Dharma is doing what is necessary

Aaranya Kaandam (ஆரண்ய காண்டம், Tamil, Jungle Chapter; 2011)
Story and Direction: Thyagarajan Kumaraja

The Jungle Chapter refers to the third chapter in the epic Ramayana where Raavana deceptively uses a deer into tricking and kidnapping Sita. Here, the storyteller uses characters with animal names to symbolically represent our animal-like behaviours in a world that has jungle rules. 

It starts with a purported dialogue between Chanakya, the Mauryan master strategist, a kind of ancient Machiavelli, and a student in 400 BC.

Student: "What is dharma?"
Chanakya: "Dharma is doing what is necessary."

With that one line, I was hooked. The film is a gangster fare, but not the usual gory senseless machete-branding South Indian style. It is the characterisation and storytelling that kills. It is labelled as the first neo-noir Tamil film.

In life, we are faced with many obstacles. What is the determinant that decides the right course of action? Do we use society-determined code of conduct as the yardstick? Is it about survival and self-interest? As it is a noir movie where poetic justice takes a backseat, the story is quite revolutionary, and the ending is entirely unexpected.

People follow the rules not because it is a noble thing to do. They do it because of the shame of being caught. Given a choice, people want to be left to their own devices. Jungle law will take over. The mighty, the brave, the cunning and the heartless would prevail. This must be the hidden message behind the movie -the jungle as the title and how the character names resemble that of animals. (Singaperumal-lion, Pasupathy-cow, Gajendran-elephant, Subbu-fox, Sappai-rat, Kasturi-deer). Guilt is momentary and forgotten when they experience pleasure. The end-results justify the means.

The Lion and the Rat

The plot revolves around an insecure ageing don, Singaperumal (Jackie Shroff), whose erectile dysfunction is an open secret. His lieutenant, Pasupathy, is itching for a lucrative but dangerous cocaine deal despite the boss' disapproval. Don tries to trap him and kidnap his wife. In an error of chaos, the cocaine gets into the hand of a destitute and his precocious son. He tries to blackmail Don for the return of stash.

Don's abused young mistress has an affair with Don's helper boy whom everyone thinks is an idiot. In reality, he is bedding the mistress and plans to elope with her.

Things get really complicated with everybody killing everybody either through brute violence and through wit. There is no right or wrong. The correct thing to do seem to be one that benefits oneself at the point of reference. One cannot shed off the idea the director must be a Tarantino fan. Nobody else uses a piece of merry Spanish music as background score as two rivals rush towards each other brandishing machetes. Again in a pure noir finishing the characters engage in soliloquy and a femme fatale rides into the sunset as the final victor. In this film, Subbu turns up as the winner. She utters, "the best thing about being a woman is that it is a man's world." She had outwitted the dumb helper, killed him and was the final benefactor of the loot. The Don was shot dead by Sappai. In her last dialogue, she said, "Sappai was, after all, a man, and all men are Sapppai."

Sappai also could mean limp/impotent. Hence, denoting that Men, despite the machoism that they seem to portray, are actually weak and can be manipulated by the fairer sex with wit and their sexuality.

The film had to undergo 52 cuts for profanity and unPC jokes about Kamal Haasan and Rajnikanth.

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All with the same trajectory, the atoms and the Universe

Super Deluxe (2019)
Story and Direction: Thiagarajan Kumaraja

Gone are the days when Tamil movie stories were rather two-dimensional. It used to be that there was a bright, distinct demarcation between characters. Everything was black or white; they were either good people or bad. And poetic justice would prevail at the end of the film, proving once again that the dharmic principles of life would be upheld.

If you are one of those who is looking for a break from making daily-altering life questions to see gyrating bodies to soothing melodies nowadays, look elsewhere. I just happened to bump into this movie by chance as I was scrolling down the Netflix menu and saw one of my favourite actors, Ramya Krishnan in a leading role.

I got hooked from the first scene itself. A young wife calls her ex-boyfriend college mate over for some hokey-pokey for old times' sake as her husband out on errands. Soon after passionate lovemaking, the lady discovers her lover stiff hard, out cold and dead. Then starts the panic as her husband walks in with some unwelcomed guests. 

This story is told in concurrent with another two (or maybe three) other tales which somehow gets intertwined as we will see later in the movie. In another scene, a young boy, a tween, is waiting patiently for his estranged father to return home after years of leaving home. A taxi stops in front of the house as the excited extended family members wait in anticipation. An overdressed lady walks out. Hold behold, the father is now a transgender person. Then come the discrimination, the ridicule and the humiliation of the 'father' and the family members. 

