Part of the company you keep!

Onibaba (Japanese, 1964)
Director: Kaneto Shindō

Many stories tell us to be wary of the company we keep with. Like how Amma frequently reminds us, a calf, if it moves around with piglets, will eventually join the piglets and source its daily meals from the rubbish dump. An animal, placed high in Hindu society, will ultimately do unholy things depending on the company it keeps. 

There is something special about black-and-white movies and the horror genre. It reminds me of my childhood, when my sisters and I would flock around our home 16" TV, squinting to watch RTM's Friday offering of Cerita Pontianak. Even the poor makeup of Pontianak would scare the living daylights out of my sister. She would even be scared to enter the kitchen. To make it worse, I would hide around the corner and jump suddenly in front of her, making her scream!

Onibaba is a classic Japanese movie set in the Samurai era. Times are bad. All the territories are at loggerheads; all men are out to fight, and the women have to rough it out, scavenging on whatever comes their way, stealing from travellers, catching dogs for meals and selling loots. A lady and her daughter-in-law desperately try to survive in that climate. A neighbour, who returns from war, informs them that the lady's son died, not in the war, but while stealing food. The lady blames the neighbour for the son's death. The neighbour seduces the young widow, but the lady is not very happy about it. The lady's daughter-in-law, the young widow, is secretly in love with him and has secret trysts in the dark of the night. The lady comes to know of this and tries to prevent her.

One day, as the lady follows the daughter-in-law to one of these late-night meetings, she is stopped by a mask-donning samurai at knife-point. The lady tricks the samurai by pushing him into a pit. She removes his mask and wears it to scare her daughter-in-law. It works, but the mask gets stuck to her face after getting wet in the rain. After forcefully removing the mask, the lady and her daughter-in-law discover that her face has peeled off and is disfigured. The daughter-in-law runs away scared. The lady falls into the same pit and dies.

A chilling movie. Introduces the Hannya masks, usually used in Japanese Noh theatres, typically representing a jealous female demon.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Life... shades of greyness...

Roma (Mexican, Spanish; 2018)
Written, Produced and Directed by Alfonso Cuarón.

At first impulse, it looked like it was going to be draggy long-paused 'arty' movie. Set in the tumultuous times of the early 1970s Mexico, the story is shown in black and white against a background akin to a neorealist style with long takes and long pauses.

It looks like a reminder that history has a bad habit of repeating itself. If now, we have a citizen elected President peaceful ejected by his own in Venezuela, maybe soon to be replaced by a US back figurehead, in the late 60s and 70s Mexico, the situation was about the same. In Mexico, however, the US supported President was hated by his people. The opposing peasants and university students were labelled as communists and were systematically killed by the ruling government. 

The family who eats together stays together.

This film, however, has nothing to do with political injustice or revenge of the bygone era.

The story starts telling about the life of a maid, Cleo, an indigenous woman, who works in the middle-class household in the small town of Roma in Mexico. 

In the first quarter, in a slow build up, it dawns upon us that everything is not right between the man and woman of the family. Antonio, a doctor, the husband, is leaving the wife, Sofia, and their four kids for his mistress. Cleo gets pregnant after being introduced to her fellow worker's relative.

What builds up slowly eventually morphs into a fountain of genius in storytelling and cinematography.       

                                                                                                                           

In the second half of the movie, the storyteller tells us how Sofia, Cleo and the kids build an everlasting relationship that lasts a lifetime. Cleo loses her child, in the midst of the chaos that is happening in the country and the household. In spite of all the adversities, the family comes out strong with Cleo becoming like a second mother to the children. 4.8/5

In one frame, poetically, much is told about marriage - which is nothing than just a declaration of private intentions. On the left is a happy couple celebrating their wedding with much pomp and splendour. What waits in their future, nobody knows. In the centre, just below the pincer of the giant crab statue, is Cleo, an indigenous housemaid who had an unwanted pregnancy from casual contact with a  date who refuse to take responsibly. In the end, as if like Nature making what seems like the best decision for her, Cleo delivers a stillborn. She never wanted the baby anyway. Then on the right is Sofia with her four children. Her marriage ended when her husband walked out on her, for another lady. Sofia and Cleo end up bringing up the four kids. Is the storyteller telling us that you do not need a man to bring up a family? It was semi-autobiography about his childhood anyway. That is a reality.

There are biological differences between the genders. Everyone is fitted to perform specific biological duties. Each gender should complement the other; not compete with the other.

[N.B. Is it a coincidence that a film with Mexico in the plot and an indigenous Mexican actor in lead role is nominated for 10 Academy Awards at a time when the government services have shut down in anticipation of building a wall against the caravans at the Mexican border? It is the highest foreign with the most top nomination since 2000's 'Hidden Dragon Crouching Tiger']


https://asok22.wixsite.com/real-lesson 

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

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