RIFLE RANGE BOY

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...

Rubaru Roshni ( Where the Light Comes In) Directed by Svati Chakravarthy Bhatkal   The general order of things in the Universe is such. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. An eye for an eye, a tit for a tad, and 'you do the crime, you do the time'. Even the karmic rule dictates that we pay our dues. We have been taught to take responsibility for our actions with no recourse. The others will jump at the slightest chance to pounce and breathe down on the perpetrator as if he, in the wise words of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, is eligible to cast the first stone. Rumi once wrote, 'The wound is the place where the Light enters you'. A person who is heartbroken but remorseful after a regrettable act is open to amends. Unfortunately, it is not as easy as swiping the slate clean and turning over a new leaf. As practised by Roman Catholics, confessions may offer solace to the perpetrator but not to the victim. The aggrieving party will also have to deal with their own...

Dear Zoe (2022) Director: Gren Wells Just the other day, my wife wanted to get some prayer stuff to commemorate Vinayar Sathurthi, a day dedicated to Lord Ganesha, the elephantine one and remover of all obstacles. I was shocked by seeing so many people buying things like there is no tomorrow. The streets around Little India were swarming with activities. The traffic was at a standstill with people double parking. The footpaths were blocked by shopkeepers stocking their premises with goods, overflowing to the streets. The loudspeakers were up blaring devotional songs in keeping with the spirit of festivities. The shop owners are sure they are going for a kill this time around because they know the masses have been suckered into believing that God needs these condiments and that it is the worshippers' divine duty to fulfil His needs. Their desire to outdo their neighbour is good for the National economy. I do not remember Vinayakar Sathurthi creating such a rave when I was a kid. It ...

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...

If anything happens I love you! (2020) Animated Short Film This 11-minutes short film won itself an Academy Award in the Best Short Animated film category. In a concise graphic representation, the storytellers managed to capture the essence of emotions surrounding the loss of a young child. This emotional turmoil can make or break a family unit. The gamut of blaming, what-ifs, guilt and fault finding missions would eventually lead to a brick wall among the living but definitely not bring back the dead. The death of a member of a family who has not lived his full potential, however, may invoke a myriad of responses. They say an addition to the family, especially the first-born, unites families. The sight of a newborn will make everyone all jello but strong enough to cement whatever minor frictions that may have been present in day-to-day dealings. It may make or break the bonds between the close relatives, especially parents, in the case of a young child. This short film with no dialogu...