RIFLE RANGE BOY

Usually, I do not give too much importance to things that are spiritual in nature. I just simply join the bandwagon to keep people, especially my loved ones, happy. Like when I, the first born to my father, was summoned to perform certain rights on the first anniversary of his death, I just obliged. I knew it would make my mother happy to see my father 'sent off' to the ethereal world in a proper manner. It does not matter that my parents towards the tail end of his life, could not stand each other but that is another story for another day. The purpose of the prayers on the day of first death anniversary is to remind the soul of departed that he is not forgotten here on Earth. By invoking the forces of Nature, appeasing the feminine forces and cajoling the spirits of the ancestors, it is hoped that the deceased will keep a cursory eye on the wellbeing of the living. Do these things really happen or is it just another mumbo jumbo set up to put the element of fear of t...

Tokyo Trial (2016, miniseries) Came to know about this miniseries through an article that highlighted two shrines in Japan in which an Indian judge's, Radhabinod Pal, is feted. Monuments are placed  in Yasukuni Shrine and the Kyoto Ryozen Gokoku Shrine in his honour. That kindled my curiosity. My research finally brought me to the 2016 4-episode miniseries on Netflix. Like the Nuremberg trials, a tribunal was set up in Japan to try Japanese military leader, former Prime Minister and his ministers for their involvement in the Second World War and the inhumane manner in which their subjects in their occupied territories were treated. Over 2 years, 11 judges, all linked to the victorious Allied Forces, presided on the fate of the Japanese war 'criminals'. Judges from Australia, New Zealand, the UK, USA, France, Netherland, France, Canada, the Soviet Union and China were the initial selection. The Military Supremo General Douglas MacArthur, who was the coordinator ...

The Secret Behind Communism (2013) Author: David Duke Growing up, we were fed with ideas that Jews were wronged in Russia (and the whole world). The first exposure to this must have been when we were first given free movie tickets, during special national holidays, to watch films like ' Fiddler on the Roof'. Here, Russian Jews were portrayed as simple people living quiet lives only to be chased around for their beliefs. Whether it is a belief system or ethnicity is another bone of contention as breeding within the community is emphasised by its practitioners. My earlier understanding was that Jews and Communism were on the opposite of the camps. Now, this book by Dr David Duke postulates that in fact both of them are comprised of Jews. Communism is a Jewish construct, financed by the Jewish capitalists and the mass murderers of the 20th century are not the Germans but the Jews themselves. The word 'Holocaust' has been hijacked by the world to refer to the gassing o...

Shirkers (2018) Producer and Director: Sandi Tan Imagine our life is like a giant boulder rolling down slowly the street without stopping. All along its path, it would be collecting grime and shedding filth at the same time. Some of the dirt that it picks up sticks for a good while others may leave as quickly as it is get attached. In our passage of life, every encounter is an event. Some contacts stay to build an everlasting bond and others may just be mere passing memories. Sometimes, we cling on to these flitting moments. We yearn to relive those moments as we feel we could have achieved more if we had followed a different trajectory or at least gasped to that speckle a little longer. That must be the reason why old photographs and footages evoke the kind of emotion that questions our existence. Spiralling our memories to a specific time and space could stir the avalanche of sensation that could make us wonder if our lives would have different if we had taken a ...

Sex Pistols It is quite comical to hear how some ladies insist that absolutely no one can tell them how to dress. I chuckle a little (to myself) when they say that nobody can restrict them from wearing a headscarf. At the same time, they cannot be pressured to don one.  To wear or not to wear is not the question but the logic behind it is. What we wear and how we wear denotes a specific identity. We identify and feel bonded to one having the same fashion sense like us. Anthropologically we must have wanted to stay together as numbers mean strength and protection from the evil elements of Nature. The story of the genesis of the greatest punk rock band ‘The Sex Pistols’ is one that began with a group of downtrodden rebellious teenagers who identified them with black leather jackets and outrageous fashion sense. It began when Vivienne Westwood started sewing her brand of garments in a small lifestyle shop in King’s Road in London. Strikingly named SEX, it drew droves of yo...

