Don't fight fire with fire!

The Power of the Dog (2021)
Director: Jane Campion

King David, of the David and Goliath fame, went through troubles after troubles in his kingdom. He prayed to God. In the Book Psalm 22:20, it is said that King David had requested God to 'Deliver my soul from the sword; my darling from the power of the dog.'

'The power of the dogs', which the title refers to, is probably referring to the herd mentality of the mob that is out to humiliate, denigrate and decimate those who do not fall within the standard narrative. These dogs hide their deficiencies behind the strength of the pack. They may doubt their own convictions, but they know cognitive dissonance is too overwhelming. Hence, they just join in the barking match.

The best way for the abused to fight the crushing power of the dogs, as suggested by the movie, is to stand tall against the pack. There is no point in clashing head-on against this unruly band but to win them over with wit, on the sly.

The message behind this story is cryptic and requires higher-level understanding to appreciate the hidden subliminal messages. One who watches it at face value may not understand why this film is hailed as a top contender for the Oscars this year. Of course, the fact that homosexuality as a suggested theme did help. 

In summary, it is a story set in the 1920 mid-west where two brothers, George and Phil, work as wealthy ranchers. George meets and marries a widow, Rose, with an effeminate medical student son, Peter. Phil tries to exude his toxic masculinity. Peter is the butt of everybody's joke for his unmanly ways. The rest of the story is about how Peter and Phil find common grounds, and peace is maintained, albeit in devious ways.

The hidden message behind all these is there for our taking. In the ever increasingly hostile environment that we exist today, it is an exercise in futility for us to clash head-on with the correspondingly minds with mob mentality. For every reason that we state our case, they would do bulldoze with a bull in the china shop demeanour; resist and resist with dimwitted mind-boggling excuses. We should be action-orientated, focusing on the matter at hand and ignoring all the white noise. Be like the Jews or the Orientals. Despite adversities that befell them throughout history, the Jews stood steadfast against everything and came to rule the world. The Orientals, despite the slurs, abuses and bullying all through modern history, marked their dominance everywhere they went. Now, they are giving the colonial master a run for their money. It may not be the means, but the end results sometimes matter more.

(P.S. It may not be a gay movie like it is commonly perceived. It does not tread along the lines of 'Brokeback Mountain'.)

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

Might still rules

Godless (TV Miniseries, 2017)

How would a Godless country be? Will it be one of lawlessness where the strong would be King where weaker ones would just be spun around in serfdom? Would the primal needs of human see no boundaries and chaos would be the order of the day? With no fear of perceived retribution to their action, would the mighty act with impunity?

Without an agreed code of conduct would the fairer sex, the young, the slow and the handicapped be left behind to be at the mercy of the others? Or would the situation spur them to go yonder and explore beyond their perceived capacity and surprise themselves?

On the other hand, a country holding firm on their theological beliefs also imposes many restrictions on certain quarters of the society which appear to clip their wings from doing things beyond what the real potential lies. The feminine gender is usually suppressed by the most patriarchally centred religions. Certains dogmas drilled by the elders as the gospel truth bars people from exploring new frontiers as they may be deemed too sacrilegious to be questioned by the mere mortals. It is what it is, and it is not for us to ask, they would stay to put a full stop to someone who thinks out of the box.

'Godless' is not the usual western fare. It tells the story of a time in the USA when lawlessness was the rife and gunpowder, and quick draw ruled. Unlike most narration of this genre, here women are prominent. They are not mere second-class citizens, but they run a town and are able to protect themselves from a band of dangerous outlaws who are men.

Money begets money!

Hell or High Water (2017)

It has got opposition against corporate American written all over it. This movie must have liberal democrats drooling all over. It is a simple neo-Western story like the one one sees in a pulp fiction. Two brothers go on a bank robbing spree and two Texas Rangers going after them. Doesn't sound original, does it? In fact, it could have been plucked from the many Westerns we have seen before. But, see beyond it. There are no horses and there is more than meets the eye.

