Old is gold?

Woman in the Window (2021)
Woman in the Window (1944)

After watching the 2021 version, which was entirely predictable, with a lot of screaming and display of feminine gusto, I also decided to view the 1944 one. I knew in the mind of minds that the older one, which has the classic black-and-white collection of nuances of acting and beautiful dialogue, will be a head-turner. I was not wrong.

There have been many rip-offs of Alfred Hitchcock's 1954 'Rear Window'. If Steven Spielberg was taken to court for making 2007 'Disturbia', I wonder what they say about this. If in 1954, James Stewart was homebound after picking up a fracture while photographing, here in 2021, a psychologist, Dr Anna Fox  (Amy Adams), is confined to the four walls of her apartment complex due to a bad case of agoraphobia. 

We later learn that she had lost her daughter and husband in a nasty car accident during a winter retreat. She is the lone survivor, testing out a new medicine that may give side effects of hallucinations. She spends time watching old movies and looking out at the apartment across the road. So when she calls the police to report a murder in the apartment across, she is not taken seriously. Furthermore, the said murdered turned up in person! But, as expected, the absolute truth prevails, and after a blood bath, everything gets resolved.

The 1944 version is more of my kind of movie. It is a film noir of a simple plot that has had many copycat films that followed. The sensuality and femme fatale attraction are apparent even when both main characters are fully clothed in formal party attires. However, it is the mesmerising dialogue and the musical score that are the secrets.

A psychology Professor (Edward G Robinson) meets up with his friends in a gentlemen's club after sending off his kids and wife for a summer vacation. In the club, Professor and his friends, a doctor and a prosecutor, chat about a portrait of a woman displayed at a window outside the club. They sigh of declining vitality and reminiscing what their old self would have done if they were to meet in person the beautiful model posing for the picture.

As luck would have it, the friends leave the club and the good professor exits; hold behold, it is indeed the model as mentioned earlier (Joan Bennet). They struck a conversation, and they go for a drink, and they land up in her apartment. But, unfortunately, a man furiously turns up at the apartment in the dead of night and attacks the professor. In self-defence, aided b the model, the professor kills him with a pair of scissors.

The angry man was a bigshot and the model, his mistress. The next part of the story is about how they dispose of the dead body. The professor learns about the progress of the case, on the sly, from his prosecutor friend. Next, the bigshot's bodyguard tries to blackmail the model, threatening to tell the police that she is somehow involved with the deceased. Again, the professor is pulled into the fiasco.

Verdict: Woman in the Window (2021) is crap compared to its predecessor and namesake. The 1944 edition won, hands down.

Bennet's hairstyle is said to have
been styled after Hedy Lamarr's.

Hedy Lamarr. Once hailed as the prettiest woman in the world.

Lamarr's features were the prototype for Disney's Snow White.

However, she was no mere eye candy but a full-fledged scientist 

who is considered the inventor of the frequency-hopping method,

which is still used by many communication protocols,

including GPS, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and CDMA.

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Law is maintained only as long as it is respected.

I always wondered what is it that maintains order in our lives. What ensures total silence in the cinema when the movie is starting? What is it that assures that the viewers in an art gallery do not go around touching their exhibits with their dirty stubby fingers? What forces a patient to pay at a clinic after a consultation and the customer settle his bill after enjoying (or hating) his meal? They can jolly well just scoot off, now that their mission is accomplished. 

Well, it can happen with the occasional client who refuses to pay, but that is not the norm. Perhaps he is dissatisfied with the service or just because he can. Rather than creating a scene and draw unwanted publicity, the service provider would probably write it off as miscellaneous loss of doing business. To the rest, they know the long arm of the law would get them. They know that as the majority support orderly running of life transactions, they would not garner support against a sea of law-abiding supporters no matter how justified the lawbreaker can be with his wrongdoings. 

The balance will be tipped when the majority starts distrusting the institutions that maintain law and order. Anarchy prevails when the majority begins disrespecting the law. Law must be just and seen to be fair. Public perception is all to it. People hold law enforcement to high esteem not because they are scared of the law, they simply respect too much. 

