RIFLE RANGE BOY

Sampoorna Ramayanam (Complete Ramayana, Tamil;1956) (சம்பூர்ண ராமாயணம்) The epic of Ramayana has fascinated people for ages. It has been narrated for generations via oral traditions, print media, stage performances and the silver screen. As early as 1922, a silent film on Ramayana came out in cinemas. Before this 1956 Tamil version, Hindi and Telegu versions of Ramayana can be found. Many other editions since then, and now, at the time of cable TV, Ramayana has permeated into households regularly. There are many versions of Ramayana. Valmiki wrote the earliest one. Even Hanuman was concurrently writing his view on the occurrences of the day. With time, it evolved to Buddhist, Jain and South East Asian adaptations.  Valmiki's Ramayana is said to be the authentic text of Rama's life, but it ends with his coronation at the throne after his banishment to the jungles for 14 years and capturing Sita from Ravana. Other additions of vilification of Ravana as the classical ev...

Port of Call (Hamnstad, Swedish; 1948) Director: Ingrid Bergman The reason I thought that this movie is of value is that it depicts how much our society has changed in just about seventy years. Even though Sweden was regarded as a liberal country then, we realise that they still held many conservative values which by today's standards would be considered archaic. Probably, for the first time, taboo topics like suicides, promiscuity and abortions are openly discussed. This must be something new for the post-World War 2 modern world. Berit is seen jumping off a wharf, to be rescued by a sailor, Gösta, who had decided to call his sailing days quits. They develop a relationship. Slowly, we are told of Bertha's past. She is a disturbed young lady who had a troubled childhood. Growing with a strict mother and frequently quarrelling parents, she yearned to find freedom. One day, a teenage Berit is locked outside her apartment when she returns late from an outing. She ru...

The Conformist (Italian, 1970) Director: Bernardo Bertolucci With rhetoric like "you're either with us or against us!", there is a pressure for most of us to conform. The daily bombardment of an overdose of information in the social media puts its followers in a quandary. The urgency to submit to the flavour of the moment and to be on the right side of history is quite confusing.    No man is an island. Living in a society, we are all interdependent. When one's own survival is dependent on goodwill and patronage of the others,  he would not want to offend the others' sensitivity; he would just conform or at least appear to.  In the current world climate and the country's political scenario, the need to follow the majority is very real. Merely following the tide is, of course, less tiring. Fighting back and arguing your stand may sometimes be an act of futility. Arguing with stupid and zombies is never easy. It takes a certain kind of resilien...

Tokyo Twilight (Tōkyō Boshoku, Japanese; 1957) Written and Directed by Yasujirō Ozu. Parents usually try to sugar-coat the family environment and cushion their every fall so as not to ensure their childhood era is normal. They try to shield them from bad news and hide unsavoury situations from their views. The children still find out, and if they do not perform well, they blame it all on their far-from-perfect childhood. Sometimes the single parent tries to fulfil the missing parent's role and mostly fail miserably. Perhaps for the sake of the children, most parents bite the bullet, try the sort out their differences and make their family stay intact. Yasujirō Ozu is widely touted as the most Japanese of Japanese film directors of his era. In this flick, he tells the story of a middle-aged bank officer and his two daughters (Takako and Akiko). The mother is not in the picture, whom we later discover had eloped with her lover. She left with the father three children, the ...

Odd Man Out (1947) Produced and Directed: Carol Reed This film, the first of Carol Reed's trilogy (the other two being ' The Fallen Idol ' of 1948 and ' The Third Man ' of 1949), is described by Roman Polanski as being his favourite film of all time, even better than 'The Third Man'. This movie has been praised to high heavens for many reasons, mainly for its cinematography and narration. I thought its story was highly symbolic of life itself. That, people come and go in our lives, some join in merriment,  some to achieve some kind of endeavour and some motivate. There would be people who would promise to stay through thick and thin but scoot off at first sight of trouble. There would be some who would betray or make a buck or two out of you. At the end of the day, only a couple of people would be with you until the end. In this flick, the loyal souls who stay till the end seem the love of the protagonist's life and the man of God. Set in Norther...

Bandini (The Female Prisoner, Hindi; 1963) This must surely be one of the early female-centric Hindi movies with Nutan taking the leading role. It is a subtle movie without the overt melodrama usually associated with Bollywood films. The black and white print set the tone for sombre nature of the subject the story is trying to tell. Set in the 1930s Bengal, at the height of Independence movement, Kalyani (Nutan), a poem loving lass with a sad life in her past, losing her brother and mother, falls in love with a freedom fighter, Bikash. He promises to return to marry her but never does. Unable to tolerate the vicious bad mouthing of the villagers, she leaves home. She eventually works a nurse to care for a very demanding mentally disturbed patient who happens to be Bikash's wife. In the fit of rage, Kalyani poisons her and is imprisoned. It is at the prison that the movie actually starts and the rest are told in flashbacks. The prison doctor (Dharmendra) falls in love with ...