In the modern world, being born poor is like hereditary disease passed from generation to generation. The poor is caught in a spiral, like a snake catching its own tail, a vicious cyclical self-defeating spiral. To come out of the rut, you need money which is sparse when you are poor. And to top it all, education, which the elites claim is the sure pass to unchain the shackles of poverty is no cheap feat. There appears to be a concerted effort to keep the poor poorer and the rich richer than they already are. Money begets money and destitution multiply helplessness. The bigger corporations, in cahoots with the powers that be who were elected to keep the general public's interest at heart, have standards that tighten the screws on the members of the lower rung of the society. They go on their work like business as usual. Come what may, come hell or high water, they will ensure their profits and share-owners' dividends do not dwindle, even by a dime!

This film tells a tale of two brothers who had just lost their old mother. The elder brother had just been released from prison. They had grown under an abusive father. The younger had himself gone through some rough patch. He had cared for his demandingly sick mother and pines for over his ex-wife and his two young sons. The family farm had seen better times. It had been neglected by him and is soon to be repossessed by the banks after some shady legal wranglings. To top it all, there could be petroleum in their land! So, the brothers came with a series of bank robberies from the same bank that is executing the foreclosure to pay them back and place a trust in the same bank for the younger brother's family!

Hot on their trail is an unlikely duo of Texas Rangers; a near to retirement racist-statement rantings Ranger and his Native-Mexican assistant who just had it with his boss. Even though the story is predictable, the movie remains memorable for its good acting, the unforgettable lines with heavy Southerner mannerism and figure of speech and the hopeless environment that it depicts - the real picture of inland America - in debt, empty, dirty and sleepy towns with no economic activities. The only viable business is eatery and banks! And the whole system, the long arms of the law and even the public is out to protect the big guys, the corporation.

Memorable lines...

• I've been poor my whole life, like a disease passing from generation to generation. But, not my boys, not anymore.
• He wouldn't know God if he crawled up his pant leg and bit him on the pecker. (referring to an evangelist)
• Blood always follows the money.
• Sometimes a blind pig finds a truffle. (one time lucky)
• Justice isn't a crime.
• Now that looks like a man who could foreclose on a house. (referring to a banker)

Deserve’s got nothing to do with it!

Unforgiven (1992)
Produced & Directed by: Clint Eastwood

This depressing Western is not your typical swashbuckling gunslinging escapade that one would expect. It instead, looks at nihilistic look at life through the eyes of a reformed bandit in late 1800s of the Wild West.

Bill Munny (Clint Eastwood), a reformed professional gunfighter, is now a struggling hog farmer. His pigs are sick, he is poor and has two kids (children) to feed. He gave up his wayward ways after his wife changed him into becoming a new man, giving up his whiskey and the senseless killings. Sadly, his wife succumbed to smallpox. Mundy lives a broken man, pledging not to go to his old ways ever again.

But when a young punk (Schofield Kid) turns up at his home with the news of two crooks with a bounty on their head for mutilating a lady’s face, at a time when he was in dire straits, the temptation was too much. For his children’s future, he joined forces with his ex-partner, Ned Logan (Morgan Freeman) to hunt the crooks. The trio is a hodgepodge of Kid who is short-sighted, Bill, who had forgotten all his old ways, even saddling a horse and Ned, who had the ‘nerves’ when the moment of reckoning arrived.

The lady who was mutilated was no angel but a worker in the brothel of a small town run by a mean Sheriff Little Bill (Gene Hackman). He runs the town with an iron fist, anyway he deems fit.

The most compelling dialogue that struck me was when Munny was about to put the coup-de-grace on Little Bill.

Bill: I do not deserve to die like that this. I am building a house.

Munny: Deserve’s got nothing to with it! Boom!

That is life for you. Nature is a ruthless son of a bitch. It does not bother about your plans, your aspirations or feel pity for dependants. If you are there in the path of its plan, poof you go. If you got to go, then you have to go. No special preference is given to royalties, professionals, leaders or those in the privileged part of society. You are not special. You cannot bribe the powers that be by appeasing them with showers of salutations and persuasions. You are just a minuscule of a fragment in this vast universe.

Mother of all spaghetti westerns!

