RIFLE RANGE BOY

Kummathy (Bogeyman, Malayalam; 1979) Director: G Aravindan Most viewers would not have heard of this movie maker, mainly known as a legend in the Indian alternative cinema field. Unlike the masala Bollywood kind of logic-defying escapism that excites the masses, these artsy films only fascinate people who see beyond the story and what is shown on the screen. Some label this film as the best Indian movie ever made. The movie came to the mainstream's attention after Martin Scorsese's team restored the old, lacklustre copies found in the Indian film archives in 2021. Scorcese announced this movie was one of his f avourites at its restoration premiere in Italy.  The original cinematographer , however, still preferred the analogue version, as he thought it had more texture and character. It has been popularised as a children's movie and is usually screened on International Children's Day. The first thing one notices when watching this film is that he feels like a child. Reme...

Party (Hindi; 1984) Director:  Govind Nihalani This film remains relevant even when we have ventured into the 21st century. The issues highlighted in this movie are not only confined to Indian society but can be applicable the world over. In fact, if activism and washing of dirty linen used to be restricted to exclusive cocktail parties those days, now it is party-time anytime. At the tip of the finger, with the clattering of keyboards, people can broadcast their views to the world. Many things are going on in the lives of the attendees of this private party. The party was held to fete a celebrated playwright, Diwakar, who was recently conferred a national award. The host, Damayanthi, a widow, is rumoured to have an illicit relationship with Diwakar. Divakar's wife, Mohini, is a much younger person than him, an actor who stopped acting after marriage is a frustrated woman. Away from the limelight, she yearns for and reminisces about the centre of attraction she used to be. Others t...

Dance Like a Man (1989) Play by: Mahesh Dattani Thanks to MEV for the introduction. This play has been staged around the world so many times. Managed to pick up a youtube version of a play done in 2017 by the Asia Society in Hong Kong. It was the 580th show that the group had done around the world. It was made into a film in 2004. Everyone laments that society is patriarchal in nature. Members of the female gender often complain that their desires are clipped, and the organisation is pro-male, making things easier for them to succeed in life. Ladies achieve greater heights not because of the community's push but despite their hurdles.   Many cultures have stereotyped gender roles. Certain professions have been typecasted. Some jobs make a man less a man. Till recently, nurses were expected to be females, and male dancers were frowned upon. In this drama, we discover the difficulties a male member of an Indian family has to fulfil his lifelong ambition of becoming a successful ...

In the late 1970s, as my future laid bare before me, I found no time in anything but my books. I looked  at watching movies as three hours of wasted time that could otherwise be spent on something more worthwhile, so I thought. At that age, everything was either black or white, factual and goal orientated. Watching the then Tamil movie which showcased hirsute stars in unkempt hair and their un-touched up face narrating mind-stupefying cheesy village stories was a turn-off. Its songs, despite be blared incessantly by my neighbours on their music devices, were just white noise.  Actually, it was an annoyance, as something I had to run away from to find solace at the quiet corner of the cemetery or empty classroom in the school to jam-pack precious information into my grey cells. That was the time when SP Bala and Illayaraja were churning out hits after hit that just passed me by. Occasionally a song or two would come to my attention clamouring from my father rickety radio. I did...

Sir Robert Hutchison Father of clinical methods A friend, during our stint as house officers, told me about an incident that happened during his medical student days when he was studying in Manipal, India. An American elective medical student had joined the group's ward rounds. The old Professor of Medicine was showing them the correct technique of examining the respiratory system. He laboriously punctuated the teaching rounds by asking basic science questions and snarling occasional sarcastic remarks, for not understanding the basics. He was showing the green medical students the art of inspection, palpation, percussion and auscultation. The American student, failing to see the point of such a laborious examination of a single patient, raised his hand. "Professor, wouldn't it be better if we just send the patient for a chest X-ray?" he quipped. That is the state of medicine now. We have lost the art of practising medicine. It is just about diagnostic proc...

