Only God forgives

This week I saw the movie “Only God forgives” (or in Italian even nicer “Solo Dio Perdona”), an emotionally breathtaking, aesthetically brilliant and immensely violent thriller set amongst US expatriates in Bangkok. It is directed by Nicolas Refn, the Danish filmmaker who also directed the Pusher films and Drive. The story is about two gangster brothers in Bangkok. One of them, Billy, is killed after he murdered and raped an innocent girl and the victim's father revenges. The other brother, Julian, does not revenge his brother after knowing what he did. His inability brings two terrifying people into the movie: one is Julian's mother Crystal, the mafia Godmother, enraged at Julian's pathetic disloyalty. The other is the mysterious police officer Chang, who roams the streets armed with a sword: a sharia-samurai of justice. What follows is a deeply disturbing film with dream-like scenes of green light corridors, dragon heads, karaoke bars, torture, deep red blood and much death.

It is a bit of a transition, but death also features prominently in the World Health Statistics 2013 that were recently published. Did you know that every day about 800 women die due to complications of childbirth and pregnancy? And that 80% of deaths from malaria occur in just 14 countries? And that children in low income countries are 16 times more likely to die before reaching the age of five, than children in high-income countries? It can all be found in the publication and statistics at www.who.int/gho

One of the striking tables in the summary is about causes of death among children aged under five. In the first 27 days almost a third of deaths occur, most of them from preterm birth complications and birth asphyxia. Pneumonia accounts for a serious 18% of overall deaths under 5 and diarrhea for another 10%. In fact malaria (7%), HIV (2%) and measles (1%) are not even that big killers anymore for kids. 

There is also good news. The world has made progress in reducing child deaths by 40% from nearly 12 million in 1990 to less than 7 million in 2011. The number of countries where at least 1 in every 10 children die before their fifth birthday has more than halved, from 53 in 1990 to 24 in 2010. Many more children can still be saved with simple and cost-effective care.

In the World Health Statistics there is also information on causes of death in older people. They differ of course from the children, but are also quite different in the old age group itself, depending on how old you are. The very old (80+) die mainly from heart disease (in almost 50% of cases) and for the rest from cancer (13%), COPD (13%) and lung infections (6%). The not so very old (60-70) die also but less often from heart diseases (38%), more often than the very old from cancer (22%), less from COPD and lung infections and more often from the bigger group of other diseases. And obviously all elderly groups suffer much less deaths related to traffic incidents, violence and hiv-aids. On the good side, we can see from the statistics that life expectancy is increasing (worldwide from 64 years in 1990 to 70 years in 2010). And also that some countries are already pretty old (in Japan and Germany half of people are over 45). 

What do the World Health Statistics say about causes of death in Thailand? Is it really as terrible as is shown in the movie “Only God forgives”? Unfortunately, the tables do only breakdown by region and not by country. Looking at another source, http://www.worldlifeexpectancy.com Thailand is not doing better or worse on violence than other countries in the world. 

Of course also people experiencing death or violence are victims. I used one of the lunch breaks for a quick visit to the Red Cross museum that was reopened after a large renovation and modernization. It is more interactive now and you can walk around with an audio guide like in many other museums now. Interesting is that you can sit opposite to an eyewitness and hear his or her story. The tales are mostly about a natural disaster or genocide. Many people have experienced death or torture from a short distance. In some cases the guilty had to face trial, sometimes they escaped and sometimes they received forgiveness, like in South Africa. So not only God, but also people can forgive.

The contrast between listening to the consequences of violence in the museum (learning from violence) and watching a violent movie for fun cannot be bigger. I guess that eradicating violence from films and videogames is not possible and maybe not even desirable. However, it may help to put “Only God forgives” in perspective by visiting the Red Cross museum and by reading the World Health Statistics.