RIFLE RANGE BOY

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...

Roma (Mexican, Spanish; 2018) Written, Produced and Directed by Alfonso Cuarón. At first impulse, it looked like it was going to be draggy long-paused 'arty' movie. Set in the tumultuous times of the early 1970s Mexico, the story is shown in black and white against a background akin to a neorealist style with long takes and long pauses. I t looks like a reminder that history has a bad habit of repeating itself. If now, we have a citizen elected President peaceful ejected by his own in Venezuela, maybe soon to be replaced by a US back figurehead, in the late 60s and 70s Mexico, the situation was about the same. In Mexico, however, the US supported President was hated by his people. The opposing peasants and university students were labelled as communists and were systematically killed by the ruling government.  The family who eats together stays together. This film, however, has nothing to do with political injustice or revenge of the bygone era. The st...

The Conformist (Italian, 1970) Director: Bernardo Bertolucci With rhetoric like "you're either with us or against us!", there is a pressure for most of us to conform. The daily bombardment of an overdose of information in the social media puts its followers in a quandary. The urgency to submit to the flavour of the moment and to be on the right side of history is quite confusing.    No man is an island. Living in a society, we are all interdependent. When one's own survival is dependent on goodwill and patronage of the others,  he would not want to offend the others' sensitivity; he would just conform or at least appear to.  In the current world climate and the country's political scenario, the need to follow the majority is very real. Merely following the tide is, of course, less tiring. Fighting back and arguing your stand may sometimes be an act of futility. Arguing with stupid and zombies is never easy. It takes a certain kind of resilien...