RIFLE RANGE BOY

  House of Secrets: The Burari Deaths (2021) Netflix, 3-part documentary. Director: Leena Yadav Just like a thin line that delineates ingenuity and insanity, there surely must be a fine line separating faith and delusion. There is a constant need to remind ourselves that religion was introduced to mankind to help him to make correct decisions to stay grounded on the most fulfilling path of life. Towards this end, specific do's and don'ts in life were decreed. At a time when humanity's mental facilities were not fully developed, these rules helped Man make rational life decisions. Along the way, these religious edicts took control over logical thinking and questioning culture. Many things were taken in wholemeal from sensory nerve to somatic nerve bypassing cerebral cortex and higher centres. When we were growing up, we thought bizarre crimes and UFO sightings were only seen in the USA and newspapers. I remember reading about the Jonestown mass suicide in Jonestown, Guyana, ...

Madaathy, An Unfairy Tale. (Tamil; 2021) Director & Writer: Leela Manimekalai It is said there is a back story behind every village deity. Madaathy is one such goddess. A representative of the feminine powers of the Universe, it is said that she is the embodiment of the spirit of a wronged low caste adolescent girl.  The first scene itself sets the mood for the rest of the movie. A newly-wed couple, in their best attire, goes on a joyful motorbike ride to Madaathy temple. En route, the bride realises that she just started her menstruation and insists that they stop to get some kind of sanitation napkin. It would flash upon viewers that we are into something taboo. Are they going to cancel their journey or continue to the destination? We are left to wonder. The story revolves around a group of the lowest of the Dalit community, the Puthirai Vannars.  Sometimes, I wonder whether these types of communities and such levels of oppression do actually exist. According to the dire...

Yennanga Sire Ungga Sattam (என்னங்க சார் உங்க சட்டம், Tamil; 2021) Director: Prabhu Jeyaraman Suppose the idea of affirmative action is to uplift a particular community group and give an equal fighting chance to the oppressed to get their place in the sun. In that case, it should only be handed to one generation. After being given the levy, their offspring should not be expecting the same. Everybody only gets one chance. They are expected to pull themselves up by their boot-straps with the chance given to them. That is it. Freebies are not infinite.  This film is one of the many new genre movies which highlights the plight of fringe people. The filmmakers named this movie a duplex as the real story with message starts with the movie's second part. The first part is essentially a draggy commercial that does not contribute much to the rest of the story. In a complicated way, it boils down to two scenarios. The first instance involves an interview for a government post. The viewe...

The Bacchus Lady (2016) Director: E J-Yong Bacchus was a new word to me. It actually refers to the Greek god of wine, sometimes associated with Dionysus. Following the 1997 Asian financial crisis, many elderly people found themselves needing to fend themselves. The Miracle at Han River, following years of economic boom following the Korean War, left a country so entwined in the material chase that the traditional Confucian values had lost their appeal. Many young Koreans had emigrated, leaving their elders at home. South Korea is said to be having one of the worst social safety nets amongst OECD countries for its senior citizens. OECD (Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development) countries comprise intergovernmental economic organisations with 38 nations founded in 1961 to stimulate world trade and stimulate economic progress. Its precursor, OEEC, was started in 1948 following the implementation of the Marshall Plan to develop post-WW2 Europe. The poverty rate of elderly peop...

1950s P Ramlee The teachers thought he was mental. Living in his own world, humming to the tunes that emanate from his mind, they were sure he would end up as a nobody. Some even toyed with the idea of sending him off for a psychological assessment, and perhaps to a lesser taxing environment, unlike the grammar school that he is placed in. Collectively they thought he belonged to the loony bin. Surprise, surprise, 20 years on, he was composing music, making movies and winning international awards for his acting skills. The boy grew up to be the one and only, the legendary P Ramlee, a national treasure.   An elderly auntie once told me that she and her husband had decided to leave their first home in Lorong Seratus Tahun in Penang. They were particularly disturbed by the loitering of boys along the roadside, strumming away their guitars and crooning into the deep of the night,  crooning in their high pitched squeaky voices.  They were not thrilled by their unkempt beehive ...

The 10th Victim (La Decima Vittima, Italian; 1965) Director: Elio Petri Riding high on her fame as Honey Ryder, 1962 Dr No's Bond Girl, as the Ultimate Bikini Goddess, Ursula Andress continued making movies banking on her sex symbol status. She also appeared in the 1967 Bond spoof 'Casino Royale' as Vesper Lynd, whose grave we saw in 'No Time to Die'. In between, this Swiss vixen also found time to act in this B-grade Italian movie.  'The 10th Victim' is a futuristic movie set in the 21st century, where the world enjoys peace as society has managed to put a stop to wars. Man's predilection for violence is curbed by having society-sanctioned killing. Each person has the opportunity to kill ten people in a computer-drawn programme named 'The Big Hunt'. In five of the hunts, the selected play hunter and the other five, he plays the hunted. The hunter is given all information about his target but not the hunted. The hunted is clueless about who the a...

Sennai (செந்நாய், Clay-coloured dog, Tamil; 2021) Directed: Jayakumar Sedhuraman There is a new genre developing in Tamil cinema. It is usually done by independent studios as it deals with subjects no major production houses and directors would want to dip their hands in. It is called the Dalit cinema. It deals with primarily taboo issues that affect the Dalit community, Officially caste discrimination is supposed to have been eradicated from the day-to-day life of an average Indian from the early days of Indian Independence, but in reality, it is far from over. I remember a staff nurse who was high-in-demand to assist in neurosurgical surgeries. Every time that medical centre had an emergency neurosurgical case, her assistance was sought. She was there in all such cases, nursing each patient back to health. Unfortunately, when the same nurse had a medical emergency, she had to be transferred to a public hospital due to the exorbitant cost involved in treating her there.  The same ...

Doctor (டாக்டர், Tamil; 2021) Story, Direction: Nelson Dilipkumar At one look, it may look like a poorly made comedy with the protagonist appearing all sullen and grim, with a perpetual frown throughout the movie as if he holds all the world's problems upon his shoulders. And it is supposed to be a comedy of all things. On the other hand, the plot is about the hero rescuing his love interest's niece from abductors involved in an international child abduction racket! Quite a perplexing one is this dark comedy. It is, however, not short of one-liner punchlines. It conveys the message that we are all self-centred hedonists who are only interested in self-gratification and personal interest and see not beyond our immediate family members. Rules and regulations only apply to others. We are quick to close an eye and bend the rules when we are in the spotlight. The movie starts with Dr Varun (Sivakarthigeyan), a military surgeon, deciding whether to operate on an Indian Army afflicted...

Jai Bhim (ஜெய்பீம், Tamil, 2021) Director: T.J. Gnanavel The Sivakumar family, by default, has come to be known as the first family of Kollywood. Of late, their production company has been churning out movies that dare to question the status quo in their state. With their clout and close association with the state's ruling party, DMK, they are often accused of pandering to the party's political agenda. Political analysts familiar with the Indian political scenarios are quick to highlight such glaring examples. (More of it later!) The real Judge Chandru with his celluloid representation. We have seen countless movies painting cops in a bad light, showcasing their inefficiencies and manipulative skills in 'fixing' cases. It is not all fiction. In fact, the truth is stranger than fiction. Ask Judge K. Chandru. He has thousands of such issues and more examples in his illustrious career. This movie is a dramatisation of one such case, which happened as late as 1993. Viewers ...