RIFLE RANGE BOY

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 t...

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 i...

That particular holiday, I decided to go for a run. Just as I was completing my 10km, coming around a corner, my eyes locked on two kittens. They huddled together, appearing scared, looking at all the things swiftly passing them. They were not shivering; the sun was warming up the morning. Their eyes reminded me of many cartoons that portray little Tom as a pathetic-looking cat pleading for attention from his masters. I asked myself what would happen to them and how they landed in a world so hostile. It is no fault of theirs. They, or even we, did not ask to be born on Earth. As I do not remember asking. Just because some cat decided to be horny, again through no fault of daddy cat, the two kittens came to be. Daddy cat was programmed by Nature that it was mating season. Mommy cat was coerced to give in, for it was her oestrus cycle. If the pitiful state of the kittens' existence was totally unnecessary and could have been prevented by Nature, instead of subjecting them defenceless...

Kasaba (The Small Town, Turkish; 1997) Director: Nuri Bilge Ceylan   When we were young, we were told this and that. We were given the impression that if we followed that prescribed path, everything would be okay. Do not stray away from that, and all will be alright. Nobody told us about the shifting goalposts and the unforeseen variables. Our parents wanted us to be a level better than them. That kind of reinforced upon us that they were an embarrassment. We did not want to be anything else but a mould of them. We strive and strive. Still, in the end, like it or not, we would end up thinking of them, thinking like them and repeating all the things they once told and found nonsensical. Nature has other plans. A mishap here and a liaison with the wrong company there. It is mindboggling what disastrous effect a dead parent or a disappearing parent has on the children. Even political turmoil or a natural catastrophe may upset the children's path to adulthood. Little things like the co...

  https://borderlessjournal.com/2024/09/16/finding-the-fulcrum/ I decided to care for my ailing octogenarian mother, not because she willed me a great fortune or because I have a great liking to care for the sick. Neither do I want to gaslight her for all the not-so-nice things she said about me and my family in better health all through her healthy life. This work is licensed under a  Creative Commons 

Perfect Days (Japanese, 2023) Director: Wim Wenders (Please note: It is plural, not singular. Every day is a perfect day, and there are many!) This is a reminder to recreational cyclists over 60: Just enjoy every opportunity that comes your way. By the twist of fate or alms from karma, you can go out, pedal, and feel the wind whisk by as you zoom downhill. Only some people are gifted with the privilege to do this. There is no need to outdo a fellow cyclist, go all out for a personal record, or invest in a state-of-the-art, spanking-new machine to keep up with the Joneses. Every completed cycling route happens on a perfect day. There will be many perfect days. This beautifully crafted film gets all my thumbs up. It moves very slowly with apparently no definite direction, but that, in essence, that is the message behind the movie. We should find happiness in the things around us.  The protagonist, Hirayama, is a creature of routine. He gets up to the rhythmic pace of a street sweeper...

Lost in Bukit Bintang? It has been a long since I came to this side of town. More than 30 years ago, this place was 'happening' like the lingo in those days. A place brightly lit with neon lights, the epitome of capitalism, the enticement of the giant evil as it ushers in its sheep to the slaughter. Innovative advertising and enchanting window dressing were baits to detach the salaryman from his hard-earned in a jiffy. That is capitalism 101. There were a few choices back then, and Bukit Bintang was it. The place to be for the hip and trendy. Now, I feel lost. Walking on the footpath, I feel like a foreigner in my own 'Tanah Tumpah Darah Ku'. Everyone passing me looks foreign, speaking in incomprehensible tongues. Even the servers at the stall that line the footpath do not look local. Like a deer caught in the headlights, I felt like the proverbial deer that entered the village (Rusa masuk desa). I was too afraid of how things had morphed so fast since the last time I b...

Past Lives (Korean/English; 2023) Director: Celine Song One thing that created the rift between two men who dared to venture into the crypt of our mind and try to explain why we act and react the way we do remains unresolved.  Sigmund Freud posited, in simpler terms, that our learnt experiences, together with unresolved pervasive sexual desires, are the main reasons for actions, inaction and maladies. His mentee, Karl Jung, thought some external events and forces might manifest as meaningful coincidences. The question is whether we have only one life, just here and now and then we die, or we come here again and again. The film is selling the Korean Buddhist idea of 'In Yun'. We are all somehow connected cosmologically through reincarnation. When we meet people and feel we know them, we may do. There may be some unsettled business that needed to be settled, left from our previous encounters, god knows when. This could be our umpteenth trans-birth meet. Or it could be a ruse to g...