters have corrupted western culture. Maybe.  Here I am questioning my values. That's the films triumph because that seems to be most art can aspire to nowadays.

And just to return to that formal brilliance, scenes from the film stay with you because of it but it depends on who you are, it tells you what you actually engaged with in the film.  For me it was 'the' fight scene.... Again totally unexpected.

Dumbed Down: Bach, The Stirling Prize & Mies

I'm reading several things at the same time right now; Building Seagram, the fascinating account of the commissioning and building of Mies van der Rohe's New York masterpiece.  A book on  one of the fathers of Renaissance architecture, Donato Bramante, by Arnaldo Bruschi, and the latest AJ which has eulogies, pithy interviews and details (really informative details-thanks AJ and nominated architects) of all the nominated buildings.

In fact I've got details on the brain.  Details of the process recounted by Phyllis Lambert which would eventually lead to the exquisite Seagram Building.  Things came together that would perhaps never again do so; a client with a profound sense of craft and quality; an architect with (even now after his death) an unrivalled ability to achieve it; a budget large enough to achieve it and a client advisor with the depth of passion and purpose to ensure that the achievement was measured against the best that mankind had ever produced.  Reyner Banham once said of Corb's Vers Une Architecture that it would be the only architectural treatise from the 20th Century worthy of a mention in the history of mankind.  While it's practically impossible to identify a building that could occupy the same position, it could be said perhaps that the Seagram Building, among works of architecture is the most emblematic; the perfect apologist for the 20th century.  

Designed by a man who spent much of the time, 'thinking', according to Lambert.  What thoughts! Thoughts manifested in the legendary articulation of the Seagram facade as well as in sayings such as 'form is not the aim of our work, only the result' and 'architecture is the real battleground of the spirit'.  At the same time as reading these books I'm also listening to Bach's 'The Well Tempered Clavier' repeatedly (aware that Colin Rowe once compared a Palladian Villa to a fugue and that Mies probably has equal right to such a comparison) and have watched Oliver Stone's epic on Alexander the Great 3 times in the past couple of weeks.  Alexander =Bach = Mies 

and surely they all would have all appreciated Bramante, the architect who more than any other save Alberti before him, dedicated himself to working on 'Architecture as a Language', Mies' own definition of his vocation as the Tempietto and Palazzo Caprini amply testify.  There are big dreams at work here and a recognition that they can only be achieved 'one carefully placed brick' at a time, with vision, courage, sacrifice and strength of will.  Mies's Seagram sketches are not all that impressive; Alexander wasn't necessarily the best warrior, Bramante may not have been the most talented or most skilled of his generation, even Lambert had no business experience when she commissioned Mies.  In this there is a lesson for us all.  'Means must be subservient to values', Mies would say.

So on to this years Stirling Prize.  Is there any among the nominees who will make us 'dream big dreams', as Anthony Hopkins' Ptolemy recounts in Stone's 'Alexander'?  Well I don't think it will be the very nice and very skilfully executed housing in Harlow that will do it, or some skilfully sweetened sink housing in Sheffield.  In fact it would take a lot for any housing to so move us.  No, it's more likely to be the Agora like university buildings in Limerick, all heavy concrete, stone and civilising intent.  The numinous cavern of the Giants Causeway Museum? Hmmmmm.  Then there are the two 'struggles' for the very   highest; one palpable, the other invisible; Astley Castle and Bishop Edward King Chapel respectively.  These two are separated from the others by a Lote tree.  

This years  RIBA Gold Medal winner Joseph Rykwert, in one of the best building write-ups by him in a while tells us how The chapel is liturgically formed of two elements, the altar and the lecturn, and of how the ellipse, generated from these 2 foci,  is the perfect shape to express the basic conceptual arrangement.  

From this genesis comes the roof, whose slightly sunken soffit uses the invisible line linking the two foci of the ellipse -floated down a short distance from window head height- as it's datum.  Directly from this then comes the exposed internal structure which lightly and delightfully supports this roof only at its sunken 'hull' and which, making an aesthetic virtue out of the necessity for cross bracing- assumes a form akin to the type of fan-vaulting that is associated with Gothic churches, such as one finds in and around the college where the chapel is located.  The lattice trails off beyond the hull at both it's ends, resolving itself just short of the enclosing elliptical wall where the members turn sharply downwards to form columns, the inner colonnade of an ambulatory, but more of that later.  

