Extraordinarily Simple!

Marty (1955)

Director: Dilbert Mann

https://boredanddangerousblog.wordpress.com/
2016/05/24/movie-review-marty-1955/

Ernest Borgnine was a regular fixture during my terrestrial TV days growing up. He often played the villain in numerous Western films and portrayed a tough soldier in combat movies. The last I recall watching him, he was a smiling, gap-toothed, confident character in ‘Airwolf’.

The 1950s saw Borgnine thrive in Hollywood; however, his opportunities to appear as a leading man sadly diminished as he began to gain weight in the middle and lose it at the top. Then came the audition for ‘Marty’, and he was cast as the hero. 

The 1950s also witnessed movie moguls amassing fortunes from their productions. Simultaneously, tax authorities were hot on their trail, occasionally imposing charges on megastars of up to 94% if they earned more than $ 200,000. Consequently, many looked for loopholes to avoid taxes. Some worked less, while others established shell companies for dubious ventures. 

Burt Lancaster, a self-made man, had precisely that on his mind when he ventured alongside his agent, Harold Hect, to adapt a TV play into a feature film. No one was optimistic that such a monochrome endeavour with a mundane story about an elderly man searching for a wife would make an impact at the box office. This was during a period when studios were thriving with their extravagant films featuring biblical narratives, lavish sets, and vibrant, colourful scenes. 

Lancaster and Hect wanted the film to fail. They did not want it completed; rather, they sought to write it off as a loss.

 

However, the tax authorities were shrewder. They ruled that films must be finished and screened at least once to be considered a failure. Consequently, the producers had no option but to show it in a single cinema in New York with very little publicity. 

The film, largely shot outdoors around New York, attracted the local populace to the cinema. Before long, people were queuing down the block for tickets. Someone decided to send it to Cannes as America’s representative. Hollywood had never won anything at Cannes prior to that. Lo and behold, Marty won the 1955 Palme d’Or, and the rest is history. At the Oscars, it went on to win four Academy Awards, including one for Ernest Borgnine. 

 

Marty became extraordinary due to its simplicity. The storyline resonated with the times when turning 29 made a woman an old maid, a 35-year-old man old, and family values were a high priority. The conversations were mundane and self-deprecating, intensifying the emotional depth of the characters and drawing us closer to their daily lives than in the mid-1950s.

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The generational gap?

Mehta Boys (Hindi, 2015)

Directed, Written and Produced by Boman Irani

https://www.indiaforums.com/movie/the-mehta-boys_7313

This problem is frequently observed these days. As baby boomers live longer lives and share their experiences, clashes often arise between them and younger generations. The boomers are eager to impart the knowledge that benefited them. In their view, they do not want to be like their fathers, who sat aloof, refusing to engage in conversation with the children. The boomers believed they were doing the younger generation a favour by offering free advice. The problem is they assume that this is the only effective approach. The younger ones see things through a different lens and adopt a more relaxed attitude.

The boomers live with a siege mentality, assuming that the world is hostile and could turn upside down at any moment. They act as if they are facing impending doom. Their sole purpose in life is to save for a rainy day at the expense of enjoying themselves.

Consider, for example, preparing for a flight. The older generation would have packed, weighed, and locked the luggage well in advance—perhaps even a day or two before departure. Meanwhile, the younger ones tend to leave it until the last minute, scrambling to find their passport and visa. The same applies to meeting deadlines. The youngsters believe they perform best under pressure. Do they really?

This likely reflects the generational divide often discussed. The older generation insists that things should be done in a single way, while the younger ones understand that there are numerous approaches to tackling a problem. This dilemma is exacerbated in a patriarchal family.

This is the story of a recent widower with two adult children: a daughter in the US and a young architect struggling with confidence issues, working in the bustling city of Mumbai. The father, the widower, is compelled to relocate to the US by his daughter. Both children reunite at the family home to bid farewell to their father. The father and daughter were supposed to fly together, but due to a mix-up with the tickets, the father was assigned a later travel date. Thus, he must stay with his son for a few days before his departure to the US. The relationship between father and son has never been particularly close. The son's formative years were difficult, as the father was always hovering over him. Nothing the son did ever seemed good enough.

The following days marked a turning point in their relationship. The father met the boy's girlfriend, who got on well with him. Amidst some difficulties, such as the father losing his US visa and passport, they found a compromise.

A heartfelt tale of paternal love, ego, frustration, and reconciliation.

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Normalising woke culture?