Ask the British East India Company and the British Empire. They would tell you how a puny force managed to overpower and bring down a nation of many millions over - too much respect given to authority.

Roberto Schmidt/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

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It takes an animal to bring out the beast in us!

Jallikattu (Malayalam, 2019)

Director: Lijo Jose Pellissery

A simple story of a raging buffalo which escapes the slaughterhouse forms the basis of this film. Many in the village are dependent on the buffalo - for the butcher, it is money that it can fetch; for the rival group, it is free meat for their taking; for gangsters, it is a time to show their machoism; for the father whose daughter is getting engaged, he needs to feed his guests; for the ex-convict, it is time to settle a score with the butcher, and the pastor needs to feed his congregation.

Jallikattu is primarily a Tamil tradition, where brave youngsters in a celebratory mood try to tame a raging bull to clutch on to the bag of coins tied to its horn. Hence the name; Jalli @ Salli meaning coin and kattu is a tie-bag. This practice was started as a form of finding the best bull to improve the stock of cows in ancient times. Unfortunately, over the years, it has become a blood sport of sort. Bulls were drugged, and their eyes were sprinkled with chilly powder to blur their vision and agitate them. That was the reason for its recent ban. The practice was later reinstated. Detractors who opposed the prohibition cited concerted international conspiracy to ruin Tamil Nadu's dairy stock and industry and to bring in European brand of dairy cows.

The moviemakers probably decided to name this movie 'Jallikaatu' anyway because that is how the escape of the buffalo had become - everyone joining in the melee to get their hand on the prized bull.

The exciting thing about this story is that all characters are complex. Everyone comes to the scene carrying with them their baggage. Nothing is white or black. Nobody is either good or bad. There is some kind of flaw in everybody. One thing we notice is that everybody is loud, violent and animal-like, much like the beast they are hunting down. In fact, the buffalo is not posing a danger to any of them. Still, the people in the village are making it the single most important thing in their lives that they can afford to spend a couple of days on nothing but apprehending the animal on the loose.

The policeman in the story also has a back story. He has to do his duties as if he has everything under control. In reality, nothing is under wraps. In his home front, he has had it with his demanding wife who keeps harassing him every minute of the day, even when he is busy carrying out his police work. He thinks he has control at work, stumping his authority behind his uniform. He soon realises that the respect that the police receives is only there when people bow to authority. In a mob situation, there is no law and order, only chaos and exhibition of Man's primal instincts.

There is only chaos throughout the movie. Everybody is shouting, and there is pandemonium so every now and then. But within the chaos, there is order. The people still manage to devise strategies to capture the beast.

Equality, equity vs removing the barrier, but
enjoying the view from where you stand!

As the movie advances and ends, the viewers soon come to the realisation that we, as a species, have not evolved much from our days of cave dwellers and hunter-gatherers. Like primal hunters, we want to keep all our hunt to ourselves. We refuse to share even though we have more than we can chew.

Deservedly, this film is India's nomination to the 2021 Academy Award in the category of feature films. The subtle use of sounds, of a cappella music and the excellent lighting adds on the scare value to the music. The cinematography is mind-blowing, and the setting of props, as well as the angle of photo shots, are groundbreaking. 

There are no heroes here in this film; only villains. And they are the people who are worse than the amok beast that they are hunting down. Inserted between scenes are sarcastic vignettes about life. The law seems to be a farce when it appears to be more protective of animals than people. We need a permit or a court order to shoot down a raging animal even it can potentially kill a human. A pacifist calls for protection of animals, but not when his property is damaged. I guess laws are only for others - 'anywhere but not in my backyard!' 

There is subtle communist bashing too as I can see, as evidenced by the occasional flashing red-hued sickle-bearing flags. The innate greed that lurks within us cannot stomach seeing another prospering without lifting an eyelid. We demand equity only when the hurdles are stacked against us. We do not complain when they are in our favour.

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