RIFLE RANGE BOY

Prisoners (2013) Director:  Denis Villeneuve Sometimes, bad things happen to good people; conversely, good things happen to bad people. "Who are we to judge?" we ask ourselves. When things get too complicated, we end the conversation by saying, "God knows best!" When an adult dies after living a fun-filled life with booze, drugs and flesh, we rationalise his demise by uttering words like 'he should have seen it coming' or 'he lived his life to the fullest'. When no vices are detected, the spot diagnosis would be 'God loved him more'. If the deceased is an infant, toddler or newborn, the standard answer is 'God, in his wisdom, had bigger plans.' We are too perplexed to think of a reasonable explanation. Invoking the name of God somehow seems acceptable. Washing hands the responsibility and passing the buck to an invisible force that does not justify His moves is legitimate. Nobody gets angry with God. Nobody can derail God's plans ...

Juror #2 Director: Clint Eastwood Yet another big one from Clint Eastwood. This 94-year-old may have directed his last movie, but one can never say never. This one makes us think, as did his previous offerings, like 'Letters from Iwo Jima', 'Flags of Our Fathers', and 'Gran Torino'. It is a courtroom drama along the lines of '12 Angry Men', where the moral decision of convicting a person of a serious crime is the mainstay. This film, however, goes one step further. One of the jurors, Juror #2, may have committed the murder in the case he is judging. On the day of the incident, the Juror witnessed the tussle between the accused and his girlfriend at a bar. The girlfriend was found dead later that night by a creek beside a road. The accused was seen following his girlfriend in his car. With his destructive anger management issues, he was naturally accused of having mortally wounded his girlfriend.  The trouble is Juror #2 is a recovering alcoholic and was ...

Requiem for a Dream (2000) Director: Darren Aronofsky The President of India, a rocket scientist and an overall good soul, once told his audience, "Dream is not that which you see while you sleep, but is that something that does not allow you to sleep." Don't jump about it; put it in action! They also discuss the American dream, which states everyone has equal opportunity to achieve success and prosperity through hard work, determination, and initiative. Yes, we can convince ourselves that we can do it. We should go for it, putting our minds and souls into it. However, the fact is that people win and people lose. Only some people are cut for it. A thin line exists between having the mojo to do it and not. One should recognise their shortcomings and jump on to Plan B, not forever flogging a dead horse. Worse still, when one fails to pick up the telltale signs, one buries oneself deeper and deeper into a cesspool of self-defeating habits, hoping for a miracle to happen. Whe...

Le Samourai (The Samurai; 1967) Director: Jean-Pierre Melville The film title card starts with a fabricated quote from Bushido, the moral code of the samurai. It says,  "There is no greater solitude than that of the samurai, unless it is that of the tiger in the jungle… perhaps". Miyamoto Musashi, probably Japan's foremost samurai swordsman of the late 16th century, is said to have said this, among other things. He describes the solitary path to success as being filled with loneliness. Solitude accompanies the path to success. He further goes on to say, in one of the books that he had written, that solitude shapes, moulds, and builds character all along our journey to success. Does this go against the grain of what we have been taught? We had been told that we are social animals and that a man is not an island. Social interaction is essential for mental health, and a child turns out to be developmentally stunted without the tactile stimulation of his loved ones. On the ot...

Roman Coins with Thali I remember observing my Amma's thali chain during my childhood days. I came to realise that one could determine many things about the wearer's background by just observing the chain that a married lady dons. It would tell us if she has recently tied the knot if it is just a bright yellow string. The actual thali would be tucked inside the upper garment. After a few days of wedded bliss, as part of the festivities and a means to flaunt to relatives, the thali would be transferred to a golden chain, and the sovereignty would scream bragging rights. The yellow string will stay put longer than it should if finances are down. If a married lady, often seen donning a golden thali chain, is suddenly downgraded to wearing yellow string, that would indicate hard times hitting the family. The family members have every right to feel embarrassed, and the outsiders have the right to form opinions. The head of the family will feel slighted for not providing enough for h...

Le Cercle Rouge (French, The Red Circle; 1970) Written & Directed by: Jean-Pierre Melville The 'Red Circle' referenced in the title is from a fabricated quotation allegedly uttered by Siddhartha Gautama. The Buddha had apparently  drawn a circle with a piece of red chalk and said: "When men, even unknowingly, are to meet one day, whatever may befall each, whatever the diverging paths, on the said day, they will inevitably come together in the red circle."  That red circle is where we will all converge to be judged after all our shenanigans here on Earth. We can aggrandise ourselves all we want, follow the path that we think is true, pray to the God we believe is the true God, and label others as lost causes. When we reach the end of the line, it will all be the same. This French heist film is set in Paris and boasts an intense, suspense-filled,  nearly 30-minute silent heist sequence   that is the climax. S ilence and intense focus  create a riveting experie...

The End of An Affair (1999) It is not so much about an affair but rather about believing in God. This 1999 version is a remake of the 1955 version starring Deborah Kerr and Van Johnson; based on a bestseller of 1951 novel by Graham Greene.  Set in WW2 London, a writer starts a steamy affair with the wife of a bored civil servant. Their affair comes to an abrupt end when the room they occupy is shelled. The wife ends the affair for no reason, in the writer's eyes. The writer goes off to war and returns a year later when the war is over. The writer meets the civil servant husband, who is in a dilemma. He suspects that his wife is cheating on him. He is in two minds trying to hire a private investigator to snoop on his wife. The writer sees the  PI on his behalf. Actually, the writer is also curious about the new lover. A bumbling PI comes to the scene. He mistakenly assumes that the wife's meeting with a priest is a romantic meeting. Next, the writer's catchup with the wife...

Growing up in the later part of the 1970s, kids of my generation were drilled into us that India was a subcontinent of poverty, filth, and pickpockets. Even our history books taught us that it was a land of darkness, living in its myths, superstitions, and cults, waiting to be civilised by the mighty European race and their scientific discoveries. https://borderlessjournal.com/2024/12/16/how-dynamic-was-ancient-india/ This work is licensed under a  Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License .