Light is admitted at clerestory level between slender stone fins, bouncing of the smooth plaster soffit-hull of the roof.  
Most architects can only dream of such a supreme  resolution of form and function, from which seems to derive a completely consistent layering of richness, of an order that seems all but absent from much modern architecture, here it seems effortless.  Bramante and Bach would have no doubt approved.  And yet somehow the perfect balance is upset. Something disturbs about the final result.  Something detracts from the union of concept, structure and form begun so promisingly.  Those stone fin mullions  don't quite 'fit' and there is a formalism at work bedevilling the naturalness of the final result.  It is the ambulatory, or rather the way in which it seems to have been created 'almost as an afterthought' (it seems almost silly to say that but bear with me) which seems to be at issue.   It's as if the ambulatory has been formed by disengaging the roof structure from the wall at some point during the design process, curving its criss-crossing members downwards to form the columns.  This creates two separate structural systems; the masonry one of the enclosing walls and the engineered timber one of the roof/colonnade.  Having set up this tectonic duality in order to form the ambulatory, the subsequent treatment of the now independent masonry enclosure confuses.  The tripartite stratification of its stone cladding  into ashlar, houndstooth and mullion fin at the top seems to retain a vestige of a previous tectonically unified scheme which would have, notionally, been a timber framed building with the stone encasement effectively 'hung' from it. The stone fin mullions at the top are strongly suggestive of this notional timber frame 'breaking free' at this point in order admit the clerestory light, otherwise this treatment of the stone enclosure can only be explained by wilfulness and formalism.  The details supplied by the architect support this contention.  It turns out that slender steel ''T' sections presumably bolted to an inner structural masonry leaf are the 'real mullions' supporting a clipped-on stone fin externally  and SW clad in MDF internally.  If we look closely, we might also object to the steel 'X' ties which provide hidden but necessary support to the roof structure at the criss-cross points.  

Rykwert, who wrote of the necessity of artifice, may well direct our attention at this point to the way in which Mies 'hid' the  fire-protecting concrete encasement in his steel framed buildings with a plate metal sheathing and welded-on extruded 'I' sections.  In his defence Mies would have said that these measures  played the same role as mouldings in classical architecture; elaborating on the underlying constructional philosophy; a legitimate part of the 'spiritual battle' he talked about.  

We are quite a ways from this at Cuddesdon College and it's new rather delightful Chapel.  The building I'm afraid, is the poorer for this lack, but this is to enact the harsh judgement that is reserved only for the very best.  Remember, when we mention Mies in the same breadth as Bramante or Alexander in the same breadth as Achilles, no one flinches.  An august and select group.  And why should we flinch from the mention of those names and achievements which vindicate humanity's existence?  God knows we spend enough time focusing on what detracts from it; war, environmental catastrophe, cruelty.  There is inspiration as well as caution; carrot as well as stick.

So it is with this spirit that I hope -along with McLaughlin-the architects of the re-animation of Astley castle, Witherford Watson Mann will not take offence if  perchance they ever read this.  I hope they they will see that it is their excellent work- like that of McLaughlin- that has given us occasion to remember the stuff of Greek legend (literally and figuratively), even though ultimately, that excellent work falls short of it.

I remember the original model for the Astley Castle scheme, a new armature-represented by balsa wood- inserted into the existing fabric-represented by plaster- in such a way so as to support, protect and extend the historic fabric.  

I remember being really quite excited by this approach at the time, I thought it was brave and necessary.  As Edwin Heathcote notes in his write up of the project, not enough of the english modern approach to extending the country's historic fabric attempts to commune with it, to measure ourselves against it, to give us the opportunity of taking our place within the unfolding history of human experience.  WWM's proposals for Astley Castle promised much in that regard but they haven't 'quite' delivered.  

First off, the inserted new armature is not as homogenous as that balsa wood and plaster model suggested it would be, but this is going a bit too far.  The armature is formed of  foreign brick (well chosen I might add) sharp concrete and -problematically I might add- engineered wood in the form of Glulam and various combinations of softwood and laminated Oak.  The brick-supplied by legendary manufacturer Petrsen Tegl- is a typically long and flat continental variety whose colour compliments the weathered sandstone of the existing ruin and whose flat profile allows the new construction to get 'up close and personal with the old'.  At the same time the flush mortar joints give the new brick elements a confident presence so that the new is not simply overwhelmed by the wrinkly, crevassed history of the old, even if by 'stepping forward to be counted' in this way, they are ultimately outdone by the adjacent weathered craftsmanship of bygone centuries.  