Merku Thodarchi Malai (Westward Continuing Hills, Tamil-Malayalam; 2018) மேற்க்கு தொடர்ச்சி மலை  Vedantha teachings told us we are all the same, part of a bigger consciousness that is the Universe itself. We were told to treat each other as brothers as indeed our Athma (souls) are all part of the Paramathma which is Brahman itself, the Creator and the Created. We have all been sold a broken dream. We were told that the path to happiness is through economic improvement. Like in Martin Luther King's cheque in 'I am a dream' speech, we were all given a bounced cheque. A cheque took naively at face value only to discover a little too late the stamp 'Return to drawer'! When we improve our socioeconomic standing amidst a life long struggle of sacrifice, we realise that the goal post has been lifted. We find that the separation between the haves and have nots had widened many folds over. We are to be, still, the mouth-agape child that once was yearning to be like his...

Kuttram 23 (Tamil; குற்றம் 23, Crime 23; 2019) It looks like the trend these days in the Tamil movie industry is to make films with a social message using contemporary issues. You have to appreciate the story overlooking the fact that the filmmakers still use the same old time tested masala flavours. You have to stop asking why the hero is the only policeman who seems to be doing actual work. The others are just there to fill up the numbers and crack jokes to entertain fellow policemen and the viewers. You have to ignore how a single lone wolf unharmed policeman can always bring down bands of hardcore criminals, physically with brute force every time. The hero will do this even if he is injected with botulinum toxin. But wait! When the villain is imbued with the same, he succumbs to the effects almost immediately. Pushing aside all the technical issues, not wondering how clomiphene citrate (a fertility drug) can be traced in the fluids of a cadaver of a mother, what more in an adv...

A unique painting: Krishna points out the Eid moon. 17th century, possibly by Hamid Ruknuddin from Bikaner, Rajasthan. "Krishna Sights the Eid Moon," artist unknown, probably late 16th or 17th century. Did you know that Muslim artists in Mughal India produced many exquisite paintings of Krishna? Of course, the scene here is a historical impossibility, since Krishna, if he existed, predated Islam. But in this painting, and in the many other paintings that depict Vedic devotional themes using Persian/Mughal techniques, we see evidence of a time when religion was not the rigid, codified thing it is now. This India existed, in fact, until recently. And this syncretic approach to faith was the norm across Southeast Asia too, in what is now Indonesia and Malaysia. Something to think about this Hari Raya/Eid.

Still on the topic of conforming to the status quo... It is everyone's nature for wanting tranquility and sanity to prevail at all times, that life goes on almost on a flatline without too many undulations and surprises. Everyone has their life plans carved out nicely, and that everything goes on by per schedule, on the dot. In other words, we like to move along with time like automatons, without willpower as if everything is predetermined and preplanned. Deep inside all of us, there is a desire to scream out, to throw everything away and scream our lungs out. But societal pressures and our wanting to conform to the rest restrain us. There is a constant battle within us, all the time, always wanting to do the right thing, to follow the Truth. But what is the right way and what it the real truth? Is there a single truth or layers of truthfulness? Who determines what is right anyway? Nobody can tell us that, but help is on the way. There are people amongst us who can do just th...

Blue Is the Warmest Colour (a.k.a La Vie d'Adèle – Chapitres 1 & 2; French) Screenplay & Direction: Abdellatif Kechiche  Pubescent girls in the third world are struggling with being able to attend classes, trying to release themselves from forced arranged child marriages, starvation and malnutrition, being victimised as persona non grata by medieval man made laws and suppressive traditions. Here, in the modern French society they have long ago encountered, survived and successfully left these worries to rot in their past. Even then, man being man, are still dogged with other problems. This multiple award winning French film, made by a Tunisian born French director had been lambasted the world by subordinates and film critiques; the subordinates over working conditions - but once the film started collecting accolades, they relented; the critiques for its overtly graphic depiction of acts of passion. Having surpassed all their third world counterparts' woes, Frenc...

The Lunch Box (Hindi, English; 2013) Every now and then, you have a short and sweet gem from the Indian subcontinent, and this is it. They introduced the dabbawalla system to the world and infused love into it when delivery is wrongly sent. Just to get the basics right, the dabbawallah system was started in 1890 to feed lunch the office workers in Mumbai. Over the years, it has gained its popularity and is responsible for feeding 200,000 mouths daily using about 5,000 workers. Its business model is envied even by the biggest of the business minds and is said to have an error of 1 in 6 million! Since its inception, the workers had not missed even a day of supply despite the roughest of the monsoon weather, barring the day when the workers decided to march in support Anna Hazare's fast against corruption. The layout is simple. A near retirement Government office worker, Saajan Fernandez, a widower, get his usual lunch in a tiffin. By mistake, the lunch box from Ila goes to h...