Legend or tricksters?

Meet the Night Runners (BBC documentary; 2019)


There is an East African tale amongst the Luo people of spirits who wonder at night to disturb households. These 'night runners' throw sand and stones on their roofs, make rattling sounds on their zinc roofs and make eerie sounds in the deadpan of the night.

The BBC African crew did an exposé recently of this phenomenon. 

These 'night runners' are just people who like to create mischief and get a thrill out of scaring the hell of their victims. They do not steal peoples' properties but sometimes get caught and get beaten up for it. Because it is humiliating to be labelled a 'night runners' at the risk of being chased out of the village, they end up in debts trying to pay off their captors. 

The 'night runners' allege it is a first within their families as they had seen their fathers, mothers and grandparents do the same. At one point, it looks more like an addiction that is difficult to break. After being exposed or injured, they insist on quitting only to return their old ways in no time.

Toma Bay, Western Kenya.
Lake Victoria in the background.

Using night vision cameras and interviewing runners as well as their victims, the documentary brings its viewers into the dark and secret world of 'night runners'. Using drones to film to the landscape of Toma Bay, in Western Kenya, the capital of 'night runners', the crew managed to give us a close-up view of remote East African picturesque landscape as well as the view of Lake Victoria.

Unfortunately, there are allegations that the runners who appeared in the recordings were paid actors. A middle-aged self-confessed runner came forth later to say that she was invited to play the part. Others insist that 'night runners' are supposed to run naked unlike the ones seen in the secret filming footages where there were dressed in white men's clothes and there appeared new, suggesting further that it was staged. 

The crew is trying to tell that the 'night runners' are just pranksters who are addicted to creating mischiefs while the people insist it delves into mysticism and the dark secrets of the African past.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

There was a time...

Saw two snippets this week about the greatness of ancestors of two lands of which, in the present world need to show a lot to prove themselves. One giant had just awoken from a long slumber after yoke of colonialism and another which was prophesying philosophy to the world at a time when the world was inhabited by savages.

Firstly, I found out about the engineering marvels of India in 1500 BCE when they could build a 35km bridge, Ram Sethu, between the southernmost peak of India and tip of Ceylon. In that age and time, they built a bridge with trees and flat stones that stood the test of time. The rise in sea-levels and priorities in other things in life made it a relic of the past. Now all that marvel is lost in the annals of time and its subjects live at the mercy of the international world for survival. Of course, there are tonnes of know-how too unevenly distributed around the country for comfort.

Epicurus

Next, turn to Greece. Now they seem the pariah who seems to be depending on hand-outs and write-offs from its neighbouring countries who are simply fed up with their lack of austerity. It seems to be to be a far cry from the times they used to be. At a time when their neighbours were in the wilderness trying to make sense of living and survival, the Greeks already had a cradle of civilisation so advanced that they were discussing metaphysical aspects of life. Epicureanism and Stoicism were concerned about the divine attitude towards human and philosophy of life. This advanced civilisation reached their pinnacle and now they are at the mercy of others, who were at one time, just plain savages! So what happened?

Time and tide waits for no man. Nothing lasts forever. It is the circle of life. There is a time for the dog and a time for the elephant. Big indestructible powers and gone. It is just the flavour of times....

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Things better left to Imagination

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
Director:Stanley Kubrik
Phew! That is what I told myself. This film is the perfect example how a good quality film just blows your mind. It is not difficult to understand why such an offering with so much of silence, dearth of dialogue and good old Johann Strauss II's Blue Danube orchestral music goes a long way to have an impact to its audience than all the marvel of pyrotechnics and nonsensical exhibition of flesh can do. This 1968 offering has a cult like following and conspiracy theorist have targeted Kubrik (the director and co-screenplay writer with Arthur C Clark) of having a hand to staging the televised screening of the moon landing that never happened!
This flick is indeed a classic with its cinematography far ahead of its time. The story is divided into 4 parts and for a good part of it is left to our imagination. This epic has been the precursor for many sci-fi movies to come after that, eg. Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Star Wars and many more.
A good 5 minutes is spent on introducing the now legendary music score which is often used to indicate the climax of an event like the announcement of the winner of a competition, with the picture of the Sun emerging behind Earth as seen from space.
The next 15 minutes show how primates learn skills after holding a bone. They learn to hunt and also fight amongst themselves. They see a monolithic structure which emits a strong vibration and probably gives them wisdom. Soon after this, he learns to use a bone as a tool to attack. He throws the long bone in mid air and we are drawn into the next scene... a space ship (?nuclear warhead).
As if to denote evolution of these creatures, we next we see a space ship cruising in outer space to the soothing sounds of the Blue Danube.