Kadhalikka Neramillai (No time to love,  காதலிக்க நேரமில்லை;  Tamil, 2025)

Director: Kiruthiga Udhayanidhi

https://www.moneycontrol.com/entertainment/kadhalikka-neramillai-ott-release-
when-and-where-to-watch-this-romantic-drama-starring-jayam-ravi-a
nd-nithiya-menon-article-12936421.html

It would have been just another Netflix recommendation that I would have ignored. Having such an unoriginal name, which had been used before, did not excite me. For the ignoramus, in 1964, the Tamil cinema was taken back by Sridhar's superhit. Its psychedelic, picturesque Eastman moment came to be defined as Tamil cinema's first rom-com. The hit song. 'Visvanathan, velai vendum!' became to be sung as the voice of defiance of the oppressed.

My interest was piqued when a YouTuber of a channel I follow went into a tirade trying to tear down Netflix and its moviemakers for thinking out of such a crass movie. Other Tamil movie reviewers were kind to the movie, praising it for its modern approach to storytelling and refreshing filmmaking. They probably did not want to offend the First Family of Tamil Nadu, as the ruling CM's family is involved in the film's direction, production and distribution. My YouTuber accused Netflix and the producers of trying to tear down every fibre of decency and threaten to destroy the Indian way of life. The prescribed Indian or Tamil way of living, where a female is supposed to follow specific rules regarding sex, weddings and patriarchal lead, is torn down.

The movie starts with a rebellious daughter, Shriya, working as an architect in Chennai, asking her mother how sure she was that her unmarried daughter was still a virgin. The mother almost faints whilst the father ducks down, avoiding the confrontation that ensued. 

To put things in order, it is a story about a daughter who plans to migrate to the US after a civil marriage with her 4-year-old boyfriend and obtains her visa. One day, after returning from work earlier than usual, she finds her husband in bed with her best friend. She annuls her wedding.

The 1964 version

In another town, Bangalore, another architect, Sid, is all set to engage his model girlfriend. After a minor misunderstanding, the fiancée decides not to turn up. As is often the case, he goes on bedding beaux one after another for revenge. 

Meanwhile, Shriya realises that her biological clock is ticking away and wants a baby as soon as possible. What does she do? She goes straight for donor insemination. And guess whose sperm she receives? Don't ask how, but she receives Sid's from another state. Sid had once accompanied his gay friend to donate his sperm for future use. Sid does the same. This gay friend reappears later to marry his partner. This became a point of contention for the commentator as if the film is normalising gay weddings in India. For the record, while the third gender is recognised in Indian law, gay weddings are not. 

The purists also have issues with the casual portrayal of alcohol consumption by both sexes and across all layers of society. The familial decorum, such as the parent-child barrier often observed in traditional Indian families, seems to have disappeared. Single parenting is depicted as the most natural thing. It is trying to shove in the Woke's gender agenda. 

Most Indian movies end with all the characters agreeing that the Indian way of life is supreme as if to resolve all the issues. No, not here. The protagonist decides to live with the sperm donor as her live-in partner. 

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We strive...

Better Man (2024)
Director: Michael Gracey

The main character, who roams about in a chimpanzee suit, is the first aspect that captures your attention. The other characters do not make a fuss about this. They simply talk, hug, and interact with him as if he were one of their own. The reason is never disclosed, even at the end of the film. We only learn from newspaper interviews later that there is a hidden philosophy behind the setup.

As the title suggests, the film's protagonist is inspired by the life and times of Robbie Williams from Take That. For the uninformed—including many in the intended audience—namely, the non-British—the recurring question is: "Robbie, who?" This same factor contributed to the film's lack of success at the box office.

Anthropomorphically speaking, we have evolved from primates. As we transition from chimpanzees to Homo sapiens, we technically become a 'better man.' Over time, as we move into the future, we aspire to be better than the generation before us. But what do we mean by being a better man? Here is a piece of advice: do not ask your respective spouses. They could provide an endless list of all your shortcomings and how you might improve as a person. 

We can begin by taking responsibility for our actions, behaviours, and words. This is an effective strategy for expressing ourselves and improving our communication skills. It is believed that suppressing negative emotions can lead to frequent violent outbursts or destructive behaviours.

This biopic portrays Robbie Williams as a CG-animated chimpanzee, reflecting his feeling of being less evolved than others. This may have stemmed from the self-destructive behaviours he engaged in and the pain he caused to his loved ones. It illustrates how a nobody from a small town was chosen to be part of a boyband. It recounts his struggles growing up with an absent father and his efforts to fit in with the other band members. After enduring a life beset by a whirlwind of drugs and alcohol and causing suffering to those close to him, he ultimately became a better man. He turned his life around and made amends.

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Follow your heart?

A Hidden Life (English/German;2019)

Director: Terence Malick

This is one of the movies that kept my eyes locked on the screen even after the credits rolled. It presents a long-lasting quandary about divinity and our purpose on Earth.

