RIFLE RANGE BOY

Ghatashraddha (Kannada, The Death Ritual; 1977) Director, Screenplay: Girish Kasaravalli There must be a reason why Martin Scorsese's World Cinema Project, George Lucas' Family Foundation, and Film Heritage Foundation decided to restore the film from the original negatives in 2024. In 2002, it was voted one of the 20 best films in Indian cinema. It also snatched the Best Feature Film award, among other awards, in 1977. Looking at current world sentiments about India, the elephant in the room is that the film is about Brahmin bashing. The colonial masters are to be blamed for anti-Brahminic feelings running high among the Indian public at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th. The British wanted to understand how the Indian society was spread out. For simplicity, they used the European class system when they commenced their census taking. The varna system in India was too complicated for the Europeans to comprehend. Hence, a hierarchical system was devised wi...

Kanthara (Kannada; 2022) Director, Writer, and Actor: Rishab Shetty Through this movie, I learnt about the 1.8 million people from the districts of  Udupi and Dakshina of Karnataka and the Kasaragod region of Kerala who call themselves the Tulu people. These cultural occupants of Tulu Nadu believe that their land was salvaged from the sea by Vishnu's 6th avatar, Parasuraman, the sage warrior. He is said to have yielded his axe to reclaim the land from the sea. To neutralise the land of salt and change it into a lush, fertile land, he employed the venom of Vasuki, the Snake King. The Tuluvas, as a gesture of appreciation to the guardians of the land, the boars, snakes and tigers, have celebrations called Bhuta Kola, an annual ritual performance. This type of their merriment was what Hollywood thought was exotic when it decided to depict eye-ball gobbling Thugee believers in their second instalment of the Indiana Jones franchise.  I also learned that there is a movement tow...

  Thithi ( ತಿಥಿ, Lunar day, Kannada; 2015) Our wants and needs vary as we grow older (and hopefully wiser). In the spring of our youth, we are brimming with raging hormones. Our biological needs somehow shut off our cognitive powers. The pudendal nerve and illusive higher centres control the more rational neuronal connexions. Unfortunately, the seeds and the ghosts of our action persist in haunting us in the later phase of our lives. Supposing we pass through youth unscathed, in the next phase of our lives, stuck with baggage of our past, we are expected to provide for our kin. Social hierarchy dictates we are responsible for the seeds that we sow. The emphasis of life is to provide for the living and to accumulate material wealth for an uncertain future. If we are 'cursed' with a long but unproductive life, we have to fend for ourselves. Conversely, a short affluent one will only benefit the dependants. After completing the deeds that we are assigned to do, to fulfil our karma...

K.G.F. Kolar Gold Fields, Chapter 1 (Kannada, 2018) It is touted as the highest-grossing Kannada film, the fourth highest-earning Hindi-dubbed film after the Bahuubali movies and 2.0, an international success and was feted at the National Film Awards. It was dubbed to Hindi, Telegu, Tamil and Malayalam almost immediately after its Kannada release with much success. And Chapter 2 is in the making. Am I missing something here that everyone else seems to enjoy? And, to say that this is one of the films that give people a reason to watch movies coming from the South, as quoted in a blog and recommended to me, is just too much. Just how many times have we seen a child wronged at childhood to grow up with vengeance against the rich and the powerful as mighty as Sri Rama himself to be a Robin Hood to the poor? How many times have we seen unknowns infiltrating into gangs just to disintegrate the whole setup from within? Think Nayagan, Thalapathi and the umpteen Bollywood and Kollywood pro...