A real possibility

A House of Dynamite (2025)

Director: Kathryn Bigelow

https://www.vitalthrills.com/a-house-of-dynamite-trailer-and-poster/

Her previous movies (The Hurt Locker, Zero Dark Thirty) usually glorify Americans and the US Army in their mission to police the world. This time, it is about violence, but about a possible intercontinental ballistic missile heading towards Chicago. Early efforts to trace its origin and intercept it proved unsuccessful. Neither the US adversaries, Russia nor North Korea, acknowledge launching such a missile. The US defence forces have less than 20 minutes to decide on the next course of action to save the millions in Chicago from certain annihilation.

Here, the story is told from three points of view: the White House Situation Room, the US Strategic Command, and the President himself, each in a different chapter. 

The officers at that level usually have a firm grasp of the task assigned to them and know exactly what to do. But no! Unable to identify the enemy, determine how the early warning commands failed, or establish whether the whole event is just a technical glitch, their only option is to get the people into a nuclear bunker. 

This is probably how Lt Col. Stanislav Petrov felt in 1983 when the system mistakenly indicated that the US had launched multiple intercontinental ballistic missiles towards the Soviet Union. His instincts told him it was a mistake, and he chose not to raise the alarm, thus averting World War 3. For his inaction, the Soviets neither rewarded nor punished him. He was, however, honoured with a special award at the United Nations. 

Even if everyone believes that the entire armamentarium of weapons is under our thumb and is bold enough to sell our arsenal to gain geopolitical advantage, in real life, nothing is. We are walking on eggshells. At a hair's trigger, this life-sapping explosive may be launched by anyone, rogue nations, mad leaders, terrorist groups or even megalomaniac doomsday prophets. All they need is a willing seller and a very fat wallet.

In this movie, all the anti-missile interceptors proved useless. Even the experts could not tell whether the threat was real in the first place. Yet a concrete decision had to be made.

Again, this dilemma was a hot topic at the time when the nuclear arms race was at full speed in the 1950s and beyond. Both the US and the Soviet Union never clashed directly, but used their resources to gauge the other's capability. At the end of the day, it became like an infinite game, both parties trying to appear more superior than the other. The game theories are abundant. The final sequelae both parties worry about as they accumulate is mutual annihilation.

The movie ends without a resolution, leaving the audience to imagine possible endings, not only for the movie but for the human race.

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

div class="sharethis-inline-share-buttons">

The Kitchen Sink period

The L-shaped Room (1962)
Director: Bryan Forbes

https://www.amazon.co.uk/L-Shaped-Room-
Digitally-Restored-
DVD/dp/B076CWVJ2Y

Learned a new word today - ‘kitchen sink’period — to describe a period of British drama and cinema. It flourished from the late 1950s through to the early 1960s. Stories from this era often depict anger and frustration. Films of that genre, typically shot in black and white, were usually filmed in confined spaces within cheap accommodations. Unlike mainstream films that focus on make-believe idealism and poetic justice, these films highlight the harshness of everyday life and the evolving social mores among young adults. 

Logically, the era should have been quite upbeat. On paper, the war had ended, the economy was promising, and employment was made available to the general public. All these improvements should logically make everyone in the UK happy. In reality, however, only the older people of that era felt content with the turn of events. 

The young were restless and had other ideas. They were caught in a quagmire of confusion and were disenchanted with the social values set by the preceding generation. They manifested their disenchantment through their writings, music and songs. 'Kitchen sink' period films showcased the anger of the young adults against the complacency of their parents' generation. The movies explored social and political issues, as well as the challenges faced by working-class individuals and minorities on the margins of society. Taboo subjects like abortions, pre- and extramarital sex are discussed openly. In this film, homosexuality is implied. 

The skiffle music, which was famous in that era, may have been an expression of these restless souls. It later morphed into British pop, with bands such as the Beatles and the British Invasion. Skiffle bands may have started from traditional jazz bands.

The amusing aspect of the whole thing is that parents in 2025 are also facing the same conundrum. Despite the leap in knowledge acquisition and the level of living comfort never experienced by previous generations, many millennials and Gen-Z individuals still feel deeply discontented with life. Gen Z and Gen Alpha are both said to face serious challenges in their lives. They are said to struggle with financial insecurities, social awareness, and the pursuit of idealism in a competitive environment.  

