RIFLE RANGE BOY

Breathe ( Amazon Prime, Hindi; 2019) Miniseries (8 episodes) Humankind is quick to determine what is right and what is not for its kind. All rules and regulations are cast in stone for others to religiously adhere to and live by. Most of these 'prophecies' had been self-thought when Man was at an altered state of consciousness. To lay credence to these rules, the name of God was invoked. To go against this grain would incur the wrath of the Divine Forces, they would say.  This sort of arrangement would work just alright most of the time when the general populace is ignorant and obliging. Trouble starts when people start thinking, or the ones in power believe that the laws do not apply to them.   Many external factors make people assume that the rules should not apply to them. The selfish gene, in wanting to care for its progeny and to maintain continuity of species, tries in whatever way to protect its offspring. If the law states that it is criminal to murder som...

Grandmaster (Malayalam; 2012) At one look, everything looks disjointed. Random occurrences happening at casual intervals with seemingly no single loose association. Only when we find a singular thread that holds each of it together, can we make sense of it.  This happens more often than we think it does. These casual links may give closure to the apparently unexplainable things around us. That too carries with it an oversimplification. The urge to provide a simple explanation to everything can be labelled 'conspiracy theory'. To navigate life, to steer through the choppy waters, it sometimes helps to be overanalytical. Like a chess grandmaster, it is useful to look at the trend, look for the pattern and anticipate far in advance what the next assault by the opponent be. Let us be checkmated right under our noses. This Malayalam film had its story based on Agatha Christie's 'ABC Murders'. Keeping to the demands of the local flavour, the tale has been geared...