RIFLE RANGE BOY

Origin (2023) Director: Ava Duverney (Based on the book, ' Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents' by Isabel Wilkerson) It is an interesting way of looking at all the problems affecting the world today. It is blamed on caste segregation. Traditionally, we think of caste as a problem only affecting India. And Indians believe it is a system brought in by colonial masters and divided the nation to ease control. The stifling of one layer of society over the other is not just based on the colour of their skin. It is something beyond. The group at the top end of the food chain would want to maintain the status quo and keep the people beneath them forever squashed. The writer, Isabel Wilkerson, a Pulitzer Prize winner, compared situations in three scenarios.  She looked at the black situation in America, where blacks are stereotyped as troublemakers, poor, unemployed, unemployable and criminals. The system reinforces this stereotype upon them to a level that even the blacks buy into t...

Emergency (2022) Director: Carey William Sikhism is professed by 25 to 30 million worldwide and is the fifth-largest religion in the world. Even though Sikhs constitute only 1.72% of India's population and 1.02% of the world's population, they are instantaneously recognised, not only by their unique appearance but also by their industriousness and successes. In India and the rest of the world, wherever they migrate, their proportion of poverty, as compared to other groups, remains the lowest. Outside Punjab, some minorities still excel without political assistance. Reaching foreign shores as economic migrants, they generally prosper and outperform other immigrants. They blend well into society and have the tongue to learn to speak the local lingo swiftly. Pretty soon, they will be sitting in professional bodies. The Sikhs are often seen by community leaders as a shining example of how societies should progress. Someone toyed with the idea that lack of political representation a...

Belfast (2021) Director: Kenneth Branagh. In the mid-70s, as a secondary school student, I saw some of my classmates leave the country. Their parents were affluent and had lost confidence in the Malaysian education system. They thought that the New Education Policy after the May 13 riot with Malay as the medium of instruction was doomed to fail. And the New Economic Policy, which emphasises affirmative action, will only produce a nation of mediocres at best. Affluence could make them picky on their choices in life, whereas the rest of us, the mere mortals, could only make do with what is available to us. We took everything in a stride with the sentimentality of nationalism thrown in and the conviction that the divine forces would help those who help themselves. Still, we were grateful that opportunities unavailable to our parents were there for our taking, so we thought.  Then came the early 80s. Suddenly, we saw another section of our classmates disappear. They had been offered na...

Jatt vs IELTS (Punjabi; 2018) Director: Devi Dutt It is a problem in most developing countries. The generation around the country's independence bent over backwards to provide for the family. They felt contented to be self-sufficient and to ensure their offspring were not deprived of the things they missed. With the advent of widespread dissemination of information and systemic glorification of modern living, the youngsters just turned out pompous and sluggards. This is a universal problem experienced by societies in upcoming post-independent Asian nations. The younger generation cannot wait to buzz off from their birth country. They feel they can only find their true potential away from the toxic environments enveloping their nations. The West, it seems, gave them the validation and liberation they needed.  Modern education provides equal opportunities for all. The end result of this is women performing way better in all academic indices.  About twenty years ago, it seems the...

Yennanga Sire Ungga Sattam (என்னங்க சார் உங்க சட்டம், Tamil; 2021) Director: Prabhu Jeyaraman Suppose the idea of affirmative action is to uplift a particular community group and give an equal fighting chance to the oppressed to get their place in the sun. In that case, it should only be handed to one generation. After being given the levy, their offspring should not be expecting the same. Everybody only gets one chance. They are expected to pull themselves up by their boot-straps with the chance given to them. That is it. Freebies are not infinite.  This film is one of the many new genre movies which highlights the plight of fringe people. The filmmakers named this movie a duplex as the real story with message starts with the movie's second part. The first part is essentially a draggy commercial that does not contribute much to the rest of the story. In a complicated way, it boils down to two scenarios. The first instance involves an interview for a government post. The viewe...

Pariyerum Perumal (2018) Story & Direction: Mari Selvaraj The world out there is just there to bring you down. Those who succeed in life do so not because of the people around them but, despite the people breathing down their necks. The world is cruel, and every living day can be a struggle for some. But, the successful indeed have a treasure chest full of adventures and near-misses stories to tell about their journey to victory. These rag to riches stories may inspire another foothill soldier at the foot of the hill to scale greater heights. And at the end of the day, the ferocious desire to succeed burns within the individual. Events around him spark the tinder. This is one such story of a person from the marginalised part of society trying against all odds to fit into Law College. He befriends a fellow female student who seems to be fond of him. Sure, we have seen such movies. A lone wolf with fighting skills that Hercules would be ashamed of, bulldozing through the army of the ...