Most movies that we see usually depict Germans as a whole of homogeneous block that unequivocally supports Hitler and what he was doing to uplift Germany from the clutches of hopelessness. For a change, the main character in this film actually stood against German nationalism in the Hitler style. A devout Christian and a conscientious objector to conscription into the Army, Franz Jägerstätter opposes Hitler's rhetoric of a superior race. In his everyday life, Franz is a simple farmer living happily on the hillside of Austrian country, minding his wife, three little daughters, and the unending farm work.

So when he is called to serve the Army and state his allegiance to Hitler by instituting the Nazi Salute, he naturally refuses. Franz is arrested and imprisoned. Before his arrest, the people in the village were already looking at Franz's family scornfully. After his arrest, his family was boycotted by everyone, save for some who gave support, albeit clandestinely.

In prison, Franz is verbally and physically abused and told to just utter his loyalty to Hitler and get scot-free. Franz stuck onto his guns like a divine decree and endured the gamut - insults and grieve. All through his incarceration, he has an internal struggle with whether what he is doing is the right thing. All these were recorded in Franz's written communication with his wife, Fani. They provide the basis for the film. Franz's soliloquy is echoed in the voiceovers. Franz was finally executed. The rest of the story tells the hardship Fani, their daughters, and Franz's mother endure in making a life for themselves.

The burning questions that went through my mind were these.

We are social animals and are somewhat skewed in our thinking to be in sync with the thought of the majority. Perhaps because we are all clueless about our real purpose on Earth, we grope along and clutch on straws. We try to convince ourselves that we are indeed doing the right by apeing others. We follow the powerful, the wealthy, and the elders as we feel they are more knowledgeable about things in the world. At the same time, we realise these people are mere mortals like us, equally ignorant of the right path. The leaders also have vested interests. Is it not helpful for a shepherd if his flock is abundant and well-fed? The scary part is that the shepherd would one day lead them to the slaughterhouse.

The almighty, omnipresent and omnipotent in all his wisdom through the Book of John, has wielded to his congregation, "I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world, you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world." (John 16:33).

Franz saw the events surrounding the war, the superiority of one race over the other, and saluting a man with these ideas as wrong. However, the verse in John convinced him that what he was doing was right, just as Jesus fought against the hypocrites in Judea. Just like the event on Cavalry Hill that changed the world, Franz was convinced that his resistance would have lasting impressions.

A man plants a mango tree, but the generations after him are the ones who reap the benefits the tree offers. They stop to rest under its shade and occasionally sink their teeth into the succulent fruit. Nobody turns around to thank or say a prayer to the planter of the tree. For all they are concerned, the tree just happened to be there! We should do things expecting returns. It is for the generation next.

We are responsible for our dependents if our actions affect those who will come after us. Franz has specific duties as a father, son, and husband on Earth. Is he relegating his duties by being an absent parent? His kids will grow up with the trauma of not having a father, the wife without a companion, and the mother with the ache of burying the son she delivered. Can Franz be so cocksure that he will indeed find his place in the promised land? Is he convinced that what he did was indeed what God wanted him to do? Guess we will never know!

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A lie is a lie.

About Elly (Iranian; 2009)
Director: Asghar Farhadi

Sometimes, we think a white lie would not hurt. Along with the lie, we squeeze in a little mischief. We justify our lying by convincing ourselves that it is all good in the grander scheme of things.

Little do realise of its repercussions. To cover the embarrassment of one's untruth being discovered and maybe to uphold the white lie, there is a need for more untruths. The trouble with truth is that it has a funny way of showing up at all the wrong times.

The lattice of lies will eventually crumble. Unless the individual has perfected the art of the sleigh of hands, the bluff will fall flat.

To add insult to injury, God forbid if anything untoward happened, all the blame would fall squarely on the person who initiated the white lie and the good intentions!

This is precisely what happens in this story. Old classmates, three couples with their kids and another divorced classmate decided to spend a few days by the beach. Sepideh, who organised the rushed trip, decided to include her daughter's kindergarten teacher. She was hoping to match her to the divorced friend. As conservative as the society was, Sepireh chose to tell the caretaker of the beach bungalow as four couples, the fourth being the kindergarten teacher and the divorced classmate who were on their honeymoon.

With all the confusion of the children being all over the place and the adults running around organising things, a child runs to his father, trying to say that one of the kids is drowning. Panic ensues. Everyone goes looking for the child and is saved from drowning. The kindergarten teacher, the adult caring for the kids, cannot be found anywhere. Did she drown in trying to save the child? Did she run away from them after discovering that she is suited to the divorcee? Then, a man appears in the picture as the teacher's fiancé.

Sepideh soon realises her mistake when her bluff falls flat, especially when the police get involved, and the caretaker learns that the fourth couple is unmarried.

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Wage war against God?

