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.

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

A rewarding job?

Kavaludaari (Policeman, Kannada; 2019)
Amazon Prime.

Most Indian movies stereotype policemen as either corrupt or a superhero who would singlehandedly beat the living daylights of gangsters twice his size, with his bare knuckles. This rare neo-noir movie coming from the state of Karnataka puts things right in perspective. As in many things in life, there is no happy ending in police work. The Universe does not offer poetic justice. Is it our job to right the wrong? Should we just leave it to the divine powers to mete out justice in the afterlife or next birth? Should we use the whole length and breadth of the man-made justice system to punish the perpetrators? Are we justified to use the system to correct the mistakes when the system that we put up to provide justice fails? Can we, like Nadhuram Godse, in his last speech at his trial, justify our violence by quoting Man's history and scriptures which are anything but peaceful. 

Doing the right thing may not be easy. In retrospect, one's action may be just, but in the breath, a person with persuasion can paint an ugly picture of the act.

Not to give too much away, this film starts with a man lying in a pool of blood, an open and empty safe with a well-dressed man leaving the premises desperately. In the next scene, we see a traffic cop going out of his way to stick his head in a criminal case. In a highway construction site, old remains of three bodies are found. The gist of the story is tying up the cop and his obsession with the discovery of the corpses.

An exciting movie which breaks the mould of a typical swashbuckling and over-the-top ridiculous stories that are constantly churned out from the sub-continent. Of late, the industry seems to be going places.

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

Life is full of 'what if's!

Dhuruvangal Pathnaaru (16 Extremes)

Back in the 90s, my sisters suggested that I should watch a revolutionarily new Tamil with a new format, 'Puthu Puthu Arthangal' (New Meanings). A then new to the Tamil cinema, Rahman was the star. Later, he acted in 'Sangamam', another milestone depicting the clash between classical Indian music and the folk music. Rahman was rarely seen after that till I saw him in this rare neo-noir Tamil crime drama film. The years have been kind to this lanky star. His appearance has not changed much over the years.

It was quite engaging to watch this flick. From the word go, I was hooked. Initially starting with the cliche and cute philosophical lines, I was keen to know how it would progress. The curiosity increased as the narration flip-flopped between the present and five years into the future. A retired police officer has a chat with a chap whom he mistakenly thinks is his subordinate's son. Thinking that the visitor ('the son') is a keen follower of his last unsuccessful case, they discuss details of it at great lengths. The storytelling is so compelling. The police procedures are discussed quite meticulously with no chance for holes. I thought that this film who also follow what most Tamil films do - make the story quite complicated and end it with the most ridiculous impossible explanations just to tie the loose ends. Luckily, it did not end that way here.

One has to watch till the end to appreciate the twist at the end and then suddenly all the profound voice-overs by the narrator would start to make perfect sense.

Life is full of possibilities. Whenever something does not turn out in our favour, we always ask ourselves 'what if', 'what if'. What if I had pursued another career path? What if I had married my first girlfriend? What if I had stayed single? What if I had not answered the phone when I was driving? What if I had not been mean to the stray dog? Life is full of unanswered questions. I am pretty sure I would be asking the same questions if I had taken the alternate path.

A story as told by one person may put him as the protagonist, the hero. To another person, this same story would be narrated as if the first person is the villain. It is all one's perspective. A surprisingly cerebral film from a 22-year-old debutante. Way to go!

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.