RIFLE RANGE BOY

Donbass (Russian/Ukrainian; 2018) Written/Direction: Sergei Loznitsa The other day, a day after Putin's army invaded Ukraine, posts on many Malaysians' social media posts read, 'Pray for Ukraine'. One should not have sleepless nights thinking of 'writings on the walls' like this, as it has become almost like a knee-jerk reaction to any world event. Nobody wants to ask why should we pray to an omnipotent God who was in a position not to let it happen at all in the first place. But yet, they convince themselves by alleging that great things are willed by Him, but the follies are only ours. His Grace will save us. Hey, don't the Malaysians have a bone to pick with the Ukrainians? After all, it is above their airspace that our national carrier MH17 went down in 2014? Ukrainian pro-Russian freedom fighters allegedly shot the MAS plane with Russian firepower as determined by the multinational Joint Investigative Tribunal. So Ukrainians are not all at fault but Put...

The Tribe (Plemya, 2014; Ukranian sign language) This must be a milestone in movie making. For the first time, we see a film done completely in sign language, no subtitles and no spoken dialogue. All the actors communicate through sign language. For your information, sign language is not universal. This one was done in Ukrainian sign language and boasts of 43 awards thus far. It tells of a deaf young man who gets enrolled into a school for the deaf. He slowly gets involved in a web of mugging and pimping. A small group of 4 students and 2 girl moonshine after school hours in the bleak unstimulating freezing weather of Ukraine. Things get complicated when the new guy gets romantically linked to one of the girls. Watching the film, one has to make a composite picture of what is happening. The director wanted his audience (both with hearing capability and those challenged) to appreciate it the same way. As the visual way is the only way to appreciate what it is going on, they must ...

Man with a Movie Camera ( Человек с киноаппаратом, Silent; 1929) Director: Dziga Vertov In a BBC poll recently, this documentary from the silent film era got the nod as the best documentary film ever made. It is surprising that even with the modern investigative journalistic techniques and presentations, this Russian entry won hands down. And the best part is that there is no story, no plot, no actors and no inter-titling (the message that comes in between scenes to convey the unspoken words). What the director is showing are his newly thought movie making techniques which were considered avant-garde at his time. The use of slow motion, panning, super-imposing, zooming and others are highlighted. He also tries to promote his 'state of the art' mobile camera on a tripod. His wife did an excellent job on editing. The subjects were ordinary subjects from three Russian towns doing their daily chores like dancing, sleeping, cleaning, washing, commuting from the trams and...