RIFLE RANGE BOY

Finally, after a long time, I attended a family get-together. As expected, most of the attendees were there not because they were dying to witness the obnoxious display of affection amongst family members. They were there either for the booze or were just happy to come out of their houses after being cooped up for so long.  Of course, the event they looked forward to most was banter with friends over drinks at the corner of the hall. It was the opportune time to catch up with the rumours around Malaysian public life. These lively and animated talks are more convincing than the umpteen WhatsApp and social media messages circulating amongst friends. Nothing beats live chats. In Malaysia, coffee shop rumours are notoriously known to carry more weightage than official statements. Even though denied vehemently by the powers-that-be, these rumours will prove to be the real deal after all. This time around, the corner crowd comprise civil servants and self-made entrepreneurs. Being true b...

Bure Baruta @ Cabaret Balkan (Буре барута @ Powder Keg, Serbian; 1998) Director: Goran Paskaljević I learned about this director when I watched 2016 'Dev Bhumi, Land of the Gods'. This film is another of his many highly acclaimed directed movies. Made in the heady times of the 1990s when the Balkan country, Yugoslavia, was on the cusp of disintegrating, and every ethnic group was embroiled in conserving their dominance. Slobodan Milosevic's Army was terrorising, and the economy was in the pits. This era even brought a new English word - 'Balkanisation'. Like Yugoslavia, which was synthetically united by the winning political powers of the Second World War and their own as six sovereign nations, Balkanisation is the term given when a few provinces want to gain autonomy from a country. The film's first dialogue reminded me of a recent conversation at a dinner table with a friend.  "This is a goddamned lousy country; why would anyone want to come back?" T...