Macbeth (2015) It is amazing that a writer in the 16th century can pen out such a play so intricate in its emotional interplay. This is, of course, the work of a particular man of commoner stock from Stratford-upon-Avon. Playing the main character of this play seem to the lifetime ambitions of many an actor including Orson Welles, Patrick Stewart, Sean Connery, Richard Burton and Lawrence Olivier. Michael Fassbender reprises the role of Macbeth in this 2015 production. Perhaps the only people in the world who do not have a sense of guilt are the psychopath. Otherwise, most of us are drilled upon us to build a wall of guilt within us that sometimes makes us lose our balance. The guilt that we are made to feel eventually eats us up. Despite the urge to survive and need to outdo and overrun others to succeed is there, most of our upbringing makes it mandatory for us to fell guilty. Sometimes, we dig our own graves, and our actions themselves push us in.  The evil that lurks...

Anna Karenina (2012) Leo Tolstoy is considered the greatest novelist of all time and his novel 'Anna Karenina', the greatest novel ever written. His earlier work, 'War and Peace' does not qualify as a story as it is classified as a philosophical discussion. Tolstoy is one who believes that stories should not just have their entertainment value but need to stimulate the mind to think. His other story, 'The Death of Ivan Ilych' is about a dying magistrate as he evaluates his life on earth trapped on his deathbed as his family care for him as if he is just recovering from a minor ailment. Tolstoy can be said to be the spark that became the hero of non-violent movements of MK Gandhi and Rev Martin Luther King Jr. The novel 'Anna Karenina' had been adapted to the silver screen many times. This 2012 version is a British one with Kiera Knightley brilliantly cast as Anna. The scenes were quite peculiar in that they appear to move from one set to another i...

Shadows (1959) Director: John Cassevetes Another John Cassevetes' direction. This is his early effort at an independent un-main stream production. This is actually a remake of his own film which he had earlier made in 1957 which was unscripted and did poorly at the box office. The remake, however, became a legend. On the exterior, it appears that the US of A, the land of opportunity is the land of dream where everyman is born equal and free. They have a legislation to prove the effect to. In practice, however, the issue of race is not so black or white. The problem which reared its ugly head and let the nation into a gruesome civil war fail to settle the score even today. It is evident from the the turn of events when a certain whiter than white lady, Rachael Dolezal, was exposed recently to be passing off as a black to head an association to help coloured people in America. Racheal Dolezal So when this issue came to fore, the usually issue frenzy US media stations went...

La Dolce Vita (The Sweet Life, Italian; 1961) This is not your typical film with a beginning, build-up, climax, resolution and ending. This Italian flick is actually a sort of a diary of a week in the life of gossip journalist @paparazzi, Marcello. It narrates day to day account of his life. In between all that, we, the audience, are shown the decadent lifestyle of the the post WW2 1960s Italy with its outwardly religious outlook with wayward lifestyle being the order of the day. Poverty is rife amidst the lure and glorification of the lifestyle of the rich and famous. The opening scene of the film starts with a helicopter hoisting a statue of Jesus across an effluent neighbourhood mocking the second coming. Slowly we are shown Marcello's hectic schedule. He has to put up with a possessive and obsessive fiancé who keep on demanding attention from him. He has to divide his time between the demanding job and near suicidal girlfriend. The hero is no angel either. His roving eye...

Bal el Hadid (@ Cairo Station @ Iron Gate, Egypt 1958) Director:  Youssef Chahine Surprisingly, Egypt has a vibrant movie industry that dates back to 1896! Its golden era is between the 1940s and 1960s. Despite the changing of guards and political outlook, it stood the test of time. President Gamel Abdel Naseer's planned nationalisation had irreparable damage to its heydays and never really recovered after that. The director of this movie is also credited for introducing Omar Sharif to Hollywood, although not through this movie. This 1958 release is an Egyptian noir film depicting small people in a busy railway station. Even though the story is a simple one of which we have seen many by now, it must have been revolutionary at its time. The movie's lovely thing is how the various strata of society are depicted to intermingle at an economic level. It also shows the difference in people's outlook in metropolitan Cairo, the modern outgoing Western viewpoints and conservat...

