He who tills the land gets satisfied with bread

Ustad Hotel (Malayalam; 2012)

It is not just about owning a property. It is also about generating economy. It used to be that the owner of a piece of land will be King. Nature will bestow the yield with its raw materials. The landowner will provide for his subjects, whom, he subjugated via conquest or stature. In return, he will be served. Come to think of it, so did the Mafia. They provided for what the legitimate bodies found to be non-profitable or poor returns on investments. 

Modern economies had real estates as such hot commodities. Each and every square inch of God's Earth has to be owned by someone and be developed. Developers and bankers all have their own arm-twisting techniques to squeeze that lone recalcitrant small landowner to surrender his property. They would bring in new legislation, enforcement protocol or taxes. It is evident that the powers that be are subservient to the rich entities. They believe that spurring economic activities will have a trickle-down effect. We now know it only widens the gap between the have and have notes. It is not that simple.

In this country, a group of intellectuals are lamenting that much of the nation's prized land bank has been given away to foreigners and citizens of a particular ethnicity. The funny thing is that they are blaming the recipients and the former colonial masters for the shenanigans, not the present administrators, even though this practice continues till date. It is an open secret that many land swapping deals happen at the highest level in full view of the powers that be.

Perhaps, it is business that dictates who owns what, not sentimentality. It is the economy, stupid. Before Independence, many of the lands around Malaysia was owned by the money lending Chettiars who would usurp lands from their creditors for lapsing payments. They would gloat looking at their vacant properties even though they were just attracting lalang and grazing cows. All these changed after the 1969 racial riots and the fear of instability as the Chettiars sold their realties and returned lock, stock and barrel to India. The Chinese who bought them over were courageous enough to develop these properties. Pretty soon mushroomed supermarkets, housing estates and cineplexes. He who tills the land gets satisfied with bread and also satisfies the whole village of their hunger. It is about working on the land, not merely owning it.

This brand of a new wave of films tends to hit the Indian movie scene these days. No more the same aged actors romantically paired with actresses old enough to be their daughters or pretty young things that are apparent mismatch the people surrounding them. And no more bad dubbing. 

This movie combines realistic acting with a refreshing look at Kerala outdoors. The music is fresh and tends to grow on the listeners.

It tells the tale of a chef, Faizi, who is disowned by his father for choosing the profession that he so despised. Faizi's grandfather, who owns a small-time biryani restaurant, takes him in and teaches him the philosophy of cooking. To cook is not just to fill the stomach, but to satisfy the minds, of the feeder and the one being fed. Even though Faizi has plans to be a famous chef in Europe, as expected, he finds his calling in India.

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It is pre-determined!

Merku Thodarchi Malai (Westward Continuing Hills, Tamil-Malayalam; 2018)
மேற்க்கு தொடர்ச்சி மலை 


Vedantha teachings told us we are all the same, part of a bigger consciousness that is the Universe itself. We were told to treat each other as brothers as indeed our Athma (souls) are all part of the Paramathma which is Brahman itself, the Creator and the Created.

We have all been sold a broken dream. We were told that the path to happiness is through economic improvement. Like in Martin Luther King's cheque in 'I am a dream' speech, we were all given a bounced cheque. A cheque took naively at face value only to discover a little too late the stamp 'Return to drawer'! When we improve our socioeconomic standing amidst a life long struggle of sacrifice, we realise that the goal post has been lifted. We find that the separation between the haves and have nots had widened many folds over. We are to be, still, the mouth-agape child that once was yearning to be like his rich neighbours one day.

The farmers in India are having it bad these days. For centuries, they had had their own way of farming which kept with the local demands. With their meagre income, they led their simple lives, contended with the peace that they had. For recreation, they had Nature games, folk music and songs. Bullfighting was their way of promoting strong bulls to impregnate cows to produce resilient farm animals suited to their environment. Recycling was practised even before it became fashionable in the modern world. Fertilisers were eco-friendly. They did not need the Haber process to increase the nitrogen content in their soil. The sun grows the rice, rice is harvested, stalk in fed to cows, excrement goes back to nature to start the cycle.
Modernisation spoiled all that. Multinational companies, using local businesses as their proxies, moved in to press for sky-high yields, mixed crops, genetically modified seeds and introduction of foreign cows. Using their influence and lobbying skills the world has been hoodwinked that their way is the way to go.

The joy of acquiring a property.

Colonialism never really left our shores. It has come back in economic colonialism. With new rhetorics like environmental pollutions and the need to conform to new legislation, farming is no more profitable.

The recent air pollution over Delhi recently that cancelled flights in and out of the city was partly blamed open residue crop burning in Haryana. On the farmer's side, they complain that their animals do not want to eat the genetically modified stalks as they are unpalatable.