As with early Boomers who predicted doom and gloom for their children, these young people, too, will surely carry the human flag into the next generation.

The L-Shaped Room is a multiple award-winning movie about a 27-year-old unmarried French woman, Jane Fossett, who decides to leave her parents' home in France after discovering that she may be pregnant. She must have had an uncomfortable discussion with her parents that led her to leave home. The child's father is not interested in being a father. Jane is also not interested in getting married. Jane stays in a rundown boarding house that also houses other interesting characters: a struggling writer, a gay musician, a prostitute, and a cranky landlady. The house has bed bugs and flimsy walls, which only add to the desperate state of their lives.

Meanwhile, everywhere Jane goes, including the gynaecologist she visits, everyone assumes that she is going to abort the baby. Jane, however, is seriously considering keeping the baby. Things get complicated when Jane falls in love with her flatmate, who is unaware of her pregnancy.

P.S. In 1956, when Elvis started gyrating his pelvis to the tune of 'Hound Dog', he created a national panic. Puritans labelled him vulgar, and the fundamentalists screamed, "The End is Nigh!"

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

Do we need a Master?

The Master (2012)
Written & Directed: Paul Thomas Anderson

https://www.imdb.com/it/title/tt1560747/

This is a convoluted movie, likely requiring multiple viewings to fully appreciate the filmmaker's intended message and decipher the cryptic narrative. 

The story is said to be based on the life of L. Ron Hubbard, the controversial figure who founded the Church of Scientology, as well as tales of World War II veterans with PTSD. It is said that the filmmaker did not want to admit to Hubbard's reference implicitly. It was the time when members of the Scientology Church were all ballistic against anyone who went against or ridiculed the teachings of Hubbard. There had been numerous legal disputes involving the Church, some initiated by the Church itself and others against it. Tom Cruise, the poster boy of Scientology, even took a publisher to court for implying that the Church had something to do with his divorce from Holmes, his second marriage.

The premise of the story is this. A WWII Navy veteran, Freddie Quell, has a drinking problem and PTSD culminating from his involvement in combat. He goes adrift in life, just living his life by the bottle. He was once caught as a stowaway in a hatch owned by Leonard Dodd. Dodd is a leader of a cult-like group called 'The Cause'. Slowly, Dodd and Quell become close as Dodd realises that they had met in a previous life. He tries to treat Quell of his ailment through hypnosis. Dodd is clearly not a qualified therapist, but claims to know everything about everything.

Their relationship soon morphs into something akin to a Master-Servant one. Dodd gets into trouble with the Medical Council with his quackery, and Quell tries to defend his Master. Over time, this relationship collapses, and each departs.

The thing that intrigued me growing up was some of the conversations I had about the need for a Master (Guru) in matters of divinity and spiritual issues. I was told that it is like engaging a professional to get a job done. If you want to build a house, it is advisable to consult with a builder. Likewise, if someone is ill, they should not self-medicate but instead consult a doctor. Hence, reaching the lotus feet of the Lord is no different. My beef with these intermediaries was this. If the divine powers were so omnipotent and omniscient, being cognisant of what we are thinking even before we do it, can't they know our true intentions? Instead of depending on middlemen to do the messenger job? The human mind is capable of sorting things out, but it can sometimes get cluttered. That is when a professional needs to step back to get things in perspective.

A Master may give perspective from a particular point of view. Self-exploration may reveal aspects of the subject matter from various angles, providing a more comprehensive understanding. I think, for that to happen, the seeker must have a certain mental maturity.

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

div style="text-align: center;">

Of Oil, Fertilisers and Haber process!

In the Heart of the Sea (2015)

Director: Ron Howard

https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/in_the_heart_of_the_sea

I had to remind myself of these two points while watching this film. In the 18th and early 19th centuries, when people discussed oil exploration, they often referred to whale hunting. Petroleum had not yet been discovered as an energy source, and the Industrial Revolution had not yet begun. 

Whale oil was used in the Western world for street lighting, to illuminate homes, street lamps, and offices, for industrial lubrication, and for manufacturing soap as well as margarine. It was also valuable in the production of explosives. With the discovery of kerosene as a cheaper alternative, whale oil fell out of fashion. 

Another thing we often take for granted is agricultural fertilisers. We assume they have always been synthetically produced. Wrong. In the 19th century, the best fertilisers in the world came from the 'Guano Islands', a land made of bats and birds' droppings. As the world recognised its importance in farming and the need to feed the growing population, guano was also known as White gold. The same title was also given to cotton later, as it also drove the US and British economies. 