Only after 25 minutes, do we hear speech. A flight stewardess struggles to walk the aisle of a commercial plane set-up like space ship in zero gravity environment. The vehicle then reaches its destination. As the passengers alight the craft, the computer verifies them by voice identification.
A US investigator is sent to the Moon Base to investigate some strange occurrences. After much fanfare, the researches reach again a monolithic structure which emits high frequency sounds. The stone is apparently pointing towards Jupiter. Swish...We are into the third story.
A space ship is enroute to planet Jupiter with 2 astronauts, 3 astronauts in suspended hibernation and a known it all computer HAL 9000. The computer (which may have developed emotions) diagnoses that one of their radar may malfunction, so the astronauts go out to investigate. After finding that there is nothing wrong with the structures, the astronauts were 'lip-read' by HAL that he (the computer) was going to be shut down! HAL severs one of the astronaut's oxygen supply and locks out the other. The life support of the hibernating astronauts are terminated.
The remaining astronaut enters the ship via an emergency entrance and manually shuts down HAL. A pre-recorded message reveals the secret about the monolithic structure found on Moon 18 months previously. We then move on to the last story - Jupiter and Beyond Infinity.
The previous astronaut, Bowman, leaves the mother ship in a space pod towards Jupiter. He enters the atmosphere and is drawn into a dizzying kaleidoscopic journey of psychedelic hues into another dimension. He sees himself growing old progressively in a majestic white room with white piano, regal furniture and the works like the one in John Lennon's white room in the music video of Imagine!
He sees the monolithic structure again and he is transformed into a fetus encapsulated in a bubble gazing into planet Earth. The End.
The dearth of dialogue makes one's imagination go wild with interpretation of what is actually shown on the screen. The monolithic structure reminds us of the shivaling (shivalingam), the black stone that allegedly had fallen from the skies to land in Kailash at the foot of Himalayas which gives wisdom to Man. The evolution of Man is depicted (if you believe in the Theory of Evolution) of how from a brainless hominid, he evolved to gain simple living skills, to create Artificial Intelligence (which in turn controlled him!) and to explore beyond the stars. There is also a suggestion of reincarnation...
Maybe I can catch the sequel and learn more secrets..(2010: The Year We Make Contact)

Marilyn Monroe - Live in Chicago

GIANT MARILYN MONROE 50th ANNIVERSARY STATUE UNVEILED IN CHICAGO. 

LIFELIKE "SEVEN YEAR ITCH" ICONIC POSE CAPTURED BY DESIGNER SEWARD JOHNSON...

THE PROJECT WAS KEPT IN GREAT SECRECY TILL RECENTLY

PROVIDING SHELTER under RAIN & SNOW. 

NAIL POLISHING over THE SIMULATED SUBWAY STATION GRATING TO REPRESENT THE ONE IN THE MOVIE. 

THE DESIGNER APPLYING THE SPRAY COLOR?

FINISHING TOUCHES. 

AMAZING ATTENTION TO DETAILS, AND REALISTIC FLESH TONES

APPLYING THE FINISHING TOUCHES. 

WONDERING HOW THE STATUE IS ABLE TO STAND ON ITS OWN WITHOUT SUPPORT? 

BRIDE AND BRIDESMAIDS, FIND SHADE UNDER THE STATUE 

STANDING IN THE MIDST OF CHICAGO SKYLINE WOULD HAVE MADE MARILYN VERY PROUD INDEED

. 

WHAT A FITTING TRIBUTE TO MARILYN IN THE WINDY CITY OF CHICAGO! 

EVEN THE YOUTH ARE CURIOUS.

Everybody's fine!

The friendly neighbourhood illegal DVD pedlar who converses with difficulty in disjointed conversational Malay is an honest film critique and reviewer. Although all his recommendations may not be your cup of tea, (you can give a go to his suggestions of movies related to wrestling, aimless pyrotechnic display type of action drama and gruesome blood splashing type of teen Friday 13th horror), his knowledge on relatively unknown title from independent production houses are worth a gamble. The service also comes with a replacement if there were any defect in print, not up to the viewer's liking.
Two of his recommendations that captured my heart were 'Gran Torino' and 'Everybody's Fine'. Unlike their counterparts in India where thespians of yesteryears refuse to age but don primary roles with liberal help from make-up artists and well fitting toupee, these two legends who graced the above two movies wore roles befitting their age.

In 'Gran Torino', Clint Eastwood sheds in tough mono-syllabled cowboy and order defying Dirty Harry role to act as disgruntled and white supremacy condoning Korean War veteran widower whose neighbourhood is slowly but infiltrated by Asian and Blacks. He has issues with his children, the pastor and his new Mao (a tribe from Burma) neighbours. Many things happened and he reluctantly but eventually gets close to the people next door. His prized collection was a 1972 American Gran Torino which he personally assembled when he was still employed is the title of the movie.

After watching Robert De Niro in plethora of swashbuckling daredevil roles from a surviving Russian roulette soldier in 'Deer Hunter' to hard talking gangster movies from 'Godfather' and 'Untouchables' to a boxer in 'Raging Bull' to tough cop in 'Ronin' to a convict in the remake of "Cape Fear', we see a down to earth mellowed down De Niro in "Everybody's Fine'. Here, he assumes the role of a retired blue-collar worker who is a widower and feels that his children are ignoring him, now that his wife is not around. After they cancel their visit to the family home, he decides to visit them instead. He starts a trans-American cross-country trip as he is medically unfit to fly. One by one he discovers that his children are not really high achievers as he thought they were. This, he realises after much melodrama, and the take-home message is that as long as everyone is happy, everyone is fine!