RIFLE RANGE BOY

Jojo Rabbit (2019) When you are young, with the propaganda that is fed to you, you grow up a simpleton. You think the knowledge that had been fed down your throat is the gospel truth and everything else is just farce. Then you grow up. You soon realise that it has all been a smokescreen. The victors and those with might had convinced their way is King.  With the opening of the inner eye, the onus is on you to educate and to spread the word to the ignoramus. But then, no one is going take what you say lying down.  I was surprised that Scarlett Johansson was actually nominated for the Oscars for her role in this movie. Her character is hardly memorable, and she dies before the end of the film. As for the storyline, it is nothing new. It is told from the viewpoint of a 10-year-old boy, Jojo, who is gung ho with joining Hitler's youth Army. Deep inside, he is a pacifist. He has an imaginary friend in the form of a comical Adolf Hitler who cajoles him to do the thi...

Triumph of Will ( Triumph des Willens, German; 1935) The Godfather of propaganda must have realised early in his career that visual representation of a lie, often repeated will eventually be the accepted truth. This, coming from a person who almost made it to the Academy of Fine Arts of Vienna, must be true. Thanks to a party member, a certain Elisabeth Nietzsche, he gained access to the mind of one the greatest 20th-century thinker, Frederich Nietzsche, her brother. His unpublished book, 'Will of Power', which Nietzsche thought was too controversial to man, was made available to him. Many of his ideas are starkly portrayed here in this propaganda film.   Like Zarathustra, in Nietzsche's book,  Hitler appears from the clouds and disembarks the plane to present his good news to the people. If Zarathustra brought in the news from the mountains, that God is dead, this time, it is at the Nuremberg, and it is the Social Democrat party assembly. He ...

As far as I can remember, it has been the practice of people to respect the dead. No matter how bad a person had been in his or her lifetime, they are generally forgiven. Only the nicest things are highlighted and the not so pleasant one are conveniently forgotten or omitted in the eulogy. It is accepted that the person in question would be adequately dealt with in the afterlife by the powers above and the aid of The Book. As a deviant from the norm, people of the working class of Britain, mainly miners, have been keeping their grudge of discontent all these years and have no qualms displaying it now. Even amongst the vast majority of the 'others', there are those who feel that the world now is a worse place than before she came to the picture. With the combo of Thatcherism-Reaganism, where greed is good, we are now left with a messy world of living in credit and mortgage. I suppose the changes in the world are inevitable with or without Thatcher. Desperate situations ...

Downfall (Der Untergang, German, 2004) After 60 years of having unpleasant memories of the Third Reich and his atrocities to people of the world over, a film finally came out from Germany to portray the leader whom they elected and would like to forget. Trying to juggle a balance of not hurting the victims of the war, giving a sympathetic face to this leader, telling the history as it is, give a story to just to a few random events in life is not an easy task, but the film managed to put it out just so well. For a person not very well versed in the nitty-gritty of warfare, it can be very confusing, but a little bit of background will put things in perspective. (especially Alec Guinness' '10 Last 10 days of Hitler' did help, though the latter was more simplified). The movie starts on a night outside Fuhrer's office in 1942. Candidates are waiting anxiously for an interview for the post of a typist. A mild-mannered Adolf Hitler walks out to greet all of them indi...

Hitler: The last 10 days (1973) The random distribution of proteins adenine, thymine, guanine, cytosine and uracil makes sure that in any organization, be it animal or human kingdom, 1% of the population will always conquer over the remaining 99% of the remaining subservient. There can only be 1 alpha male in the lion colony and 1% will control the economy of the world no matter how fair an economic system man proposes. This status quo is mandatory to maintain peace and order in any group. If everyone is learned, influential and possess excellent leading qualities, there is bound to be chaos, hence, nature has created this arrangement. Hence, in keeping with this background, history has shown again and again of leaders would bring a race to glory and then also to its downfall due to their greed. Hitler is such an example. It is amazing how the 99% follow blindly their leader and agree for horrendous terror against fellow kind which in retrospect would like to forget. Forgive thei...

The person who painted these pictures wanted to attend the Viennese Academy of Fine Arts to become an artist, but academy rejected his application. If only he had been accepted by the academy, the world history would have been much different ...   .. That applicant's name was ADOLF HITLER!

Wow, I always thought that Charlie Chaplin only did slapstick comedies in silent movies. I was pleasantly surprised when I bumped upon an excerpt from his old movie (he does not have new movies anyway) titled 'The Great Dictator'. For indulgence have a listen to the greater orator of all time who managed to transform and hoodwink the minds of the Germans into thinking that they were from the superior Aryan race even though he himself was Austrian. If only the German Institute of Arts had accepted the application of this vegetarian, the world would not had to endure the misery of another great War after the Great Trench War 2 decades afterwards. We would have more pictures to appreciate of the German country side and of Oktoberfest!