Having used such a beautiful brick so extensively however, one may be forgiven for thinking it strange that more use has  not been made of the vault and the arch, perhaps in the way that Kahn showed us how to.  Instead of vaults we have concrete lintels which it has to be said -if a full and frank discussion with the past is to be had - are a truer reflection of modern syntactical sensibility than vaults and arches.  Having said that though the type of lintol we are treated to seems a rather inadequate thing, strangely subdued. Again the details supplied tell us the reason why since these are 'biscuit' type lintols much of whose active bulk is hidden from view.  The overall effect is to render the new construction very much like drapery or tapestry, an impression reinforced by the textile quality of the brick, the way the brick turns into a carpet in the outdoor dining room and the way certain details render the construction 'weightless'.  I'm thinking particularly of the large opening (or parting) immediately to the left of the fireplace in the outdoor dinng room, supported seemingly impossibly off the centre of a large window opening.  Such details reveal a desire to 'tread lightly' on history which is perhaps entirely appropriate in this day and age, confidence in our contemporary architectural production not being what it was.  We'd have to go back to the time of Spence's Coventry Cathedral to find it at an all time high, and to the kiboshing of ABK's competition winning National Gallery proposal by Prince Charles, to pinpoint the start of it's decline.  Even Alexander, eventually had to listen to his troops, end the campaign and turn for home, but the subtlety and ambiguity of the approach adopted here by WWM is beguiling.  

And so to the timber, exposed roof structure and joinery elements- all of which are executed in various types of engineered rather than natural  wood, so subsequently there is no 'real' grain and no aspirant prenatal form (Kahn might've asked if it knows what it wants to be).  It might as well be..well... Er...Balsa wood.  It is however difficult to see how the roof in particular could have been executed in oak or something similar without being prohibitively costly.  But the 'unfinished' aesthetic WWM have chosen an 'unfinished' for these wood elements doesn't help matters, a deliberate 'provisionalism', done certainly intending to complement the ruined state of the host structure and perhaps even to celebrate it, but like McLaughlin's clipped on mullions this is a step too far down the road of artifice for me and smacks a little of wilfulness.  Take the stair for example.  Rather than make a sophisticated parody of an unfinished stair why not actually 'design' a timber stair as a beautiful form (like you get in stately homes..hint) and then let the centuries do their own work rather than try to usurp the right of time?  But perhaps honing the engineered wood into such complex forms is the only way to make it 'sing'?  Maybe this kind of treatment is what the relatively anodyne exposed timber roof structure is missing, (it almost seems to be just once removed from being in need of plasterboard and skim)? Hmmm.  But it's  the extra-tall windows that bother me most, particularly when seen in the same breadth as the exquisite weathered stone tracery of the ruin.  

A series of characterless custard picture frames clumsily attired with a fig-leaf lead skirt.  Taken out of the context of this historic ruin, the materials; brick, concrete and blonde timber if not ordinary are certainly unspectacular.  Think WWM's own Amnesty International Headquarters in Shoreditch and you'd be on the right track; ordinary raised to the level of the extraordinary.  One wonders if there a veiled champagne-socialist imperative to democratise this ancient stately residence; to surreptitiously undermine its exclusivity through a studied unfussiness ?  Is this why Heathcote in spite of himself likes it so much?  If this is so then this is a mistake.  Mies knew that architecture had to be essentially apolitical: 'we refuse to recognise problems of form, but only problems of building' he said, but the same could be said of the 'big picture problems of politics'.  If architects want to change the world they should perhaps take to the streets or vote like everyone else, or even write but they should never imagine that their work can change the world should they?  Well Alexander, Bramante even Mies and certainly Lambert would disagree with me here.  In response I would only say remind them of their own approaches, indicated at the beginning of this piece; 'brick by carefully placed brick with courage, will and conviction'.  Striving after God/Greatness through details.  Then Alexander, Bramante, Lambert and especially Mies would see what Im driving at.

If these details aren't constructed champagne socialism though, then they (the lead skirt and the ceiling joists included) are the solved 'problems of building' par excellence, which perhaps leads us to think that Mies contradicted himself when made that statement until we remember that he also said: 

'Means must be subsidiary to ends and to our desire for dignity and value'

P.S

Alexander may have been an inveterate dreamer, hankering after the glory of Achilles  but he would have achieve nothing without first being perhaps the greatest military general and strategist in history.  Phyllis Lambert may have dreamed about the beauty of The Renaissance but she would not have got near it without the kind of tooth and nail fighting that saw her stubbornly insist on  10 foot high ceilings so that she could bargain for the 9 foot ones that she and Mies actually wanted. Details.  Greatness.

The Top Ten Fictional Mentors (In order of 'Bad*ness) [*Bad is used here in the sense of 'extremely impressive']

10 Bruce Wayne

There are three incarnations of Bruce Wayne as mentor.  The earliest is the slightly over-earnest, grey spandex wearing, slightly overbearing 'father figure' of the 1960's 'BIFF', 'THWACK' really really camp Batman and Robin series.