In another related storyline, five teenage boys play truant to watch porn. After craftily getting a copy of an X-rated DVD, they watch the show in one of the boy's home. One of them gets a shock when the lead lady is actually his mother! In anger, he throws the beer bottle on the TV screen, shattering it. He runs home in rage to confront his mother, Leela (Ramya Krishnan). As he runs with a kitchen knife to harm his mother, the boy accidentally trips and stabs himself instead, critically. Hence, starts a commotion; getting emergency medical treatment, contacting the boy's father who has left home to be an evangelical pastor. The boy's father, a tsunami survivor, feels that he is chosen by God to help people as he was the only one in his circle who survived the catastrophe as he held on to a rock statue of Jesus.

Vijay Sethupathi - excellent as transgender.

Also opened the bag of worms why the role should be played

by a male and not a transgender actor. They assert that being 
transgender is not mere wearing of a wig and applying make-up.

The rest of the boys, on the other hand, desperate to replace the broken TV get into a comedy of errors to get the money towards this end. If this is not confusing enough, wait for alien visitation and corrupt police force to completely knock you bonkers. Just when you think it is getting all draggy and how all these things are going to be tied together, it then hits you. Only then it dawns upon you that every scene and story is detailed to precision to make this offering simply a masterpiece. It leaves a trail of philosophy and questions about human behaviours that yearn to be answered. 

We are responsible for our actions, whether the scriptures tell us or not. The two-timing wife has to face the music when it is discovered. She is responsible for her activity as it has repercussions on people around her, like her parents, husband and in-laws. If her lover dies in her hands, she has to face the consequences.

Doing what seems to be the right things may not always be a pleasant thing to do.  Like the transgender lady (Manikam @ Shilpa, played beautifully by Vijay Sethupathi)) realises, even though it is her right to express her inner desires, her action may affect the people around her. It is not always about oneself but of people around her.

Being naked in public is frown upon by modern society. It is all in context. Being half-naked is the norm at the beach but not at a philharmonic orchestra performance. It might have been alright to be undressed in prehistoric times or perhaps even in generations to come, but now we have laws to govern these.

Society likes to see what it wants to see. It creates a storm when an actress acts in a porn movie but fails to credit her in a positive role, as a Goddess role. It chides the pedlars of porn but not its consumers.

A person who has done not so virtuous things also cares for his family. He also wants to do the right thing. A seemingly righteous person will do a 'sinful' things if circumstances dictate.

Apparently, just as the pastor who was enlightened during the tsunami, so was the transgender character. She also held her life on to a rock. After the ordeal, she just disposed of the rock and did her thing. The pastor, however, saw the rock statue that he held was that of Jesus and was a sign from God to save mankind. To one, it was just a piece of rock. To another, it was a message from the Maker. Interesting.

We make rules by association. We put two and two together to come to conclusions about things around us. We see the sun in the morning, and we see the moon at night, and we draw a conclusion that one appears mutually exclusive of the other. We get confused when we see both of them together. This knowledge is used by the philandering wife and her husband to confuse the police when they dispose of the body. 

Ramya Krishnan

The Universe seems to have a prototype for all of its inventions. The electrons and the tiny charged particles which are seen at a microscopic level or the intergalactic celestial bodies which are spread over many million light-years away, they are governed by a single law.

Everything holds its purpose for its existence. Like a single cell on the elephant that makes an elephant an elephant, every individual on this planet has his purpose. He exerts his influence in one way or the other - in the present time or the future. Just like historical events affect the present. The question is whether your existence is merely to fulfil your primal needs or for the betterment of the human race on the whole.

The alien character encourages us to view the human race objectively and re-evaluate the human race and laugh at our follies.

It appears like every scene, every dialogue, and every character is crafted with a purpose. No clip is introduced for the sake of filling the gap. Each has a back story. There are plenty of hidden messages in the background - like a silhouette of a flying plane to denote the timeline of the story. The cinematography is avantgarde at best, following the path of master filmmakers like Ray, Kurosawa, De Sica and Hitchcock. In many scenes, much is left to the imagination. Sometimes, sounds and dialogue have more impact. A partly obscured view adds more drama to our visual experience. 

A clear 4.8/5 that makes you want to view it again.

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We are all programmed?

Aruvi (அருவி, Tamil; 2017)

Let's face it. People are expected to live within preset rules. The society sets what is acceptable, what is happiness, what is beauty, what should our aim in life be and it decides our desires and aspirations.