This award-winning artsy film is reminiscent of the 80s Tamil movies where an outdoor shooting was the norm and day-to-day living of common man was the theme. It tells its story slowly, setting the mood for viewers to grow fond of the characters, until... WHAM! the movie hits high gear. Renga is a porter who transports cardamom over the hills bordering Tamil Nadu and Kerala. He is a nice person whose life-long ambition is to do what his father failed in his lifetime, that is to own a piece of land. He is an affable chap who gets around with people and go out of his way to help people. A day in his line of work shows us the miles that we walk, the breathtaking paths that he takes daily and the mountain people. On the other side, we see estates, workers' exploitation, the union movement and the communist party of Kerala.

We are not all the same.

The world clearly favours some and discriminate others.

All under the watchful eyes of the Maker? Are we accidents

of Nature or made in handpicked to assume His mould?

To cut the long story short, he acquires a piece of land, becomes a farmer but his first harvest is damaged by torrential rains. Meanwhile, Renga gets entangled helping retrenched workers who were sold out by the Communist Party leaders. He is implicated in the leader's murder and is imprisoned. His wife and young son are left to fend for themselves. Due to financial difficulties, he has to sell off his land to a conglomerate.

The last scene of the film, which was executed so poetically says it all. Renga is employed as a security guard by the same company to guard his land. Coincidentally, his land is used as the site for a giant windmill, not farming.

Renga was seen dressed in a guard's uniform. In sociology, the uniform is viewed by a sign for exploitation and enslavement. A person in uniform has no identity. He is just an extension of his employer, doing things for the benefit of the State or MNC in this case. A human is just a tool of the system; a dehumanised coolie dancing to the tune of others.

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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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It's cold out there!

Joker (2019)

It was a time when I was a teenager. I had been selected to play the role of Jesus Christ in a pantomime. It was an Easter play depicting the Resurrection. Obviously, the most alluring girl in the Sunday class, Catherine, was cast as Mary Magdelene. Everything went on all, and the show was enjoyed by everyone.

I realised the hard way that people are generally not nice, and children are imps. Life is not fair. There is no justice on Earth, and we are kidding ourselves that there is a higher judge out there who would mete out appropriate justice when the time is ripe. As if pacifying a wailing child, we convince ourselves, rather foolishly that payback may happen in the afterlife or next birth.

After the show, the children started teasing me as 'Black Jesus'. Of course, I did not know then that Jesus may have had Negroid features, but I felt particularly offended with the word 'black'. The teasing went on, joined by the other. One particular chap, Jeremy, I think his name was, was particularly aggressive in provoking a reaction. I chased him. When I could not catch with him, I removed my shoe and threw at him. By a twist of fate, it hit him painfully on his back to invoke a counter-reaction. Just about then, the Sunday School Master walked in, only to witness Jeremy getting the shoe treatment.

So began the talk session and after listening out both sides of the story (to be fair), the Master told both Jeremy and me to apologise to each other with a handshake.

I felt that I had been wronged. I had been told to say something that was not my fault at all. There I was minding my own business doing what a good student should do, and there comes somebody to provoke anger, and when I retaliate, I have to apologise. It appeared unfair, but that seems to be the goings of the world. When someone jumps a red light at an intersection to hit you when you are free to go, the fault of the offender is only 80%. The onus also falls on you to ensure that the road is free of traffic before you move. So say, my lawyer friends.

I have many received many WhatsApp messages depicting

him as a Joker. His mannerisms, accent and subject matter 
may not make sense to many but beneath all that is wisdom
that is screaming to be deciphered. Nithyananda of 'the me 
in you' fame. ©Nithyananda.org.

Nature is also not kind. Try spending a night outside in the cold. If you do not die of hypothermia, probably a wild beast will kill you. Play football in the torrential rain, if you do not slip and fall, maybe you would be struck by lightning. Living carelessly in the wild may expose you to zoonotic diseases, parasites in the soil, in arthropods and even the plants and water which are said to be the elixirs of life. They are all just out to get you. What does not kill you only makes you stronger. Life is just not fair. Life is not a bed of roses. It is not a reward.

I started having a soft spot for the cartoon character 'The Joker', especially so after watching Heath Ledger in 'Dark Knight' and his sad ending. This movie just cemented my liking. It highlights the plight of the little men in this world.

We all want to do our things in this world; indulge in niceties, do our things with our loved ones and hopefully, pave a unique path for them to tread. We think that by obeying the rules and setting our life path along the lines set by those who have been, we will be okay. We are deluded into thinking hard work and obedience equal success and happiness. Sadly, this is far from the truth.

There is a constant plot to swindle the masses by those in power to cow them into submission. The poor are their target whenever their economic pursuit hits a brick wall. Again the oppressed gets the blame and the brunt of sufferings when hardship hits a community.

