RIFLE RANGE BOY

A Hidden Life (English/German;2019) Director: Terence Malick This is one of the movies that kept my eyes locked on the screen even after the credits rolled. It presents a long-lasting quandary about divinity and our purpose on Earth. Most movies that we see usually depict Germans as a whole of homogeneous block that unequivocally supports Hitler and what he was doing to uplift Germany from the clutches of hopelessness. For a change, the main character in this film actually stood against German nationalism in the Hitler style. A devout Christian and a conscientious objector to conscription into the Army, Franz Jägerstätter opposes Hitler's rhetoric of a superior race. In his everyday life, Franz is a simple farmer living happily on the hillside of Austrian country, minding his wife, three little daughters, and the unending farm work. So when he is called to serve the Army and state his allegiance to Hitler by instituting the Nazi Salute, he naturally refuses. Franz is arrested and i...

Das Lehrerzimmer (The Teacher's Lounge, German; 2023) Director: Ilker Çatak I feel lucky to have been born at the time I was born. If I were born to be a young adult at the present time, living in a 'so-called' developed nation, there is no absolute reason why I should not be a raving lunatic. The society is broken. Nobody respects anybody anymore. Power is too democratised. People with the most miniature brains are given on a silver platter the right to manage something they cannot handle - their rights. People think they know what they want, but they know diddly-squat. The individual is more important than the community. Personal liberty is more important than the common good of the community. Everyone demands the right to know about everything, but at the same time, there is a compulsion to protect information and privacy. This schizophrenic environment of today makes eccentricity the default mode of people's response. For every move perceived as offensive by the oth...

© Manuel Strehl What is in a font, you may think. The choice of a font could be a matter of personal picking. Some may be pertinent in a formal setting (e.g. Times Roman ); other in a jovial environment (e.g. Comic Sans in a birthday party).  Ever since printing became a reality in Europe in the 15th century, blackletter typeface like Fraktur and Antiqua were the mainstay chirography. Most publications were in Latin. Over time as people become more educated, local languages developed and the seed of nationalism was planted. Reformation works of Martin Luther and collection of fairy tales of Brothers Grimm created a need for the schism between Latin and German works. Antiqua was the default script for Latin and Fraktur for German.   All through till 20th Century, Fractur typesetting continued in Germany and many Scandinavian countries. Most of the Europeans had theirs set in Antiqua. The Fraktur-Antiqua difference   persisted till 1941 when the N...

Greatest Events in WW2 (Netflix, 2019) We all know almost everything about WW2 and how humanity showed its ugly face in annihilating each other. What makes this offering unique is that, beyond the colourisation of old films, it gives a somewhat good account of why both sides acted the way both the feuding parties did what they did.  It narrates the sequence of events of the Second World War in Europe, on the Western and Eastern Fronts as well as the Pacific Wars. It tries to shed light, or at least give a viewpoint to the many controversies of the day and the many questionable decisions made by the world powers of the day. In wars, they say, nobody wins. There is no doubt, however, that the act of war promotes technological advances and stimulates the economy while it lasts. The aftermath of war also is an advantage to the victors as they dictate terms of conquest and take the lion's share of re-development of the losers territories. In essence, WW2 is the cont...

Fritz Haber Of late, some of my friends and I have been engaged in lengthy conversations about religion and science. Many insist that what the world needs is science, not more religious sermons. They surmise that science and rational thinking could change the world into a peaceful place. Anyway, religion has been getting a bad reputation of late as the single cause of mayhem in the world. Logic, critical mind and the courage to question the status quo has been hailed as the only saviour of mankind. This is not the first time in history such a predicament had come to the fore. In the latter part of the 19th century, there was a real concern that the then expanding world population would outrun our the ability to feed them. As the population growth grew exponentially and food production on a linear path, leaders appreciated the relevance of Malthusian theory and foresaw the impending doom. Nutrients in the soil were being depleted and the guano, the natural fertiliser was hard to co...

Triumph of Will ( Triumph des Willens, German; 1935) The Godfather of propaganda must have realised early in his career that visual representation of a lie, often repeated will eventually be the accepted truth. This, coming from a person who almost made it to the Academy of Fine Arts of Vienna, must be true. Thanks to a party member, a certain Elisabeth Nietzsche, he gained access to the mind of one the greatest 20th-century thinker, Frederich Nietzsche, her brother. His unpublished book, 'Will of Power', which Nietzsche thought was too controversial to man, was made available to him. Many of his ideas are starkly portrayed here in this propaganda film.   Like Zarathustra, in Nietzsche's book,  Hitler appears from the clouds and disembarks the plane to present his good news to the people. If Zarathustra brought in the news from the mountains, that God is dead, this time, it is at the Nuremberg, and it is the Social Democrat party assembly. He ...

Thanks RS for contribution. http://www.theatlantic.com/static/infocus/wwi/introduction/ One hundred years ago, in the summer of 1914, a series of events set off an unprecedented global conflict that ultimately claimed the lives of more than 16 million people, dramatically redrew the maps of Europe, and set the stage for the 20th Century. Alan Taylor APRIL 27, 2014 A century ago, an assassin, a Serbian nationalist, killed the heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary  as he visited Sarajevo. This act was the catalyst for a massive conflict that lasted four years.  More than 65 million soldiers were mobilized by more than 30 nations, with battles taking place around the world. Industrialization brought modern weapons, machinery, and tactics to warfare, vastly increasing the killing power of armies. Battlefield conditions were horrific, typified by the chaotic, cratered hellscape of the Western Front, where soldiers in muddy trenches faced bullets, bom...