Django 1966
The music score starts with a catchy tune 'Django'. A blue eyed cowboy drags along pulling his coffin through the muddy road.
In next scene, this cowboy (FrancoNero), shoots a gang of Mexicans and a group of cowboys who ungentlemanly shoves around a blonde damsel. The silent cowboy rescues the damsel in distress and heads to town.
A certain Major Jackson who terrorizes the town and has a bone to pick with our hero as the 5 men in the beginning scene were Jackson's henchmen. The Mexicans whom our hero, Django shot, come to town to avenge and take back Maria, the damsel in distress. Django had come to town to kill his wife's killers.
Django, with his secret weapon on the coffin that he drags - an automatic machine gun!, bulldozed the Mexicans. Django has a sad past, his wife had been gunned down during his absence. In the final showdown, Django with his broken hands, managed to gun down Major Jackson and his henchmen all his 6 barrel pistol at the cemetery scene.
This is one classic film in the genre of spaghetti western where the story defies logic but one should just watch for its entertainment value. Do not ask how a cowboy comes in possession of a machine gun which I think was invented in WW2. [Actually, check with Wikipedia reveals that early version of machine guns predates American Civil War, but was too expensive to be used, so it makes sense].
Also don't ask how a cowboy with broken hand can shoot a 6-barreled Smith and Western to finish off easily 10 bandits (or was it just 6?)!

Fastest draw in the South!

Django Unchained (2012)
Director: Quentin Tarantino

This film has been praised to high heavens for its boldness in depicting American's not so pleasant past. Even though , the powers that be always paint a sanitised and just past of the invaders who not only raped the American continent of its resources and systematically annihilated an advanced civilization already present before their gungho appearance in the New World, it takes a renegade son of the soil like Tarantino to highlight their equally unpleasant past with the workers who were slaved and treated worse than livestock.
This film can be best described as one of those spaghetti westerns which Clint Eastwood is commonly associated with. In keeping with Tarantino's penchant for gore and violence (as in Kill Bill and Hostel), there is plenty of spurting of crimson sanguineous fluids to make Dracula go into ecstasy. It is set at a time before the American civil war and has very eloquent dialogue with poetic words that would fascinate any student of English Literature albeit its liberal lace with profanity.
A maverick fast talking and fast drawing dentist, Dr Schultz (Christopher Waltz), rescues a gang of black slaves from captivity in the pretext of looking for a particular black slave who could identify a particular band of outlaw brothers. After picking out Django (Jamie Foxx), Dr Schultz just shoots them with a small pistol, the sound of menacing enough to be an assault rifle!

Slave Baron DiCaprio

A smart talking fast drawing dentist rescues a gang of black slaves from bounty hunters. He takes Django away from the group in text of trying a group of brothers.
Dr Schulz is a bounty hunter who gave up his dental practice to gun down outlaws for a living. He deputise Django (now a free man) as his assistant and they go all around from Texas on hunting spree all through winter with good returns. After finding out about Django's own sob story, both of them go in search of Django's German speaking black slave wife.

They track her down to be at Candiland in Mississippi, in the heart of slave land, owned by a ruthless rancher, Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio). They are looked at suspiciously, seeing a black man on horseback. With the intention of purchasing fighters for a blood sport (mandingo), they get in close with Candie and his confidantes.
Candie's chief butler, Stephen (Samuel L. Jackson) smells a rat and alerts his boss. The slick Dr Shultz manages to gun down Candie before after which a blood bath takes part in Candieland. Dr Shultz is killed and Django is captured and sold off to a mine. He outwits his captors and returns to rescue the love of his life and avenge in the true style of a spaghetti western as Django rides in the sunset with his girl and a flaming southern mansion on the background.
If all movies from Hollywood are guilty of racial stereotyping, portraying the whites as saviours and the coloured as crooks and uncivilised, this film is also guilty of the same. It, however, paints the whites as aggressors with bad attitudes, bad manners, bad teeth and barbaric, save for the German speaking Dr Schultz. The blacks, on the other hand are all victims of abuse and are sincere. Even Stephen who is his boss' faithful dog is loyal.
The background music score is warped. The potpourri of songs spread range from country folk to hard rock and even hip hop. An entertaining flick despite the extreme unnecessary gore and violence.