We are enrolled in schools to be educated in a rote manner, taught to act in a predetermined manner, told what are good virtues to fit into society. At the society level, we are all like lambs to the slaughter. We work for the big corporations who sell us things that we do not need. The media sets values that are favourable in modern living. They pluck the strings of our heart to crave for things that the big corporations are willing to sell at a cost of an arm and a leg. We think we will be happy with the purchase but surprisingly, happiness is but an elusive dream.

The world emphatically asserts that all man are equal. In reality, it is just hogwash. People are arranged in a pecking order, with the wealthier ones perched on the peak of the pyramid controlling the poor ones at the wide-based structure. The female gender is given second-class status. Human values and humanity take a back seat whilst advancement in career and accumulation of material wealth take precedence. The weak and the sick in the community deserve their statuses.

'Aruvi' deviates from the usual formula of Tamil movies. Gone are the typical love melodramas and Romeo-Juliet sort of unrequited love. The first half the show keeps us wondering what is going on. There are some arrests and there is talk of a terrorist link. Slowly, through the interrogations, the real world unveils. Even then, we are kept in suspense why Aruvi is ostracised by her family after growing up in such a loving environment. 

After living with her girlfriend, Jessy, and later with her transgender friend, Emily, she turns up at a local TV station. The station is famous for a talk-show which exposes social ills. The rest of the story explains the purpose of Aruvi's visit and the surprising turn of events that follows.

 https://asok22.wixsite.com/real-lesson 

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Yes or No, Right or Left, You are correct!

Vikram Vedha (2017)

Source: Wiki

Whenever one goes back to his wayward ways, I remember Amma would say, "See, Vethalam has gone up murunga tree!" The story of Vedhalam (Vetal) goes back to the tales of King Vikramaditya and the fables of moral dilemmas. In one instance, the mighty King had to capture Vetal, a demon, from a cemetery. He was supposed to keep a code of silence and not utter a single word, or the creature would retreat back to the tree it was hanging. The King followed suit. The imp was such chatty chap who kept telling stories upon stories and demanding answers. He asserted that if the King knew the answer and did not reply, his head would explode. If the answer were correct, the devil would jump back to the tree. The devil would stay if the answer were wrong. Like that the devil escaped captivity as the wise King could his tales that ended with riddles. 25 stories were told. The King could answer all 24. The demon dodged and the sorcerer caught him, and the cycle went on. The last one proved too complicated even for the wise king. Vikram brought Vetal back.

This is the basis of this film; Vikram, a hotblooded police officer and Vedha, the dangerous criminal he is trying to nab who attempts to justify the path that his life turned out to be.

Gangland fights in North Chennai are becoming nasty. Abandoning their traditional steely knives, the gangsters find guns more damaging. The bodies are piling, and the police had set up a special force of cops to keep the situation under wraps. Everybody in the team was specially handpicked for their dedication. Despite all the obstacles, they persevere. The team members all have their own sorrows to wallow; the chief was injured in an encounter, Vikram's buddy, Simon, has a child with a chronic debilitating disease, another with sex addiction, another who wants to give the best education to his child and yet one with a gambling addiction.

The team gets the opportunity to seize the gang leader, Vedha, but he gets out on bail. Thanks to Vikram's wife who happens to be a junior lawyer. Then a cat-and-mouse game starts as Vikram gets near to apprehending  Vedha. Vedha, in the meantime, engages in a 'catch-me-if-you can' routine whilst telling him stories of moral dilemma and his own justification for the predicament that he (Vedha) is in. Being born in the unfortunate side of the society with scant of opportunities, he had to do what he had to do to survive.

We all talk about one's own dharma*, the reason he is sent to Earth; the correct path that he is supposed to follow as it is what he is supposed to do.  But who is to know - that this is the path and that is the destination. We are all thrown into the deep end of the pool, some of us in cesspools, others in a seemingly nectar-filled rose scented pool. We are made to made to grope in the dark and make sense of what we are supposed to do. Irrespective of muck or rose petals, keeping afloat is a struggle, nonetheless. As we go on with the journey of life, we absorb guidance and knowledge from those around us and convince ourselves that that is our dharma, our reason for our existence. But who knows whether we made the right decision. We make up our minds as we wobble along. 

People in positions of power also go through the very same quandary.  A leader has to take the tough call to steer his downlines towards the right track. Decisions are not mere flowcharts guided by arrows, but different approach needed for different situations. There is no right or wrong decision; only bad choice in retrospect! In case our decisions proved less favourable, we convince ourselves that our conscience is clear. We did what we thought was best at that time and space.