Essex
https://essex.nha.org/the-whaleship-essex/

Great imperial powers, including the US, Britain, France, and Spain, competed to control the numerous Guano islands off South America. Chincha Island, near the coast of Peru, became a key location that served as the centre of the alliance among Spain, Peru, Bolivia, Chile, and Ecuador. Spain lost this war, marking the start of its decline as a superpower. Peru became impoverished when the guano reserves were depleted and the accumulated debt became unsustainable. The global guano trade inspired Haber and Bosch to develop their Nobel Prize-winning process for producing ammonia on an industrial scale. We also know how that turned out for the production of TNT.

This film depicts the true story of the ill-fated whaling ship Essex, which sank in the Pacific Ocean in 1820, after being struck by a giant sperm whale. Its crew of twenty escaped in three whale boats, but only seven of them ultimately survived, enduring a gruelling ordeal of hardship, dehydration, hunger, and resorting to cannibalism. One of the surviving boatmen, the youngest at fourteen when he embarked on the voyage, lived to tell his story to Herman Melville, who later wrote 'Moby Dick' in 1851.

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

div style="text-align: center;">

Time to go?

Awakening (1990)

Director: Penny Marshall

In this film, we see Robin Williams portraying his Patch Adams character. To be honest, he adopted the Patch Adams role much later, specifically in 1998. Here, Williams plays the part of a doctor, Dr Malcolm Sawyer, who has social anxiety and works at a hospital with patients suffering from chronic illnesses, predominantly post-encephalitis cases. It is based on a true story that took place in a Bronx hospital during the summer of 1969. 

He develops a keen interest in a man, Leonard Lowe (Robert De Niro), who had been in a catatonic state for 30 years following a brain infection. Dr Sawyer uses a newly discovered drug, L-DOPA, originally used for Parkinson's disease, to try it on his patients. He achieves remarkable results. All the post-encephalitis patients—those who contracted the illness during the 1930s epidemic—in that centre recover, striving hard to adapt to the chaotic world of the late 1960s.

Soon, the effects of the medicine fade, and the patients slip back into their previous dull states. The core of the story revolves around Leonard, who, having arrested development at about eight years old, is thrust into a life thirty years ahead, akin to being tossed into the deep end of the pool without floaters. Before he can settle into his new life, it is time to go.

The story is an allegory of life itself, suggesting belief in rebirths. One is thrust into this birth, essentially with a clean slate. As the ancient Greeks believed, as mentioned in Plato's Republic, the souls of the dead must drink from the River Lethe to forget the memories of their previous births. The process of birth is a process of re-learning knowledge, in other words, re'mind'ing ourselves about life on Earth. 

Similarly, the characters in the film, who recover from the stupor of the unknown realm, are given a chance to live life. Before they become comfortable in their role, the opportunity is taken away unceremoniously. Such is life. One has a whole lifetime to learn how to live. When they are at their most vigorous, they lack wisdom. When wisdom arrives, the body loses its vigour to fight. This recurring cycle of forgetting and re-learning is an exercise in futility. If the karmic cycle is meant to punish past shortcomings, where will learning from and correcting previous mistakes take effect if memory is wiped clean? Only a select few souls are given the choice to draw from Mnemosyne (the River of Memory) to recall past life experiences and thus reach the end of the transmigration journey more swiftly. 

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

div style="text-align: center;">

The Wall has crumbled!

Good Bye, Lenin! (German;2003)
Written and Directed by: Wolfgang Becker

The day the Berlin Wall came crashing down was indeed an earth-shattering moment for those who lived through the era when Berlin was divided into two: between the communist East Berlin and the capitalist West. The Communists guarded the border with their lives, and they convinced their citizens that they were indeed better than their greedy capitalist cousins across the border. The Communist Party, with its secret police, the Stasi, dealt severely with those who were not convinced by the propaganda and wanted to get out to the free world.

The film recounts a pivotal moment in 1989, when the Berlin Wall was on the verge of collapse. Many youngsters throng the streets to express their displeasure at the political situation in their country. Amongst the crowd is Alexander Kreiner, a young adult, holding placards and chanting anti-government chants. The irony of it all is that Alexander's mother is a high-ranking member of the communist party. Alexander is arrested, and upon seeing this, his mother, who happened to be passing by that way, suffers a heart attack and collapses.

