As you see it!

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 the speaker. Their relationship had seen better times.

The physical fall brings out the metaphorical fall out of love, the fall of status for the husband, and the possible fall into depression of the husband. 

Initial police investigations suggest it could be a suicide, but a recording of the couple's conversation throws a spanner into the works. The wife, an established author, is arrested as the possible suspect of the murderer of her husband. 

The court trials tease out the family dynamics. What starts as the couple falling in love, having a child, and juggling their careers turns murky. In an accident possibly caused by the husband's lackadaisical delay, the son is caught in an accident that causes him to lose his eyesight. The guilt-stricken writer-husband, compounded by the mother's veiled accusations, becomes a wreck. His writing juices dry up, and love falls off the cliff.

The wife is questioned as a possible perpetrator of the crime or maybe accidental death on a possible domestic tussle. Her previous blemishes are exposed. The animosity that arose as she prospered as a prolific writer at the expense of her husband's creative impotence is laid bare. 

The son takes the heaviest brunt of it all. His testimony at the stand may determine how the case turns out for the mother. He is unsure how to look at all of the events. Did his father kill himself? Did his mother kill his husband? These conundrums seem to put a lot of burden on the shoulders of a young early teenager. Everything is confusing. He is pressured to do the right thing, but what is right anymore? 

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Till death do us part?

Over the past few years, a couple of my childhood friends had the misfortune of having lost their spouses to cancer. One of them fought the deadly disease tooth and nail, but unfortunately, after three long years, the disease got the better of her. He lost the good fight. My devastated friend went awol for an entire year, deciding that solitaire was the best remedy for a broken heart. The societal expectation for the grieved to open up his emotions and replay them like a broken record was not for him. 

One year after her demise, at 60, he introduced his new other half to the world. Conversations and felicitations on his plunge revealed that it was a necessary indulgence for him. Even though his children were married and he was a grandfather three times over, he felt the need for intimate touch and passion. He is a happy man. The memory of his old wife is very much alive, and he will cherish them till the end of time.

Another friend with a couple of late teenage, young adult daughters, lost his wife after a long tiring battle with ovarian malignancy. Still reeling from the loss, he was still not out of the woods yet when I spoke to him six months after her demise. He still felt her presence around the house, and his mind kept playing, reminiscing the good times, playing back obscure events in their wedded bliss to miss her more. 

I slowly introduced the idea of finding a replacement to fill the void; he asserted that he was pretty sure. At that juncture, he only wanted to spend the rest of his years living in dear memory of his duly departed. He feels complete without a need to build a new one. 

Out of curiosity, I enquired from another dear childhood buddy whose wife is hearty, healthy, and kicking. Heaven forbids, if his partner were to die, what would he do? Is remarriage on the plate? Without batting an eyelid, he said he would envisage himself taking a new partner. It is not as much for physical gratification but for social interaction and communication. He felt that was necessary for healthy mental health. 

Yet, when posed with a similar question, another pessimistic realist friend viewed his one stint in matrimony as enough to last his whole lifetime. Gone are the days when intimacy and husband-wife interaction played a pivotal role in his daily life. He had started enjoying the company of he and himself, exploring new frontiers to expand his knowledge and experience. He guesses that his wife is in the same boat, too. Over the years, embroiled in the hard knocks of life, they grew apart, from being co-dependent to interdependent to independent, sometimes contradictory just for the kick of it, able to stand alone to face the music. 

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A bold move?

A Summer Place (1959)
Director: Dalmer Daves

This must be a bold movie when it was made in the late 50s, talking about infidelity, teenage promiscuity, behaviour and sex. With all the restrictions on American movies' code of conduct, they pulled this out.

The movie starts with a summer vacation mansion that has seen better days. It is run by a husband-and-wife team (Bart and Sylvia). The husband is an obvious dipsomaniac, and the wife is apparently uncontended with life. They have a soon-to-go-to-high school son (Johnny, acted by teenage heartthrob Troy Donahue). Business is barely sustainable as the husband, who inherited it from his father, is more interested in keeping himself inebriated. 

In comes a millionaire with his wife (Ken and Helen) and teenage daughter (Molly, acted by Sandra Dee, typically typecasted as an ingénue, simple girl) to stay for the next three months. The juicy story behind it is that the businessman used to work as a lowly lifeguard there and had sought greener pastures when Sylvia rejected his love advances. 

Ken and Helen also have an unhappy marriage, with Helen being the uppity urbane female with class consciousness and a stickler for rules). Helen is the strict parent who controls Molly's every attire and behaviour, while Ken is the chill parent.