Credit: devdutt.com
Vikramaditya and Vetal

# A king was performing the funeral rites for his father. As he was about to drop the funeral offering in the river, as ritual demanded, three hands rose from the water to receive it. The first hand belonged to a weaver, to whom the king’s mother had been forcibly given in marriage. The second hand was of a priest who loved the king’s mother and had made her pregnant. The third was of a warrior who had found the king abandoned on the riverbank and had adopted him and raised him on his own. “Now tell me Vikramaditya,” said the Vetal, “On which hand should the king place the funeral offering? On the hand of his mother’s husband, his biological father or his foster father? On the palm of the weaver, the priest or the warrior? 

#25. The unanswerable question. If a father and son conquerers seize a kingdom and marry the princess and the queen in captivity respectively, what would be the relationship between their children? (Hey it reminds of P Ramlee's 'Keluarga 69' and K. Balachander's 'Apoorva Raagangal'.)

* Dharma has multiple meanings in different religions. It is said that there is no one single-word that translates dharma in Western languages. It was in use in the Vedas and had evolved over the millennia.  In Hinduism, dharma signifies behaviours that are in accordance with the natural order of the Universe. It encompasses duties, rights, laws, conduct, virtues and "right way of living". In Buddhism, dharma is the "cosmic law and order" and is also applied to the teachings of the Buddha. In Jainism, it is the teachings of Tirthankara (spiritual teacher) and the body of doctrine about the purification and moral transformation of human beings. For the Sikhs, dharm is the path of righteousness and proper religious practice.

 https://asok22.wixsite.com/real-lesson 

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More questions, not answers!

Mulholland Drive (2001)
Story and Direction: David Lynch

I remember my school teacher telling the class a story about art and artists. A painter once smeared paint over his toddler's bare buttock. He then made him sit a white sheet of paper. What resulted was the silhouette of a perfectly shaped apple. He went on to exhibit his masterpiece which spurred rave reviews and stimulated great literary discourses. What he was trying to say was that behind a masterpiece, there is a story and that sometimes people are fooled by artists!

I watched this David Lynch's film with the same thought. This movie was initially intended to be a pilot for a TV series. Unfortunately, it was rejected by the TV company, but they decided to make out a feature film out of it. I think that is why there are many unrelated gaps and seemingly unrelated characters infused into the story. Or am I missing something? Still, these are very reasons this film attracts many interests, spurned multiple viewings and appreciated as a symbolism to our modern daily lives - so multilayered, an enigma, filled with mysteries and role reversals. The two disjointed parts of the movie are viewed as parallel stories, one in real life and the other in a dream but which is which, the first or the second? Maybe it is just the pilot was made with the subplots within which had to be trimmed away to cut into a 2-hour plus offering. Perhaps, it was intentionally left behind to give the flick a noir feel to it.

A happy goody two shoes Betty (Naomi) arrives in LA, hoping to hit it big in Hollywood. She comes to stay at her aunt's home, herself an established artist but is away on a trip. Just a hill away, a lady is attempted to be murdered by hoodlums but by a twist of fate, the car he is travelling in is hit by racing teenagers. The assailants are killed, but she escapes unscathed. She roams aimlessly amnesiac and lands in the same apartment that Betty stays.

That starts the cat-and-mouse routine which tries to establish the lady's identity while Betty attends her acting audition. It gets more intriguing when the woman, now calls herself Rita (after seeing Rita Hayworth's poster) has flashes of memory coming back. It becomes even murkier when a dead body turns up, and they land up in a Spanish speaking past midnight theatre where the performers perform brilliantly only to be found out to be lip-syncing! One has to watch it make his own impression. One will be left with more questions, not answers.   

A philosophical sci-fi

Blade Runner (1982)

I remember watching this movie during the carefree days of post-STPM examinations. It was one of the films that my friends and I managed to watch through a then-new contraption called VCR using VHS tapes.

One thing that struck me then was the rampant use of Chinese in the film's billboards and the hawker food stalls. It was, however, set in Los Angeles.Was it a subtle message that the Chinese culture would prevail in the year 2019? The world is an Orwellian type of dark, wet and chaotic world where pandemonium ruled, and police are kings whilst the big corporations rule. Clones of men called replicants are used to do menial and dangerous works, especially those that involve work in outer space. They are outlawed to be on Earth. Blade Runners are law enforcement officers specific to apprehend them.

Four replicants made it back and pose a threat. Basically, they came back to get their makers to extend their lifespan. You see, they are only made to serve for four years, and every replicant has a shelf life. That is where our hero, Rick Deckard ( Harrison Ford) comes in. He is the best-known Blade Runner but left the force because he could not stomach all those killing. So starts the cat and mouse hunt for the replicants. In the process, there is also a new generation clone Nexus 6 replicant which has more human qualities and becomes the hero's love interest. This sci-fi offering is quite a cerebral offering with questions regarding the purpose of life and issues about death. The dialogue is quite philosophical giving the whole film a noir feel.

