RIFLE RANGE BOY

Back in medical school, we had the honour of having the first-hand experience of listening to a learned man of stature croak cockamamie. The deputy director of Health then officiated some function. The gist of the speech that left an everlasting impression on me was his stand on allocations of funds for research. From the podcast: Bigger than Bacon, Radiolab. He lamented the idea of students complaining about the lack of grants for research. He insisted that of one is genuinely interested in doing research, he can even do it under the coconut tree! I am sure many findings can be cooked up under the tree - with the help of coconut oil, coconut milk and coconut toddy! Somehow, this thought came to me when I was listening to a podcast recently.  Apparently, the first thing they teach you in underwater surveillance studies is to identify a crackling sound which is not the noise of a advancing naval fleet but a particular type of shrimps. These single clawed crusta...

A Classic. Based on a real occurrence... "I am sorry, I won't be able to see in 4 weeks' time," the doctor told Ms Lee as he glanced at his calendar. "It is Agong's birthday." "We can schedule the appointment to see in 5 weeks, is that ok?" Ms Lee, an executive in a small assembly plant in the capital city, was scrolling through her smartphone, looking rather perplexed. "Why, Ms Lee?" Doctor was bewildered to see his patient's facial expression. "You won't be around? You can come and see me earlier if you have any problems." "Err... June 4th? Agong birthday? Is that a state holiday or a national public holiday?' Ms Lee said with a straight face. "You see, I work in Selangor." *** Another classic, may not be based on true occurrence... Bubba, a Texan, was excited to be have won at the raffles to tour Malaysia.  As he was being toured around in a double-decker bus with his mother, a...

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly ( Le Scaphandre et le Papillon , French; 2007) In this life, we are all trapped. The trap could be our doing, by illness, by virtue of our birth or by wrongdoings in life. Because of individual bonds that we build in our lifetime, we are compelled to surrender the fate of nature. It could be easy to live for the moment, leave it all and be indulgent in hedonistic activities, but is it the right thing to do? If so, by whose standards? This French movie, done by a painter, is set in a palliative hospital built by a picturesque beach of Northern France. We are introduced to Jean-Do, a quadriplegic victim of a basilar stroke, whose contact to the outside world is through his left eye. He cannot verbalise, vocalise or respond to the world in any form. After the initial self-pity and brooding, he fights back. With a good set of therapists, he is kept alive. As his condition remains the same with no improvement, he decides to detail his every experience...

Outlander (Season 1, Miniseries; 2014) If you believe in Dan Brown's novel, 'The Da Vinci's Code', then you may be thinking that the fairer sex once ruled the world. Men, once hunters, spent many hours away from the household while women ran the cave. They were awed upon as being the givers of life as they produced offsprings from their bodies and were given God-like status. This arrangement worked just fine. The pagan worship style incorporated this magical ability into their appreciation of the Forces beyond their comprehension. All that ended over time as Man became gatherers started living in communities and with the advent of a monotheistic way of worship. Men became the more dominant one of the sexes. Even in the Hindu mythology, dominant earlier female characters like Draupadi, Satyavathi and Madhavi disappeared over time. This is the angle I seem to look when I watch this Highlander themed British miniseries. Outlander or a Sassenach (Saxon in Gaelic) is a...

Anna Karenina (2012) Leo Tolstoy is considered the greatest novelist of all time and his novel 'Anna Karenina', the greatest novel ever written. His earlier work, 'War and Peace' does not qualify as a story as it is classified as a philosophical discussion. Tolstoy is one who believes that stories should not just have their entertainment value but need to stimulate the mind to think. His other story, 'The Death of Ivan Ilych' is about a dying magistrate as he evaluates his life on earth trapped on his deathbed as his family care for him as if he is just recovering from a minor ailment. Tolstoy can be said to be the spark that became the hero of non-violent movements of MK Gandhi and Rev Martin Luther King Jr. The novel 'Anna Karenina' had been adapted to the silver screen many times. This 2012 version is a British one with Kiera Knightley brilliantly cast as Anna. The scenes were quite peculiar in that they appear to move from one set to another i...

Risen (2016) Like what my friend says, it is about love and faith. Faith gives us that tuft of hope when the going gets tough and the end seems hopeless. The fight would go on by offloading some of the pressures to an overseeing Being, while Man can continue doing what he does best. When anxiety builds up and all odds are stacked against him in an unfair distribution, Man starts asking what the meaning of life is all about. What he gets is a muted, deafening, stony impassive silence. When he thinks the Power above would be just and equal in his distribution of comfort and happiness, what he sees are random occurrences and chaos. Nonbelievers accuse believers who surrender themselves to outlets like self-indulgences and religion as quickly laid out answers to the questions of life as committing philosophical suicide. He accepts the absurdity of our dull and futile lives by actually killing off our ability to inquire and reason. He seems to be taking the easy way out without really...