Alexander's mother, Christine, stays unconscious in the hospital for nearly eight months. During those eight faithful months, many things happened. The Wall collapses, Germany unifies, the border opens, the leader is ousted, and capitalism moves into East Germany. Miraculously, Christine regains consciousness one fine day. Warned by the doctor not to give her too much excitement in her life, and that is precisely what has happened in the country, Alexander decides to recreate a false environment, right down to the minutest detail, to show his mother the exact environment the city was before her collapse. He tries to portray an image of communism still being very vibrant in Berlin. Hilariously, he tries to get his mother's favourite East German brand, which is obviously out of production. 

Later, we discover that the mother also harbours a secret about her husband, who allegedly abandoned Alexander, his mother, and his sister to start a new life in West Germany.

The movie ends with the mother succumbing to another attack. Alexander thinks he managed to shield the changes in the country from his mother, but the fact of the matter is that his girlfriend may have laid everything bare to her. Is ignorant bliss or information King?

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

div style="text-align: center;">

Rom-com of yesteryear

The Shop Around the Corner (1940)
Director: Ernst Lubitsch

https://www.rosendaletheatre.org/movies/
the-shop-around-the-corner-1940/

It is interesting to observe how the concept of a romantic comedy (romcom) has evolved over the years. The idea of a rom-com in the 21st century is one where the protagonist is between relationships and finds perfect love most romantically. It could be a comedy of errors, a mix-up, or occasionally it could start with both parties not looking eye-to-eye on something, but later get closer and then decide to be a couple. Along the way, that would be casual sex, nudity, crisis and resolution. That is the sure formula for a box office blockbuster. 

Refreshingly, a light romantic drama from yesteryear does not reveal too much of their intimacy. In this 1940 film, there is hardly any physical contact. Still, the spark was obviously electric between the protagonist, a young James Stewart, who is well known for his feel-good Christmas films, and the lesser-known co-star, Margaret Sullavan. 

The festive atmosphere remains in the film. The setting is a gift shop in Budapest during the lead-up to Christmas. The owner and his staff share a warm and friendly rapport as they run the shop. A new staff member, Sullavan, joins the team. She does not get along with Stewart, the clerk. Unbeknownst to them, they are pen pals who enjoy each other's company through their correspondence. Meanwhile, the shop owner learns through his private investigator that his wife is unfaithful.

Everything concludes happily in this feel-good film. It is quite a cheerful movie that finishes on a positive note. Despite being vintage, the film remains fresh and relevant as ever.

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

div style="text-align: center;">

Crash course on Avatars!

Mahavatar Narsimha (Hindi, 2025)
Director: Ashwin Kumar

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt34365591/

Growing up in the 1970s, the only way to learn about stories from Hindu mythology was through stories told by elders or in satsangs (religious gatherings). Later, we were introduced to Amar Chitra Katha comics, which were quite a hit among us, the children. We essentially heard most of our Hindu fables from these colourful books. Anything that came close to a TV production was an anime movie that came out, as an Indo-Japanese joint production, as 'Ramayana: The Legend of Prince Rama' in 1993.

Currently, a plan is underway to develop a Mahavtar Cinematic Universe, comprising seven films based on Hindu mythology, over a span of twelve years (2025 to 2037). Given the quality of this project, I am confident that in the years to come, we will be immersed in a cinematic wonderland.

 

The filmmakers decided to start by depicting Vishnu's most fierce avatars. The half-lion, half-human Vishnu is His most combative form. 

Directly or indirectly, we are aware that Vishnu, as the protector of the world, assumes various forms to restore order when chaos (adharma) prevails. All in all, He had taken nine forms thus far (in this yuga), with one more to go at the end of times, Kalki Avatar. He is duty-bound to fight evil and must do so cyclically, as time progresses in cycles, with fission-explosion-entropy succession. 

There is also a subtle reference to the Avatars in evolution. The first Avatar is Matsya, in the form of a fish, who protects the people on Earth and their knowledge from a mammoth flood reminiscent of Noah's Ark and the preservation of species. Now, one may wonder why this motif of the great flood appears in many cultures. In the Zoroastrian tradition, Gilgamesh is also credited with saving humankind from floods. 