'Joker' shows such a scenario. The divide between the haves and have nots have spread so extensive that the crushed are fighting back. Jokers are the scorns of the system who periodically rise to kick the society in the behind to jolt it to reality. 

They are essentially revolutionaries who make their political statements through noticeable means. Jokers cringe in the inside to make others laugh. At one time, people thought Jesus of Nazareth was a joker - asking his followers to turn the other cheek when struck! 

A good show 4.8/5.

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Loyalty, only so much!

Viswasam (Loyalty, விஸ்வாசம், Tamil; 2019)

I was ushered into this movie through word of mouth. The ardent Tamil movie fan who recommended this film allegedly cried through many scenes and promoted it as a good Fathers' Day promotional film as well as to showcase the love between a daughter and her father.

It appears that I am either emotionally blunt or that I have watched way too many movies to appreciate any new ones. It seems that all storylines followed three and four pre-set time-tested formulas. In intermingling plots and changing setting and actors, the moviemakers think they got a winner. Something must be wrong with me. Even though I do not think highly of this film, apparently the film is a certified blockbuster, broken box-office and is approved by the Broadcast Audience Research Council, an organisation that owns and manages a transparent, accurate, and inclusive TV audience measurement system as surpassing many records!

Is it just me or has this story been told and re-told in many presentations generations over? That two people of contrasting background should tie the knot only for one party to discover that mistake has been made. With a child to seal the relationship, later on, they go separate ways. Circumstances require re-kindling of bonds. Ego comes to picture to prevent each party to admit mistakes. Tragedy in the form of threat to life binds all together. This happens with and in spite of humanly impossible feats. We just have to accept the fact, without question, that an oversized greying man could do flips and fight scores of known bad-ass gangsters, be fit enough to wrestle hoodlums despite being in ICU just minutes before the encounter and the jumbling up of time and space in the perspective of the story! The audience is becoming an educated lot. With the ease of information at their disposal, they are becoming well-versed with what the rest of the world has to offer. Loyalty, like the title of the movie, only lasts as long the fun quotient lingers on. 

Using the same melancholic tunes, using a soft lens in filming to stir nostalgia and sad, helpless facial expression to kindle emotions only can work so much. The fan base will get fed up and start looking elsewhere for thrills.

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It is the only way they knew to survive!

Ode to My Father (국제시장, Korean, 2014)

You see a grumpy old man seeming to be hitting out at everything around him. You ask yourself, what is wrong with him? Was he always like that? What life event changed him?

If one were to look deep enough, he would discover a reason for the way he behaves. The old man would have his own long life story to share. In his narration, one would find aches, joy, disappointments, achievements, unfulfilled ambitions and unbelievable feats that would make his life worth the while. He must be lethargic fulfiling all his duties in life. Perhaps, his self-sacrifice is not appreciated. He is taken for a fool for still living in the past and being sentimental about trivialities that mean little to the newer generation.

'Ode to My Father' is South Korean's fourth highest grossing film of all time. Even though, filmmakers may look at this production as a 'low-class tearjerker', low brow with the dearth of the finesse of modern filmmaking, viewers appreciate its nostalgia component. Like 'Forrest Gump', it infuses many small snippets that may pluck the string of the hearts of the ordinary Korean. The Hungnam Evacuation of 1950 where US Navy evacuated thousands of North Koreans to the South forms the backdrop of the melancholia as a young family is separated by the stampede of escaping refugees in the cold Korean winters. Father and daughter are left behind. The mother with her three children reaches Busan to live with her sundry shop owner sister-in-law. The eldest of the children, Deok-Soo, a boy, takes charge of the family as ordained by the father. 

Evacuation of 100,000 over refugees at Hungnam

The film is all about his escapade/hardships of life as Deok-Soo, roughs it out in Busan (Gukje Market which was set by wartime refugees) and later during the trying times of the young nation of South Korea. He tugs it out the coal mines of Germany and the landmines of warring Vietnam. All along with the film, viewers' interest is rekindled with the introduction of characters prominent in the history of South Korea, namely, Chung Ju-Yung, as seen as the future founder of Hyundai; Andre Kim, eccentric fashion designer and Nam Jin, a K-pop singer. The main driving force is to protect the family. 

The film strikes a chord with the older as well as the younger generations. The older ones who lived through the Korean War may relive their youth and appreciate their bittersweet experiences during the formative years of the country as it struggled through with handouts of the US and goodwill of the first world country. To the youngsters, it would be an eye-opener. They would be made to realise that Korean culture is not just K-Pop, plastic surgery and Winter Sonata dramas. The hard work and sacrifice of the previous generation would be appreciated.

Perhaps, when you see another grumpy old man or one fixed in his peculiar way of doing things, appreciate the fact it was just their way of doing things to survive and to bring home the bacon for their loved ones.

'Ode to My Father' was remade in Hindi in 2019.

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