Marlina the Murderer in Four Acts is at first glance a convergence of cinematic influences. Set in a rural Indonesian town, the story follows the recently widowed Marlina’s (Marsha Timothy) journey after she murders a band of thieves and rapists in self-defense when they invade her home. The film, with its simplistic narrative divided neatly into four acts, is less about the moral gaze and more about visual and aural rhetoric, recalling the works of Sergio Leone and others that make up the “spaghetti western” genre.