RIFLE RANGE BOY

Queen of Hearts (Dronnigen, Swedish; 2019) Director: May el-Toukhy https://www.filmaffinity.com/en/film115292.html This tale reveals two truths: defenders of justice are not exempt from breaching the very laws they ardently uphold, and one cannot put a price on the matters of the heart. A lawyer, Anne, who champions the plight of an abused teenager, is herself embroiled in an affair with her young adult stepson. Anne is married to a physician, Peter, and has twin daughters. Peter's troubled son, Gustav, from his first marriage, appears at their doorstep. Gustav has never liked Anne for taking his father away from his mother. The relationship between Gustav and Peter is not fantastic, and his academic performance appears poor. For amusement, Gustav stages a break-in at Peter and Anne's house. Although the police could not identify the culprit, Anne confronted Gustav to reveal his recklessness. Anne and Peter's marriage had lost its spark over the years due to their respectiv...

Requiem for a Dream (2000) Director: Darren Aronofsky The President of India, a rocket scientist and an overall good soul, once told his audience, "Dream is not that which you see while you sleep, but is that something that does not allow you to sleep." Don't jump about it; put it in action! They also discuss the American dream, which states everyone has equal opportunity to achieve success and prosperity through hard work, determination, and initiative. Yes, we can convince ourselves that we can do it. We should go for it, putting our minds and souls into it. However, the fact is that people win and people lose. Only some people are cut for it. A thin line exists between having the mojo to do it and not. One should recognise their shortcomings and jump on to Plan B, not forever flogging a dead horse. Worse still, when one fails to pick up the telltale signs, one buries oneself deeper and deeper into a cesspool of self-defeating habits, hoping for a miracle to happen. Whe...

Bhoothakaalam (The Past / Ghost Time, Malayalam; 2022) Director:   Rahul Sadasivan There is a little wordplay with the title. With the prefix ’Bhooth’, one may wonder whether it is a horror movie. When one starts watching the film, one would wonder whether it is about the ghost of the past. That is what it is all about—how the ghost of the past comes haunting if it is not exorcised head-on. The ugly demonic head of the past has a self-defeating habit of repeating itself, making one go through the malady repeatedly. No one will take kindly to others’ advice on how one’s life should be lived. No one will be flattered when told his head should be checked. That is what it is. Individuals should take a step back, access their mental health occasionally, and take preventive measures or make amends. Be the change. Change comes with realisation and from the inside. No one can make the horse drink water. The horse must first feel thirsty. The need to change comes from within. Viewers wonder...

Anatomy of a Fall (Anatomie d'une chute, French; 2023) Director: Justine Triet We reassure ourselves by telling lies. We are so cock sure that truth will win. It would somehow emerge from the crack to balance the equilibrium of the Universe. One of the half-truths we convince ourselves is that there is a balance of two opposing but sometimes complementary forces; the good and bad, the truth and the lie, the masculine and feminine forces, chaos and order and so forth.  The 'truth' wins every time, we con ourselves. It is all a perspective of the now and the glaring presence of the evidence of the present. No caped sorcerer will ride the high horse of justice to right the wrong.   That, in my opinion, is the essence of this story. A husband is found dead in his frosted front yard, presumably after a fall from his balcony three storeys up. He was discovered by his blind son, returning from a walk with his guide dog. The wife was alone in the house with blaring music playing on...

The Eternal Daughter (2022) Director: Joanna Hogg This is not your usual horror movie, but it has a Gothic feel to it. It is a dark, slow movie with nostalgia, old age and loneliness hanging over it like a theatre drape.  In the formative when the rebel in us tries to surface, we tend to look at our parents as the worse examples of how parents should bring up their kids. We look at other people's parents and yearn for lost childhood. We blame them for all our not-so-fancy physical attributes and life failures. We could not wait to grow up and get the hell out of their supervision.   Fast forward in time and space. The hard dents of life knock us back to realisation. We look at our parents through a different lens. We realise that life as adults are neither a walk in the park nor a pleasure cruise. Every corner has a brick wall to give us concussions as we rush through life's journey.   We look at our parents and see that the springiness of youth and headiness of being you...

The Banshees of Inisherin (2022) Writer & Director:  Martin McDonagh Different people would interpret this movie differently. As all movies based in Ireland tend to be based on the Irish Rebellion, naturally, it could be construed as a veiled depiction of the clash between the Roman Catholics and the Protestants. It could be an allegorical reference to a futile feud between brothers which had lost all relevance and had no meaning in modern Ireland. The police, representing England, could be the ruling coalition and may benefit from continued chaos. Someone proposed that the storyteller is trying to imply that hope had died in the region, and another character is pushing for the other to get out of the place to start a new life. To put the plot straight, the story happens on an island, Inisherin, during the tail-end of the Irish Civil War, around the 1920s, just across the straits on the mainland. Nothing much is happening on the island. The protagonist, Pádraic, milks his cow a...

Aftersun(2022) Director, Writer: Charlotte Wells From the time of the Big Bang, the Universe is said to be moving at a pace of low entropy to one of high entropy. At low entropy, things seem harmonious, orderly and balanced. On the contrary, chaos rules on the other. Is that why our childhood was so serene, whereas our adult life is fraught with mayhem? Could it also be that 'Time', the essence of our existence, seemed longer when we were young? Imagine the time we had to wait for our next long school holiday when we had just finished one. It felt like aeons away, like forever. But then, now, a solar circle just whizzes by. We are heading towards total chaos! Our memory of the past comes in flashes, like rays of light from a stroboscope. It is cluttered. It comes in flares and disappears just as quickly. The problem with memory is that it can be deceptive. It suppresses painful ones and glamourises pleasant ones. When we were young, we were restless to grow older. We envy seei...