Public Enemy (1931) The first time I watched James Cagney was when RTM screened 1942 'Yankee Doodle Dandy'. It narrated the biography of George M. Cohen, an American musical composer who in his later part of his life remained unknown. I vividly remember a scene where he stood incognito amongst the crowd looking at the band march by to the ecstatic youngsters singing to the tune. Little did the crowd know who was standing among them - the composer of the song, until he tells them his life story! That was another movie... Well, this 1931 action movie is one of the early action movies which talks about the glamorous life of gangland and the downside too. From the outset, the director had warned viewers that the film does not glamorise hoodlums. Even though proclaiming to be of the contrary, the story was supposedly based on lifetimes of many baddies of that era. James Cagney The story starts in 1909 with the tale of two young boys grow up doing pranks and soon graduatin...

Animal Farm (1954 animated film) Based on George Orwell's 1945 book Human beings are forever trying to evolve and trying very hard to device a full proof system that tries to be fair to most, if not everyone. Unfortunately, every conceivable system seem to have failed them miserably. We are still in search of an utopian society and land of milk and honey but dystopia is what we have. Monarchy, feudalism, communism, socialism and capitalism have breed nothing but loop holes for man to fulfil their greed. The present system appears to glorify greed and ruthless suppression of the underprivileged. Paradoxically, this is system that people of the communist block, who were suffering under the former suppressive regimes, opted for. Every new system, at first, looks all rosy with its pledges and just core values. In time many of its shortcomings come affront and the goal post is shifted to satisfy the masses. An initially successful system, over time would turn corrupt. The regime in ...

The Bad Sleep Well (Warui yatsu hodo yoku nemuru, Japanese; 1960) Director: Akira Kurosawa Films are made day in and day out but a classics like Kurosawa's stays eternally in the minds of film lovers. This is another movie highlighting the evils that corporations do to syphon off public funds for their own interest but what makes it an evergreen is the depth of the plot. It is supposed to have elements of Shakespeare's Hamlet in its narrative. The movie starts with journalists waiting patiently passing sarcastic remarks of a wealthy tycoon, the Vice President of a public listed company which develops public land, daughter's wedding reception. They are hoping to pick up a scoop to report. Their moment of truth comes when one of his assistants get arrested for corruption during the reception through some embarrassing moments for the guests. The story gets very complicated but becomes crystal clear at the end. Nishi (Toshiro Mifune), a dashing young man who is the Vi...

Easy Rider (1969) This classic of the late 60s glorifies the counterculture spirit of that era. Even though it seem to showcase a decadent lifestyle with hedonistic desires away from the usual requirements of society like working and following the law, herein lies the philosophical outlook on life. The message is imparted via the travelogues of two hippie bikers as the they span the USA from Los Angeles to St Louis to attend Mardi Gras before they retire in style in Florida with the ill-gotten stash of cash obtain by drug trafficking big time. The riders (Wyatt@Captain America, Peter Fonda, the producer; Billy, Dennis Hopper, the director) pick up a hitchhiker and spend a night in a commune. In the 60s, people who were disillusioned with the way the capitalistic industrial world was heading, with war and nuclear threat, decide to give it all up to live the simple life with simple desires with lots of love and hallucinogens. The riders could see that the members of the commune, ev...

Close up (Persian, 1989) Director Abbas Kiarostami This film opened the highly high quality Iranian cinematic scene to the Western world. In fact this drama-documentary like offering is hailed by some as the best Iranian film ever made. It uses the Italian type of neo-realism technique of film making and the French way of self expressionism to get its message across. The director heard of an unusual case of impersonation in a magazine and decided to cease his shooting and to cover the events. A jobless make stand accused of impersonating as a famous director, Mohsen Makhmalbaf, to lure a middle class man into acting. The accused is a self professed crazed fan of Makhmalbaf, who whilst travelling in a bus, told a white lie to the lady of the Ahankhah family and pretty soon befriended the family. One lie after another, the accused, Hossein Sabzian, managed to obtain some money for his alleged filming. The family became suspicious when he was not aware of 'his' recent conf...

Tengoku to Jigoku (Japanese, High and Low, a.k.a. Heaven and Hell; 1963) Director: Akira Kurosawa This suspense-filled police procedural film must be well ahead of its time. Because Kurosawa directed it, the suspense and investigations were painstakingly detailed. On top of all that, the director usually highlights the differences in the social classes. High and low in the title probably denotes the two halves of the offering -the first half in the relaxed ambience of the quiet high-class home of the protagonist, Kingo Gondo, a self-made shoemaker who had climbed the rank and files to an enviable status in the National Shoe Company; the second half among the decadent life forms of the night, drug addicts and drunken revellers of the night scene of town. Gondo shoots down the idea by fellow company shareowners to cut costs and compromise the quality of their shoes. He passionately says that shoes have to be respected as they support the whole body's weight. Furious, his detra...