Ken rekindles his affair with Sylvia. Their nightly secret rendezvous came to Helen's knowledge. Johnny and Molly, with their raging teenage hormones, see Cupid shooting arrows. 

The story becomes twisted as Ken and Sylvia divorce their spouses, and the step-siblings discover their sexuality.

Even though the acting (except for Helen, played by Constance Ford), the dialogue and its delivery leave much to be desired, the music score by Max Steiner turned out to be evergreen.

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Hold on to your seats!

Irugapatru (Tamil, இருகப்பற்று, Hold on Tight; 2023)

Written, Directed: Yuvaraj Dhayalan

I saw the bride's mother. She seems so happy seeing her firstborn all dolled up in her matrimonial regalia, walking up the aisle to exchange vows. With all her worry lines nicely masked beneath the layer of makeup, I could have forgotten all the trials and tribulations she went through throughout her marriage. Though hers was a love marriage, the reality of life soon set in after the honeymoon period was over. Her husband was apparently neither ready to cut ties with old girlfriends nor cut the proverbial umbilical cut from his mother's womb. Her tussle with her husband trying to squeeze love and money was an eternal challenge throughout her marriage. Like squeezing water from a stone, despite its challenges, she managed. Proof of her success is her three daughters and their successful careers. The husband is still very much in the picture, painting a perfect portrait of a happy family. 

Now that the daughter is getting married, I wonder if she will take all the challenges that life hurls upon her as her mother once did. Knowing that 50% of all marriages end in separation, my guess on the path that hers would take is like predicting the possible sex of a child at birth, 50-50.

Of course, the access to avenues for rights now is different than thirty years ago. The institution of marriage no longer garners the august status that it once did. Economic opportunities are no longer centred on one gender. The concept of an extended family caring for another member is slowly dying. Society's perception of what constitutes a happy family is changing. In the eyes of the younger generation, the image of a happy family is not merely one that includes a father, mother, children, and a pet or two. The Venn diagram representation of a family has so many circles, each representing family members (or a single member), and the intersections are so numerous. 

With the increased responsibilities the female members of society have to carry and the many hats they have to don these days, it is impossible to just push them to the backburners, stay invisible and be labelled 'just a housewife'. They are now more educated, more exposed and more empowered. They have a voice. Society is no longer patriarchal. The fairer sex demands equal standing. Even referring to them as the fairer one is not acceptable.

Glitches happen when a middle ground is not found to allow both parties to prosper and prove their birth's worth. 

This film goes through the marriages of three couples through the eyes of a psychologist/marriage counsellor. The irony is that one of the couples is the counsellor and her husband. 

In the first story, a chronically irritable husband is frustrated with everyone around him. He is working at a job he dislikes. He does it to pay his bills. He had been prodded to do this and that throughout his life, giving his desires a backseat. His homemaker wife, who had just delivered a couple of months previously, is fat. He cannot believe it is the same girl he was match-made to marry. And she seems too lazy to do something about it. He wants a divorce. 

In the second instance, a magazine writer gets increasingly irritated with his wife. He thinks she is dumb when, in reality, she is not. His constant berating draws her into her cocoon. He wants a baby. She wants to work where she finds appreciation. The couple cannot imagine the other as the same person; they were deeply in love before marriage. She wants out. 

The counsellor thinks she has everything under wraps and suggests ways to save her clients' marriages. She thinks her marriage is sailing smoothly. She was trying out a new app that told novel methods to grab the partner's heart. When her husband discovers he is a dancing monkey in her social experiment, he flips. Her previously understanding and dream husband starts giving her cold treatment. 

The message behind this film is that there is no single quick-fix way to make a marriage work. It takes a lot of hard work. Neither party should take the other for granted. The modern institution of marriage has two co-pilots equally responsible for taking the boat ashore, bringing its cargo safely and ensuring safe disembarkation of goods and passengers. 

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Listen, hear and sleep on it!

Good evening everybody. In case you are wondering, we are gathered today to commemorate the matrimony of our daughter Tania and the new addition to the family, our son-in-law, Durgesh. This sounds like the flight attendant announcing over the speaker that we are seated on flight so-and-so to wherever after the extensive checking at the counter, immigration, departure hall, blah, blah. I am waiting for someone, just one day, to jump out yelling, "damn, I'm on the wrong flight!"

Firstly I would like to extend a big welcome to the Ahirwar family from Jabalpur. Also to friends and relatives from near and far. Family members have no choice, there have to be present here today.

