RIFLE RANGE BOY

The Eternals (2021) Director: Chloe Zhao The story is actually an amalgamation of many stories, folklore mainly. After all, most world mythologies have almost a similar theme. See how often babies are left to float in a vessel by a river to escape persecution. Moses survived Pharoah's persecution and was adopted by the Pharoah's daughter in a twist of fate. Karna was left off by his unwed mother in Mahabharata to escape humiliation, only to be adopted as a charioteer to fight his younger brothers later! And see how everything comes to an end, in Armageddon, or when Kalki descends from his horse at the end Kaliyuga. Gilgamesh So, how did Judea-Christian mythology get intertwined with Hindu mythology? Simple. After destroying the First Jewish Temple in Jerusalem, Jews were taken as slaves and brought to Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar and subsequent Persian conquerors. They spend 48 years in Babylon imbibing the Indus culture into their, hence, the cross-overs. King Cyrus freed them fr...

Dev Bhumi - Land of the Gods (2016) Director: Goran Paskaljević As we grew up and our eyes slowly peeled open to the changes around us, we felt ashamed. Maybe because of the western type of education taught to us, we were embarrassed by our heritage. We perceived our own culture as archaic and that our parents were living under a rock. The world, it appeared then, was changing, and we did not want to be left behind. We could wait to grow wings and pave our own paths. We ran through the gruelling mill of life, and soon enough, we realised that there was wisdom in what our ancestors did what they did. The raging hormones of youth and the lure of material gains clouded our judgement. We tell ourselves, perhaps, they were right. We yearn to get back and make amends. But, no. The others think you are a fool and are best left alone. This 2016 movie made by a Serbian director with co-writing input by the famous Victor Banerjee, is a slow-moving film with the breathtaking view of the Himalayas...

We all know how much Christmas is commercialised in the modern world. Not to forget how the tunic of beard man Yuletide coincidentally shares the same colour with the most favourite drink, Coca Cola. There is this town in Finland, in Laplands over the Arctic Circle, named Rovaniemi. Besides being the spot to view the Northern Lights (Aurora Borealis), it is also said the official hometown of Santa Claus. After being flattened out in World War 2, the town promoted itself as a Christmas destination after Eleanor Roosevelt, American First Lady, popularised it. Rovaniemi welcomes about half a million visitors annually. If the rest of the world is contented with one stereotypical look of Santa, Slovenians can be incredibly proud of their three Santas. Each of their Santa reminds them of a different time in their country's history. Santa, Miklavž and Mraz First, there is the story of Saint Nicholas (or Sveti Miklavž in Slovene), a third-century bishop who is reputed to have saved a ...

Churuli (2021) Director: Lijo Jose Pellissery When it came to my attention that the Kerala High Court agreed that the language used in this movie is 'atrocious in nature' after a portion of the film was played in the court following a writ petition, I was excited. In my mind, any publicity is good publicity. After plucking the movie out of cyberspace and watching it, I was hooked. I was eager to find out where the film was heading. Amidst the beautiful green lush of tropical Kerala countryside, two undercover cops infiltrate into a remote village to apprehend a hardened criminal. The problem is that neither of them had a clue how he looked like, but they were determined to find out anyway by mingling with the villagers. The towering trees, the rugged terrain and the imposingly dense forest with the eerie background sounds of Nature set a perfect backdrop for a suspenseful thriller with hints of extraterrestrial visitation. The undercover cops, Anthony and Shajivan, soon discove...

Bure Baruta @ Cabaret Balkan (Буре барута @ Powder Keg, Serbian; 1998) Director: Goran Paskaljević I learned about this director when I watched 2016 'Dev Bhumi, Land of the Gods'. This film is another of his many highly acclaimed directed movies. Made in the heady times of the 1990s when the Balkan country, Yugoslavia, was on the cusp of disintegrating, and every ethnic group was embroiled in conserving their dominance. Slobodan Milosevic's Army was terrorising, and the economy was in the pits. This era even brought a new English word - 'Balkanisation'. Like Yugoslavia, which was synthetically united by the winning political powers of the Second World War and their own as six sovereign nations, Balkanisation is the term given when a few provinces want to gain autonomy from a country. The film's first dialogue reminded me of a recent conversation at a dinner table with a friend.  "This is a goddamned lousy country; why would anyone want to come back?" T...