Peppermint Candy (1999) Story, Direction: Lee Chang-dong Everyone starts life with a chest full of zest. Slowly equipping themselves with a head of dreams and the arsenal of preparatory tools to sail through life, they head challenges head-on. The end point may be a goal, a desire to see a better tomorrow or a peace of mind. Guided but rudderless sometimes with the interference of raging adolescence or hitting a brick wall, they sometimes have to change course. Like an electronic toy which hits an obstruction, they recoil and re-direct, hoping to hit the path of least resistance. They recoup and relaunch like an Energizer bunny. They hit and bang till sometimes the internal constitution just gives up. That, in summary, is life. The ocean is there, the journey, the unknown path, the vehicle, destination unknown, no compass, no GPS, no clue on ETA but endpoint eventually reached. The writer turned filmmaker has been making quite a number of interesting movies over the years. This...

Danish Girl 2015 I know this movie will not make its way to this coast anytime this lifetime. Artworks using LGBT issues are a sure ‘no-no’ for the censorship board. The beholders of morality have no qualms in sweeping matters of corruption and another overt disservice to humanity, issues related to sexuality and sex would alert their antennas and they would go that two extra miles to ensure these productions do not see the living daylights in this country. This film is an attempt to narrate, with artistic licence, as the story is altered to suit the audience’s appetite, the dilemma that a certain Danish painter went through to fulfil her inner needs. Eddie Redmayne (who acted as Prof Stephen Hawking) gives an effeminate depiction of Einar Wegener, an artist who lived in the 1920s who feels that she is a woman trapped in a man’s body. Discovering this when he posed in a female garb when his wife’s, another painter, model turned up late, fights the urge and seeks medical help who...

No, you are nobody. Not a special Being sent to existence on a mission. There is no purpose for your being. Your life does not matter to the equilibrium of the Universe. Your flutter is not going to send shockwaves anywhere. Not even a ripple.  You are propelled to Earth by mere chance; the right protein unwasted, utilised meaningfully at the right place at the correct time. Conversely, you could have been just a flushed down debris amongst the many putrefying wasteful effluents of humanity. You are not chosen. Neither are those around you. Neither of you is selected for each other either. The bond that you build along the way is just brittle as the next heart that you break in your next tour of duty called life. Everyone is for himself when it matters most. The filial piety that you give or expect is just societal arrangements to ensure that the unproductive segment of the crowd is responsibly assigned to someone. The cloud of guilt hovers over its shirkers. This kind of arrang...

High-Rise (2015) Where are those happy days, they seem so hard to find I tried to reach for you, but you have closed your mind Whatever happened to our love I wish I understood It used to be so nice, it used to be so good ABBA's 1975 SOS Continuing into the saga of nihilistic movies, this is one that fits the bill perfectly. When we were young, we always thought that the future would be so bright that we would need shades. Unfortunately, when we are here, in the future, it is still doom and gloom. The only vision that is clear to us is that of hindsight! And the ability to savour the memory till that too gives up on us! In our formative years, we also thought that ABBA's songs were full of love and hope. Only now do we realise that the lyrics are dark and screams of melancholy. Even though this movie is set in the early 70's the director decide to use ABBA's music score of 'SOS'  (of the mid-70s) in the background in a few instances to subtly remind t...

Secret Sunshine (Korean; 2007) Director Lee Chang-dong Life is not easy. The inner desire for everyone is to be in control of things, especially of his own. This more so in the modern era where our way of thinking has been stimulated by philosophers and thinkers before us have told us to ask why, what, when and how? Gone are the days when subjects are just are going to take whatever told by the master wholesome without batting an eyelid. It must have been to convince someone that He was the Son of God, or He was the product of an Immaculate Conception and a virgin birth. Try doing it now! There is something about this Korean director, Lee Chang-dong, that I find fascinating. His stories are seamlessly mostly outdoors and scenic view of the countryside. The actors also appear like everyday people like in a neorealist setup. The film starts with Lee Shin-ae travelling to a small town named Miryang (means Secret Sunshine in ancient Chinese language) with her son. The car ...