Memorable quote:

Roy (Replicant): I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I've watched c-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those ... moments will be lost in time, like tears...in rain. Time to die.

Deckard: [voiceover] I don't know why he saved my life. Maybe in those last moments he loved life more than he ever had before. Not just his life... anybody's life... my life. All he'd wanted was the same answers the rest of us want. Where do I come from? Where am I going? How long have I got? All I could do is sit there and watch him die.

Masterly inactivity may be superior, sometimes!

Chinatown (1974)
Director: Roman Polanski
This movie sounds like a police drama set in Chinatown with all its vice activities and subversive elements. Well, it is nothing like that. 'Chinatown' is a red herring, actually. It can be summarized as a film with the typical noir elements, set in the 50s, convoluted story line, a lone investigator against the establishment and a neither black nor white kind of morality and ending. The 2 1/2 hour story is based on a tragic water dam controversy that happened in the early 20th century. This film also strengthened Jack Nicholson as a reputable star.
JJ Gittes (Nicholson) is a private investigator handling domestic issues. He is approached by a lady who hires Gittes to investigate her cheating husband, who is a senior engineer with the LA Water Department.
After finding proof of his infidelity and pictures of which later made it to the dailies, Gittes is confronted by a foxy lady, the real Mrs Mulwray (Faye Dunaway), with a lawyer's notice!
And Mr Mulwray is soon found dead in a dam. That starts a cat and mouse scramble in search of the real killer. The police is hot on Gittes trail as he is a suspect. The promiscuous Mrs Mulwray appears to hiding something up her..., sleeves. Her father, Noah Cross, was once Mulwray's partner could also got his hands soiled in his mess.

The initial impersonator is later found but dead. Then comes a young girl under Mrs Mulwray's care who could be her sister or her daughter. The plot becomes more convulated with accusations of incest and murder in the family. The all powerful Cross turns out to be the bad guy but poetic justice escapes him at the end of the movie in the typical fashion of a noir movie. 

An entertaining flick. Why does Chinatown come to the picture? The film ends with a shoot out at the venue but not with Chinamen gangsters. Bullets fly from the police to a fleeing car driven by Mrs Mulwray with her sister/daughter. It refers to a symbolic conversation between the screenwriter and a policeman who was working in Chinatown. In his line of work, a lot of confusion and resistance happened because of the array of dialects used there. He felt sometimes better to do as little as possible. 

In his own way perhaps the screenwriter is telling us that not all problems can solved. Sometimes it is better not to do anything at all....

In the theme of B Noir of the 40s!

Across the Hall (2009)

Every now and then a story with dark themes, characters with dark pasts, shady morals comes along. It usually comes and goes without creating much fanfare! This is one of those. Well, that does not mean that the movie is of poor quality. On the contrary, it excels in its own way and excites its own admirers of its own specific genre.

Set in a run-down hotel, Riverview Hotel, which had seen better times with its peeling wallpaper and lazy workers. The peculiar angle of cinematography, like the angle of the hotel signboard, set the tone for a good film noir. In keeping with some noirs of the 50s where loud jazz music was introduced, the filmmakers decided to infuse loud (a tad too loud) background score which I thought killed the suspense.

As expected the film noir takes a twist here and there, the story moves in a non-linear fashion, going in flashbacks and flash-forwards with certain scenes recurring and the murderer goes scot-free.
Julian gets a call from his frantic friend, Terry, that his fiancee was cheating on him. He managed to track her down to a room in the Riverview Hotel. As Terry mentioned that he had a gun (stolen Julian's gun), watching her and was obviously under the influence of intoxicants, Julian feared for the worst.

What Terry does not know is that Julian is the backstabber and the room was supposed to be their rendezvous!

The mysterious butler (he did not do it!)

Julian sneaks into the hotel undetected by the night staff but is spotted by an ex-girlfriend who was staying in one of the rooms. Terry confronts his fiancee, June. In the struggle to prove a point, she is fatally wounded. Then comes the uncertainty of how to cover up the crime. After much running around and tense moments, to cut the story short, Julian is framed for a crime he did not commit. Terry, who initially did not know the identity of his beau's mysterious lover, found out about Julian's treacherous act when he found his phone in June's room when Julian was never supposed to be there.

Terry walks away satisfied and Julian is in a betwixt as all evidence point at him as the guilty party!

Nothing great but watchable.