The Beatles: Get Back (Docuseries; 2021) Disney Plus Imagine working around Saville Row, London, on 31st January 1969. You step out for lunch and hear a loud commotion with music emanating from atop one of the roofs. Upon enquiring, you find out that the Beatles were performing live. It was destined to be their last public performance before the group disbanded. A year previously, they had come out with the eponymous 'White Album' to soaring success. The White Album, their ninth album, a double album, was named simply because of the colour of the album's jacket. The White Album was a phenomenal hit, but it was rumoured that the four members had serious creative differences that most of the time, they had to record separately. It is said Yoko Ono's persistent presence in the studio was their sore point, together with Paul McCartney's domineering attitude.  Partly encouraged by the skyrocketing sales of the 'White Album', they were coaxed to get together for a...

Last Night in Soho (2021) Director: Edgar Wright We always like to think of the 'good old days' and how life was simpler then and people were honest. Were they really so? Artefacts from our pasts stir so much serotonin that nostalgia sells. Like Pavlov's dog, we drool at sephia photos of yesteryear. Would we really give up everything we have right now and recoil into the past and do it all again if those days were indeed so simple? If we were to delve into our lives, we should consider ourselves lucky to have survived the negativities that could have brought us down at every single turn of our lives. We should thank our lucky stars that the turns we took at the crossroads of our decision-making moments turned out to be a-OK. Not perfect, could have been better than could have been worse off. What made us take the right turn? Is it some kind of guardian angel, guiding light, our sheer intellect or the deeds of our past karma? I guess it is a topic for the sophists to argue a...

Miniature boats on Karthika Purnima to commemorate  the  rich maritime glory of ancient Odisha. It marks the  change  of  monsoon tides. Sail is set for Java from Odisha . We like to convince ourselves that a particular ritual will help us in our life ahead. Perhaps paying tithe or giving alms will ease our path to salvation. They say that a cleansing bath in a specific lake on a particular day will symbolically wash away one's previous sins, even of previous births. With the conviction that we had of our past lives and have more future births to sail  through to attain Moksha, the breakaway from the curse of repeated birth and attainment of eternal bliss, we religiously indulge in this activity and that. Karthik Bath in Odisha The recurrent thought that has been going on throughout my life is this. Am I so lucky to have been told these secrets of life by virtue of my birth as a Hindu? My other good friends who, through no fault of theirs, had not been expo...

Thirteen Days (2000) Director: Roger Donaldson Recently Barbados, the Island Country in the Caribbean, cut her ties from British Commonwealth and declared herself a republic. She unceremoniously replaced QEII with her President as the Head of State to cut off England's previous legacy in slavery.  It also declared China as a friendly nation to rub salt on an open wound. To strengthen bilateral ties, flights between countries were commenced, and Barbados went so far as to let the Middle Kingdom finance many of its development projects. The Western world decries that this is a prelude to a takeover of Barbados by China via debt traps. Barbados denies, saying that China's loans constitute only 2.5% of the nation's total debt. America is, of course, hot under the collar because of its proximity to the United States. This kind of reminds us of the thirteen days of the Cuban Missile Crisis in the autumn of 1962, which almost triggered the Third World War.  Soviet SS4 ballistic mi...

Shang-Chi and The Legend of Ten Rings (2021) Gone are the times when Hollywood made movies that overtly mocked cultures other than Western ones. Typically Indians and Chinese were portrayed as bumbling fools. Their cultures were made to look ridiculous, and their followers were mere bufoons. Perhaps they still  do that but, alas, in a more subtle way.  Just try to remember Amrish Puri as a Kaali worshipper enjoying human eyeballs as a delicacy and the faithful and spineless follower of Fu-Manchu plunging to their deaths in Hollywood's Fu-Manchu series. For that matter, even the Russians and German were made to look like headless chickens running aimlessly in espionage sagas and combat movies. Shang-Chi was a character introduced by Marvel in 1973 to spice up the series and satiate the appetite of comic fans the world over. Shang-Chi was presented as a long lost son of Fu-Manchu, who had been training in Tibet. In the earlier films, his daughter Lin Tang was characterised as hi...