Nandanar (1942) It is said that the concept of caste started with the Vedic scriptures.  Symbolism is made during horse sacrifice to the Gods. Just like the various parts of the stallion, the different body parts denote hierarchical strata of society. The equine head refers to the Brahmins; the strong limbs indicate the mighty Kshatriyas; the hoofs and discards refer the members of the community who perform menial tasks in society.  Over the generations, societal needs have been fulfilled with everyone performing their worldly duties and status quo is maintained. Members of the lower caste were just to be seen, doing the jobs and serving their masters. Definitely, they were not needed to be around for seemingly clean duties like serving the Gods. Till about the mid 20th century, people from the lowest rung of the caste system were barred from partaking in religious functions or even entering temples. It was the activity of Self Respect Movements in South India tha...

Poetry (Korean; 2010) Director: Lee Chang-dong The bond that binds people goes just beyond the relationship that benefits each other. Even though the link may just be transferring of genetic traits, it goes beyond all that DNA. One has that inborn responsibility to resolve or deal with the mess that one created! At least that is what some people think. The bondage does not just end with the severing of the umbilical  cord or the ending of a corporeal union. The joy or curse of continuity lingers on. This scenic South Korean flick tells the story of, believe it or not, a 66-year-old grandmother, his apathetic grandson, a dead body of a 16-year-old school girl and adult poetry class. In fact, the grandma, Yang Mi-ja,  is the lead character. She takes care of her divorced daughter's 16-year-old son. She lives on a government pension and supplement her income by working as a maid cleaning a hemiplegic man. In the midst of all these, she is diagnosed to ...

The Fountain (2006) Story, Screenplay, Direction: Darren Aronofsky  It seems that there were two trees in the Garden of Eden. When Adam and Eve disobeyed God and decided to savour the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge (of Good and Evil), God cast them to Earth and hid the other tree, the Tree of Life. From time immemorial, people have been going to great lengths to locate this 'Tree of Life'. They are under the impression that it could give Man immortality. This story is just about that and the conclusion that the characters draw quite humbling. It spans three lifetimes all trying to find the 'tree of life' with the hope of attaining immortality! All three lifelines are portrayed interspersed with each other but it all falls into place at the end. In the first one, Tomas (Hugh Jackman) is a Spanish conquistador in search of the tree in South America for Queen Isabella (Rachel Weisz), so that they can live happily together forever. In the second caption, Jackman is...

All the President's Men (1976) It pains to hear the trend of interviews that our reporters pursue as they are invited to a press conference. The questions posed appear so timid and lacked the incisive power to tease out the right information. Quite so often the interviewees wrap them around their fingers and control their strings. The reporters end up as stenographers, but when their reportings draw flak, the respondents would claim that they were misquoted. Now with the hustle and bustle that had hit our land with allegations of misappropriations of funds and other wrongdoings, one is compelled to think that reporters would have a field day, scooping information here and there with the plethora of information available in cyberspace. Unfortunately, it is business as usual. Just another day in paradise. This 1976 film is about the success story in the field of investigative journalism. What started as a routine reporting on a break-in into the Democratic Office by burglars ...

Captain America: Civil War (2016 ) #Scenario 1: At the edge of Sahara Desert, in front of a small district hospital.  After a whole month of travelling on camel backs in a convoy with no untoward incidents, a Bedouin lady just collapsed much to the excitement of the entire village. Long story short, the lady had a ruptured tubal pregnancy, underwent a laparotomy and went back home smiling. #Scenario 2: FG was draughted to help out in a small town at the edge of the country when a cholera epidemic hit the state. After attending to the needs of the ever-escalating number of victims, it was snooze time. At an unearthly hour of 3 am, the ethereal time between slumber and wakefulness, the phone rang off the hook. A desperate sounding staff nurse was frantically looking for helping hand. A parturient mother had been laboriously trying to expel her offspring since midnight but in vain. The elusive endpoint appeared so near yet so far. Hearing that a new young doctor from the to...

The Pervert's Guide to Cinema (2006) Slavoj Žižek, wearing his psychoanalytic hat, tries to dissect the hidden message that movies are deviously attempting to impart upon us, subtly. At the outset, he tells us that films seek to set the ball rolling on many of our desires. It discreetly tells us what to desire, not the other way around, showing us what we should desire instead! All our attractions are artificial, and we are told what to want. In short, we have to be told what to like! He pays particular attention to movies directed by Alfred Hitchcock and David Lynch. Some of the explanations given to the real plot of the story can be described as far out, but with the correct use of rhetorics and dialectics, everything can make sense. Through 'Birds' (1963), he discusses incestuous relationships. The girlfriend who comes to visit the man and her mother is seen as a threat to the mother. The birds are the raw incestuous energy that tries to break the relationship. In...