Prisoners (2013)

Director: Denis Villeneuve

Sometimes, bad things happen to good people; conversely, good things happen to bad people. "Who are we to judge?" we ask ourselves. When things get too complicated, we end the conversation by saying, "God knows best!"

When an adult dies after living a fun-filled life with booze, drugs and flesh, we rationalise his demise by uttering words like 'he should have seen it coming' or 'he lived his life to the fullest'. When no vices are detected, the spot diagnosis would be 'God loved him more'. If the deceased is an infant, toddler or newborn, the standard answer is 'God, in his wisdom, had bigger plans.' We are too perplexed to think of a reasonable explanation. Invoking the name of God somehow seems acceptable. Washing hands the responsibility and passing the buck to an invisible force that does not justify His moves is legitimate. Nobody gets angry with God. Nobody can derail God's plans anyway.

This is what happens when people try to settle a score with God after losing their loved ones. A motherly lady, after losing her son to cancer, decides to wage war against God. To create demons out of parents, she abducts other people's children. The lady was on a mission to make God lose his followers. 

An intense movie narrating the tale of families whose young girls go missing. The parents, after finding that the police were not doing enough, decide to take the law into their own hands, acting on a hunch only.

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Jury on Trial?

Juror #2
Director: Clint Eastwood

Yet another big one from Clint Eastwood. This 94-year-old may have directed his last movie, but one can never say never. This one makes us think, as did his previous offerings, like 'Letters from Iwo Jima', 'Flags of Our Fathers', and 'Gran Torino'.

It is a courtroom drama along the lines of '12 Angry Men', where the moral decision of convicting a person of a serious crime is the mainstay. This film, however, goes one step further. One of the jurors, Juror #2, may have committed the murder in the case he is judging. On the day of the incident, the Juror witnessed the tussle between the accused and his girlfriend at a bar. The girlfriend was found dead later that night by a creek beside a road. The accused was seen following his girlfriend in his car. With his destructive anger management issues, he was naturally accused of having mortally wounded his girlfriend. 

The trouble is Juror #2 is a recovering alcoholic and was nursing the pain of losing a pair of twins a year previously. He was fighting his inner demons to resist the bottle again. Self-restraint allegedly won the day. As he left the bar, he drove the same country road as the other two. Just as the Juror bent to pick up his phone to answer a call from his wife, he felt a thud. He looked up and saw nothing except for a deer crossing sign. He checked his car for damage and moved on, assuming he had hit a running deer. 

Juror #2 slowly realises, as he sits through the case, and with sudden flashes of his accident from the same night in his mind, that he could be the killer instead of the accused. What was he to do? Resign from his post, which may turn investigations towards him. At a time when he is looking forward to being sober for so long and ushering in his soon-to-be-born child, the last thing he needs is to go to prison.

With all the evidence stacked against the accused, argued by a DA with political ambitions, the accused is sure to be incarcerated for the crime he did not commit. A moral dilemma ensues within the Juror. Should he ensure that the jury delivers a unanimous decision of guilty so he (the Juror) is off the hook? If a mistrial is declared when the jury cannot convict him, the police may have to investigate again, and the Juror's name may crop up.

Does the truth reveal itself in the end? If the truth is so powerful and can maintain balance, why must we defend it? Is it everyone's moral duty to protect the truth no matter what it may do to them and the people around them? In the same breath, we insist that many versions of the truth exist. Who determines which is true, anyway? Many versions of it seem right from their perspective. Have they not heard of the Rashomon effect? Sometimes, truth is watered down to preserve peace.

Still, we insist on a fair hearing and that everyone deserves to be adequately represented. And we realise that many guilty criminals, with the power of the best legal minds that money can buy behind them, get away scot-free through technicalities. The innocent, too, can be punished with overwhelming circumstantial evidence. When a notoriously bad person who had escaped convictions before is penalised for a crime he did not commit, we say that his crimes have finally caught up with him. We justify the wrongful conviction akin to a person who lives by the sword and dies by it. Are the lawyers less enthusiastic about defending such criminals, or is wealth the determinant?

Are you being dishonest by putting your self-interest above doing the right thing? After all, no man is an island. On the other hand, no innocent man should be punished for something he did not do. Some feel pressured to mete out instant justice. We take shortcuts and cut down on paperwork. We don blinkers to confirm our biases and refuse to see beyond our scope of vision.

When a miscarriage of justice happens right in front of your eyes, just how far would you go to right the wrong, especially when it involves an admission of guilt? With the admission of error, you must bear the brunt of losing face and position. 

There are no answers, only questions. The film ends on a cliffhanger, probably on purpose, so viewers can ponder it and draw conclusions. It brings viewers into serious discussions on truth, justice, morality, and guilt.

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