Life used to be much easier those days. Tarzan saw Jane, and he said, 'I, Tarzan, you Jane!' And they started a family. Then the young men had to kidnap their brides. They had to ride on horseback and kidnap a girl they fancied in the cloak of the dark and ride with their bride into the night. And now you have all these rituals and obligations to fulfil. Life becomes more and more complicated every day.

Someone mentioned during my wedding that a wedding celebration is a public declaration of one's private intent. Whatever the purpose of the celebration is, it is the upholding of the institution of marriage that matters at the end of the day.

I would like to tell a little secret to the newlyweds to maintain mental health. To Durgesh, hearing and listening are two different things. Sometimes you need to hear only, not listen, to have a peaceful sleep. However, the problem is, to reply, you need to listen. Think about it.
To Tania, whatever problems may crop up, just sleep on it. Things will usually appear clearer after a good night's sleep. Thinking becomes easier. And sometimes, problems have a funny way of solving themselves. But sometimes, not all the time.

To the newlyweds, a happy, fruitful married life. May you prosper and have all the nice things in life.

Thank you.

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Can you handle the digital truth?

Love Today (Tamil; 2022)
Writer, Director, Actor: Pradeep Ranganathan

It is said that the amount of data carried by a mobile phone is equivalent to the amount needed to launch the spaceship Apollo 11. Having that much data, like an appendage attached to our body, cannot be without liabilities. People store way too much muck in there that, at any time, anyone can use it to paint an individual how they want him to be painted. With the same brush, they can be either portrayed as a saint or a devil re-incarnated from the raw data.

People, like salivating dogs to a bone, will volunteer their personal information to be used and misused at the sight of dangling freebies. All the promise of privacy is a fallacy. With a few tweaks here and there, the digital trail is at your disposal.

This innovative movie highlights this exact problem. Two lovebirds fall helplessly in love with each other. When the boy approaches her father for her hand, the father, a strict disciplinarian, puts the couple to the test. He thinks the couple should know each other before plunging head-on into tying the matrimonial knot.

The couple was told to swap phones for 24 hours before committing to each other. That is when the fun starts. Even though each initially resists the temptations to pry into the other's private lives, curiosity sets in. Compounded with suggestions by people around them and wanting to delete particular unsavoury messages that may be construed as offensive or suspicious, the boy scrambles to delete them cryptically. Paradoxically, it just increases each other's suspicion. The couple ends up hating each other.

On the other hand, the lover boy's sister is getting married soon. She is curious why her soon-to-be-groom is so secretive about anyone else accessing his mobile phone. She wonders if he is hiding something. That starts another tussle to lay a hand on the coveted husband-to-be.

The final take-home message is that sometimes it is worthwhile not knowing everything. Some things are left unknown. Some stones are better left unturned. 

Do we want to know the truth, the whole truth and everything about the truth, really?

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

Is it because of Nature or nurture?

Badhaai Do (Congratulations Due, Hindi; 2022)
Netflix

Learnt a new word today, a lavender marriage. 

Sure, the law has accepted the third gender and various sexual orientations. But, mind you, it is not universal and definitely not freely tolerated by many conservative communities. 

To conform to societal expectations and pressures, many members of the LGBTQIA+ community get themselves involved in 'sham marriages'. Couples undergo lavender marriages to appease the family and conceal their socially stigmatised sexual orientations. This is not something new. Rock Hudson, Barbara Stanwyck, Tyrone Power and many more in Hollywood had made arrangements to save their careers. Lately, in Communist China, it has been revealed that gay men hook up with lesbian women through social media to show their 'wife' during the new year visits to prevent nagging from the family members. Same-sex unions are illegal in China. 

Slowly, we can see that OTT (Over-the-top) platforms are trying to override the prevailing societal norms as determined by the local cultures. Some may argue that these OTTs, being international in their outlook, may only have one goal - to push their boundary, provoke, start a conversation, and perhaps create a single narrative, a New World Order for everyone. They do all these while laughing all the way to the bank. These OTTs, media services that transmit directly to viewers, bypass traditional gatekeepers who keep a tab on what the public can consume. Rightly or wrongly, via this film, I get the vibe that they are trying to make LGBTQIA+ mainstream. 

The next burning question that needs to be answered is whether this LGBT tendency is ingrained in Nature or artificially created? Do we all have an inborn sexual attraction that gets suppressed due to social mores - as the woke generation implies, gender is fluid? Or is it because of society's openness and expressive nature that we can tell our wants and dislikes? 

Is the contamination of drinking water from our river polluted with hormones from contraceptives pills, making men more effeminate? Are plastic wastes and toxic hydrocarbon effluent screwing up our internals? Or is it just Nature's way to curb population explosion before the re-set button is ignited.

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

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