RIFLE RANGE BOY

Spirited Away (2001) Written and Directed: Hayao Miyazaki All through our childhood, my sisters and I had been watching manga without manga was referred to as so. It was then just Japanese cartoon, with characters having big round eyes, cute demeanour and screechy loud voices. Later, Japanese cartoons developed into separate entities grew wings and started telling more mature stories and themes. The written graphic form became known as manga, and animated forms that appear in games and films are known as anime. I was recently introduced to Japan's eminent cult figure in the field of animation and direction, Hayao Miyazaki. His film ‘Spirited Away’ has been hailed as Japan's highest-grossing movie for 29 years. It also won the Oscar at the 2022 Best Animated Feature Film. BBC listed it in its 100 greatest films of the 21st century. Partnered with Disney, this film infiltrated the four corners of the globe. Thanks to the vibrant colours, creative storytelling, and interesting cha...

The Great Indian Suicide (Tamil, Telegu; 2023) Director: Viplove Koneti In the junior years of my training, I had the chance to manage patients who were brought in after suicide attempts. The drug of choice in that demographic was paraquat, a deathly organophosphate herbicide which worked well at keeping weed at bay. Unfortunately, it also proved to be lethal to humans. A tablespoon of the deathly liquid proved lethal. Even if stomach washout and chelation were instituted early, once urinary paraquat was positive, death is inevitable. Within 14 to 21 days, slow death would ensue with organ failure, specifically lung fibrosis. More amount of remorse, regret or prayers could change back time.  The population that thronged that hospital were plantation workers and had easy access to paraquat. Many of the victims were Indians, and the title of this movie brought the memory of that time of my career. Many of the parasuicides were for feeble reasons, to gain sympathy, to attract attentio...

Prey (2022) Director:  Dan Trachtenberg When the film 'Predator' came out in 1987, it was a hit. It was the time of American jingoism. The free world believed that America was the only superpower around and only they could give the best solution to all of world problems. Rambo and his First Blood franchise did just that. Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Muscleman from Austria, did not want to be left behind. After fighting baddies from all four corners of the world, it was only natural that our Mr. Universe try a hand at muscling down enemies from out of this world.  When 'Predator', a sequel to 'Prey' in terms of story timeline, came out, it was a super duper hit. Shot in the lush forest of South America with cinematography completed with sense-around movie theatres, moviegoers thought that was the pinnacle of Hollywood's moviemaking. The movie developed a cult following. Comic books were rolled out, bankrolling on its success. Board games and computer games ensu...

Women Talking (2022) (Based on a novel by Miriam Toews) Director: Sarah Polley "What's new?" said DA. "Women can talk; they sure do." He started talking about the male and female brain and how their connexions differ and such... One is action-orientated, whilst the other talks!" But that is not the point. It is about women's empowerment and talking back against a system that subjugated them to stereotypical roles. Every civilisation and religious path must have started with novel intentions of giving everyone a place in the sun and a right to pursue certain rights in life. Along the way, the leaders found it easier to rule by decree, and certain obscure divine ordains showed their presence. Even though they are built tough and resilient on the inside, women lost out on many physical day-to-day duties and worked in tandem with their male counterparts to complete their tasks. Manual labour in the good old days was intensive. Mechanisation and industrialis...

Severance (Miniseries, S1, E1-9, 2022) Director: Ben Stiller, Aoife McArdle Apple TV First, we were told that our vocation determines us; staying true to fulfilling the goals of our job is equivalent to being close to Divinity. But just see what it let us to - a social classification system that essentially pigeon-holes one's future by birth. Karl Marx then asserted that life is more than mere monetising one's labour. Man has to find balance in maximising time spent on Earth by indulging in things that excite him, maybe hunting, art, music, etcetera. And that led to Lenin extrapolating it to stir the working class to rise against their enslavers. Now we are told that we should find a life-work balance. We should not bring home the stresses of our workplace home and vice-versa. We cannot let our personal dilemmas affect our work performances as well. So what better way to severe these two intertwinings?  This is the premise of this miniseries. Workers of an unspecified company d...