Who has the last laugh? Everyone is responsible for himself. The world outside there is just out to make mincemeat out of you. They would entice you to tread on the wild side just to get you off balance. They would appear casual just to let you lower your shields. They would encourage you to indulge in social lubricators just so that you downgrade your security level. They would talk dirty just to get you all excited. Then you let your hair down. That would be the hay that breaks the camel’s back. And the world will have a field day. And you would dig, your grave to bury all the good things that you took a lifetime to perfect. The dream that kept you awake comes crumbling like sandcastles that get washed away just like that. People would pry with judgemental eyes. Who cares if they would not be qualified to cast the first stone. Why do they bother? They were not put a pedestal to be praised to high heaven. You were. Nobody told you, but you were the icon that many schoolboys envy...

Port of Call (Hamnstad, Swedish; 1948) Director: Ingrid Bergman The reason I thought that this movie is of value is that it depicts how much our society has changed in just about seventy years. Even though Sweden was regarded as a liberal country then, we realise that they still held many conservative values which by today's standards would be considered archaic. Probably, for the first time, taboo topics like suicides, promiscuity and abortions are openly discussed. This must be something new for the post-World War 2 modern world. Berit is seen jumping off a wharf, to be rescued by a sailor, Gösta, who had decided to call his sailing days quits. They develop a relationship. Slowly, we are told of Bertha's past. She is a disturbed young lady who had a troubled childhood. Growing with a strict mother and frequently quarrelling parents, she yearned to find freedom. One day, a teenage Berit is locked outside her apartment when she returns late from an outing. She ru...

They are no more the weaker sex, the fair one, the one who plays second fiddle, the subservient one, the one to be seen but not heard. Sometimes, their presence was not even made aware as veils hide either their enclosures or their faces. Nanthini The world realised that second-classing half of the population was counterproductive. With the demand for extra pairs of hands in meeting the requirement of the times, the members all sexes were pulled in.  For the first time, women realised that they too could walk shoulder to shoulder with men. With generations of oppression and suppression, their DNA must have understood there was dire need to evolve to stay relevant. Now more and more of them came out their cocoons, demanding equal rights. The powers that be had to relent. By then, everyone realised that it was the way to go. The cake was big; there was plenty for everyone. Somewhere along that path, something went astray. Socio-economic rights were confused with biologica...

A Quiet Place (2018) The movie 'Bird Box' has been compared to this film when the former was released. If in 'Bird Box' the visual apparatus was the weak link, here any kind of sound is the stimuli that agitate the beast. At the slight presence of noise, a creature which looks like the one discarded from the set of the ‘Alien' franchise appears from nowhere to swallow the propagator.  As viewers can see later, high-decibel acoustics turned out to be its Achilles’ heel after all.  The viewers are left in the dark on how it all started but what we are told is that nobody is supposed to make any noise. We end up watching another silent movie without intertitles. There is an option, however, for subtitles for ASL (American Sign Language) as it is used in the film.  Even though all the film critics seem to sing only praises for the film, I was left feeling disappointed. Nothing much really happens in this movie. A family runs for their home as their young...

Vishwaroopam II (Tamil, 2018) Okay, we get it. The Tamilian diaspora has spread its tentacles to the four corners of the globe. The only problem is that the world is almost spherical and has no corners. Everywhere one goes, much like Men at Work's 'Down Under', one is bound to see a fellow Tamilian, not just as among the blue collared strata but amongst the upper echelon of the food chain. But I sense that the moviemakers hint of a particular bias in their caste of these characters. Most, if not all of them, speak with a certain intonation and lingo specific to those in the Brahmin community! But Tamil in Afghanistan...? We also understand that our girls, who used to be typecast as long-haired well oiled exotic beauties and hidden gems of intrigue behind their charming smile are no longer that demure and quiet one anymore. The Tamilachis have answered Bharatiyaar’s call for that modern thinking woman. They have permeated into all fields of knowledge, including defus...

Thirst (Törst, a.k.a Three Strange Loves, Swedish; 1949) Director: Ingmar Bergman. Do you really know what we want in our lives?  Are we dreaming up something and spending our whole lives trapped in a nightmare attempting to achieve the impossible? When mores in the society used to be so strict, perhaps it gave a certain amount of sanity to the general population. With empowerment and the decline in needing to conform, people started doing things as their wish. Happiness and self-contentment is the end-point. The problem is that the quenching of this thirst is an ever-elusive unattainable goal.  The film, which is quite revolutionary at this time, in its cinematography and storyline is typical of Bergman's movies. It speaks of things that are considered taboo in the society at that time- suicide, infidelity, lesbianism and depression. It revolves around three love stories which are somewhat inter-related. It is narrated from the point of view of Rut, who is returnin...