As life evolved from being sea-dwelling creatures and became land dwellers, so did Vishnu's avatar. It is said that Vishnu assumed the role of Kurma, a tortoise form, to help in the churning of the Universe to extract the elixir of immortality and other benefactors in a deathly duel between the Asuras and Devas. This event is immortalised sculpturally in the Swarna Bhoomi Airport in Bangkok. 

The third and fourth Avatars, Varaha and Narasimha, are featured in this animated offering. 

Back to avatars and evolution, Varaha is depicted as a wild boar, said to be one of the most sturdy herbivores adapted to land-based living. Despite being a herbivore, it can be a ferocious beast with rudimentary tasks and muscular limbs. In this juncture, life has firmly grounded itself on land. 

In the movie, a pair of twins, Hiranyaksha and Hiranyashipu, were born. They were Asuras because their mother was from the Asura lineage. Asuras do not automatically infer that they are bad, but rather the general narrative in the Vedic scriptures, over the ages, has transformed to mean so. Because they conceived at an inauspicious time, because their mother, Diti, felt horny, and despite her husband Kasyap's warning, they succumbed to lust. Thus, two of the nastiest Asura of the celestial levels were born. 

On a side note, Hiranyaksha and Hiranyakashipu, the twins, were the reincarnations of Jaya and Vijaya, once the gatekeepers of Vishnu's abode, Vaikundam. Jaya and Vijaya were cursed by Brahma's sons for not allowing them to enter Vaikundam. Vishnu could not cancel the curse, but gave them two options. The first option is to be reborn seven times as a Vishnu bhakta (follower) or, alternatively, as an anti-Vishnu for three births. They chose the latter. Hence, Hiranyaksha and Hiranyakashipu were their first births. The next two are from Rama's era (as Ravana and Kumbakarna) and Krishna's era (as Shishupala and Dantavakra).

Hiranyaksha decided to submerge Earth into the cosmic ocean. Vishnu, as Varaha, fought Hiranyaksha and scooped up Earth, as Bhumidevi, the female personification of Mother Earth, with it. Now, here is the interesting observation that some Hindu scholars agree on. Some of the ancient sculptures of Varaha, erected for worship, depict the Earth as a spherical object. This means that the Indians were aware of Earth's appearance. It is not surprising, as the likes of Aryabhatta had already made gigantic steps in the field of astronomy by the 5th century CE.

After Hiranyaksha's demise, his twin Hiranyakashipu went into intense penance, worshipping Brahma for his boon. Now, Hindu supreme powers are usually quite generous with their wishes. The important lesson in any story where wishes are granted is that the requester must be extremely careful and precise in their requests. So when Brahma did eventually manifest and was willing to grant his wishes, Hiranyakashipu made his request-not to die at the hands of any of Brahma's creation, not to die inside a residence or outside, neither during day nor night, not to be killed by any weapon, human, animal, demigod or serpent. He should not be killed by anyone born of a woman, whilst having supreme power over all living beings. He is bestowed the boon.

The Universe had something up its sleeve. Hiranyakashipu's pregnant wife was kidnapped by the lustful God of the Skies, Indra. He was intercepted by the celestial sage, Narada, who took the pregnant mother under his care. The unborn child grew up exposed to songs praising Vishnu, to the extent that the child, Prahlada, became a devoted devotee of Vishnu.

Trouble brewed when the father, Hiranyakashipu, tried to market himself as a true god to his subjects. The recalcitrant Prahlada continued singing praises to Lord Vishnu, much to his father's chagrin. The son was punished again and again, only to be miraculously saved. At the point of reckoning, when told to show the might of Vishnu, the Lord appeared from the walls of a pillar, in a corridor, at twilight, to be mauled by a half-animal, half-man Narasimha, with His bare claws, without any weapons, keeping within the terms of his boon. 

The computer graphics are excellent. Similarly, the choices of colour, background score, storytelling, and continuity are also captivating. After the near demise of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) in Hollywood, the Mahavatar Cinematic Universe is here to take over where it left off. 

The story of evolution continues with human avatars of variable intellectual capacity, such as Vamana, Parashurama, Rama, Balarama, Krishna or Buddha. Kalki will appear at the end of times.

P.S. In future, when you find yourself stuck with a genie in a situation where you are granted three wishes, be wise. Ask for a wish where you never run out of wishes!

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

div style="text-align: center;">