Avengers: Endgame (2019) We always associate destruction with negativity. Erection and construction, on the other hand, is hailed as the epitome of prosperity. Hence, annihilation, collision and termination are scorned upon. Unfortunately, life is not so simple.  There can never be peace without prior anarchy; no construction without demolition and no shanthi without ashanti. Life, with its ups and down, are aplenty with cyclical loss and gains. That was the same dilemma when I came to discover about Lord Shiva, one of the main component of the Trinity in the post-Vedic Hinduism. The trident-bearing Lord is revered for his greatness and ferocious power to destroy and is invoked for peace on Earth. It baffled me how damage can lead to prosperity. Herein lies the profound philosophy of life. Someone or something who jolts the equilibrium, the status quo, has to or to be destroyed before life can proceed in a just manner. The evils do not necessarily come from without to spew ...

Encountering Kali  (In the margins, at the centre, in the west) Edited by Rachel F McDermott, & Jeffrey J. Kirpal To the uninitiated, like the Europeans who arrived on the Indian shores to encounter its natives paying homage to a gory angry looking dark imaged Goddess with weapons of destruction hanging from her multiple arms, wearing a necklace of human scalps, skirt of human limbs and protruding tongue, it must be the image of Devil itself. For the non-believers, it must have appeared like devil worship and a warped sense of divinity of the tribal people. To the natives, however, it is their expression of the embodiment of how the world is to them. The world is a cruel place. Man's survival is paved with the daily struggle against the elements of Nature and is a constant combat against various atrocities. It is not easy, but life has to go on. Civilised people in India had apparently realised these long ago, even before the spread of Brahmanic and Vedic teachings. The ...

Blue Velvet (1986) Story and Direction: David Lynch My impressionable young mind used to wonder when I used to read of random shootings in schools and somewhat bizarre behaviours of certain people in the so-called civilised world. I thought the deviant acts were the price one paid for development. The phenomenon of adolescent psychology was not even an entity in this part of the world till about 20 years ago. Is it a first world problem as we set different priorities as our target and different role models to follow? Perhaps this film, another David Lynch classic, is trying to tell us that the dangers were lurking inside all the while. It is just that avenues are available to express now. It had just been swept under the proverbial carpet all this while. It starts on an idyllic day in the 60s on a sunny day with everybody smiling and Bobby V's 'Blue Velvet' song in the background. A man is watering his lawn, and his family members are drawn to a TV series. The man...

Fight Club (1999) This cult film did not really hit it when it first hit the cinemas. It, however, had a resurrection of sorts after it was released on DVD. In fact, there was fear that this film may initiate copycat activities from youth just like they had in Kubrik's 'Clockwork Orange'. The cult following is probably from connoisseurs and students of philosophy, anthropology and existentialism. The subject matter involves things which are difficult for an average Joe to grasp. It questions the futile depressive nature of our modern living through the eyes of the narrator and main character of the movie. Incidentally, we will eventually discover the real meaning of his actions with a twist at the end.  The narrator (Ed Norton) is a disillusioned car insurance man who suffers from insomnia. His therapist suggests stints at various support groups to ease his pain. Nothing changes except his meeting with an equally individual, a Marla Singer. Along his daily duties, h...

Pulp Fiction 1994 Never had the chance to watch this movie the first time around, the movie that catapulted John Travolta's acting career back into orbit after many repeated failures since Saturday Night Fever. As in other Quentin Tarantino's films, the layout of the movie is different and is full of gore, violence and flowery explicit language. Bruce Willis career too had a kick-start here. I kind of liked it with its unique brand of humour, the right chemistry between the main hitmen, Samuel L Jackson and Travolta and the witty dialogue. The story is basically disjointed and is told in a non-linear fashion, but they all make sense in the end. You would be wondering why Travolta gets shot dead in the middle of the show but reappears later. It starts with two novice robbers chitchatting and decides to rob a diner. When they (one of them is Tim Roth of 'Lie to Me') hold a gun to hold up, the credits roll in. The story stops there and continues at the tail end of the mo...