Next we have the brilliant bitter, old and twisted (physically and emotionally) retired Batman / Bruce Wayne of the Brilliant futuristic animated series 'Batman of the Future' where the old goat has passed on 'cape and cowl' to teenager terry McGinnis while he 'runs 'tings' from the Bat Cave.  McGinnis has to balance being Batman with homework, babysitting and keeping his girlfriend happy.

Finally, we have the semi-retired Batman of the recent movie 'The Dark Knight Rises' where Bruce Wayne/Batman is as much inspired/motivated by the young police officer John Blake (who's figured out his secret identity) as the other way around, and who leaves Blake 'The Batman' in his will.

My personal fav? Bitter, old, twisted and animated!

9. Obi Wan Kenobi

Being responsible for the training of both Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker- the two most significant figures in the Star Wars saga -gets Obi Wan on this list, even though he messed up royally with Anakin.  Played to brilliant effect by Alec Guinness and Ewan McGregor '....You were the chosen one.......!!!!'


8. Lord Matsumoto Moritsugu

Ken Watanabe's portrayal of this inspiring old world samurai warrior-poet earned him an Oscar nomination and almost made us forgive one of Tom Cruise's most annoying performances in an otherwise utterly forgettable movie.  It was brilliant the way Watanabe radiated calm from his Buddhist temple in the Samurai village.

7. Master Yoda

He's trained Jedi for over 900 years, need I say more?  Slightly ridiculous CGI version of his younger self in the later Star Wars films.  Check out Tartokofsy's brilliant animated version of him in the excellent animated 'Clone Wars' (as opposed to the CGI ' Clone Wars').

6. Ducard / Ras Al Gul

Batman's Mentor turned enemy-when Bruce Wayne declined to share in Ducard's expansion of revenge for his wife's murder, into a misanthropic murderous campaign against everyone everywhere who might not be very nice.  Captain Ahab would be proud.  A hard, bitter and twisted taskmaster.  I bet he was bullied at school.  A note, Bruce Wayne/Batman's enemies are always versions of himself.  There are who he may have become had he failed to keep the lust for revenge at bay.

5. Colonel Kurtz 

 Marlon Brando in an iconic performance.  How many mentors do you know who decapitate their victims while quoting TS Eliot?  By the time Willard realises that Kurtz is 'mentoring' him, from a distance, through his file, it's too late!!!  He is to Moritsugu what Darth Vader is to Luke Skywalker.

4.Mr Miyagi

He's Mr Miyagi.  He's fat Coca Cola in a glass bottle.  Everyone else on this list is Coca Cola in a plastic bottle (diet, zero, etc..etc..) or Sainsbury's / Morrisons 'cola drink'.


3. Pai Mei

All of the mentors up until now have been real 'baad-aasses' who nevertheless retained a kind of humility or emotional vulnerability and there is an understanding that this is in fact part of their strength.  Not this guy.  Tarantino's sadistic task master is 'Baad' and he knows he's 'Baad' (he even has the same shoes and socks as Michael Jackon).  It's Darwinian.  He's at the top of the food chain and he knows it.  Reminds me of my old 11+plus tutor Mrs Koshi.

2. Li Mu Bai

The legendary swordsman who just wants to give up thrashing bad guys and live the quiet life with equally Michelle Yeoh (don't we all).  However he is drawn to the precocious and rare martial arts talent of Zhang Ziyi's 'Jen'.  Amazing sequence where he gives Jen (who is no mug) a fencing lesson with a tree branch (while she uses his legendary antique sword 'The Green Destiny').  He subdues her with the stick.  Later on in the film he moonwalks on water proving that he really is Michael Jackson 'Baad'.

1. Master Toda

He is referred to at certain points in Yamada's subtle melodrama 'The Hidden Blade'.  It's the end of the 'Samurai way', the West is encroaching on Japan.  Master Toda, legendary fencing master has apparently seen the writing on the wall and given up his Samurai status to become a farmer (for which he is mocked).  Towards the end of the film, he makes a 5 minute appearance as Kategiri (the film's main protagonist) seeks out his old fencing teacher for one last lesson as he has to fight someone whom he is not confident of beating.  Kategiri arrives on Toda's farm to see the old man tilling some soil.  He asks for help.  The old man picks up the Kendo training sword used for practice and selects a bit of bamboo lying on the ground for himself (he only has the one Kendo sword) and obliges.  I would trade all the other films on this list for the 5 minutes that Master Toda is on camera in this movie.  The film is also the most profound on this list