RIFLE RANGE BOY

Don't Look Up (2021) Director: Adam McKay That is the problem with the modern world, is it not? Nothing gets moving. Everything gets hijacked along the way by self-interests, personal agendas and public image. Trivialities are rewarded, and no one gives credence to knowledge and intelligence. Social media just gives an illusory comfort to the Joe Public that he is in control of everything. This becomes a fertile ground for conspiracy theorists and fringe movements that are hellbent that there is a higher plot to annihilate our civilisation as we know it. It seems that movie stars and singers are prerequisites to get public services messages across. Slowly, these things are unravelled in how the world deals with the Wuhan pandemic. It seems that for every innovation that the scientific community comes up with, there is an equally opposite move to convince the public on the contrary. Science, which had saved mankind from major catastrophes many times before, is no longer held in high...

The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea Novella, Author: Yukio Mashima(1963) Film version: 1976 Thanks to MEV for introducing this novella to me. A little bit of background on the Nobel Prize-nominated writer opens a different perspective to the story altogether. Yukio Mashima had an illustrious life; born to a samurai family, living with an eccentric grandmother and later a disciplinarian father, failure to be drafted into the Imperial Army, his involvement in the performing arts and literary work, his fascination with the spirit of Japanese bravery and right-wing movement, a failed coup at overthrowing the Japanese Government and subsequent committing of seppuku in 1970. In summary, this tale is about a 13-year-old boy, Noboru, whose father had died five years previously. He lives with his mother, Fusako, and a helper. Fusako has a novelty shop that deals with chic Western/modern haute culture. During Noboru's visit to a ship, a sailor, Ryuji, meets Fusako and gets close. Lon...

Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Power: 5 Battlegrounds. Author: Rajiv Malhotra Look at God and His invention from a philosophical angle. God created all beings, including Man. From a simpleminded simpleton, he evolved to develop a brain complex enough to tap the secrets of the Universe. His intelligence found new frontiers and was able to create and modify new lifeforms. Pretty soon, Man thinks he is better than God. He sometimes thinks God/Universe does not exist. Man is the centre of the Universe, and everything revolves around him. In self-discovery and expansion of human intellectual capacities, he discovered artificial intelligence (AI). From a tool to aid Man in his day-to-day mundane and repetitive jobs - help him around the house and then help in factories, AI slowly began, through Man's astute observation, that many of our actions and problem can be broken down into algorithms.  Over time, these algorithms were created for AI to be creative and responsive indepen...

Idiocracy (2006) This science-fiction film is no masterpiece, but it portrays a pretty close prediction to what Nietzsche predicted the future would be like. He envisaged a dystopian tomorrow where mediocrity is held in high esteem. Emphasis is on triviality and popularism. Evidence of this already gaining traction. Just look around us. People are frequently numbed by visual gratifications. Nobody thinks anymore. Intellectual discourse is just too energy-consuming; blind acceptance is becoming the norm. Astronomical science is centuries old, but many still swear the Earth is flat. Sowing wild oats without a care about the offspring that springs out of such an unholy union is defended as one's right to empowerment.  Investing a wealth of time in something as ludicrous as catching 'Pokemon Go' is a legitimately approved pastime for a modern full-grown adult. Intellectual achievement is un-cool (and is becoming increasingly expensive for the average Joe). The people who least ...

Rush (2013) Friederich Nietzsche identified enduring dichotomies within and amongst us that make our world tick. These two attitudes, both named after Greek Gods, have clashing features. Apollo, son of Zeus, stands for order, logic and reason while Dionysius, the God of Wine, represents chaos, madness and drunkenness. Nietzsche thinks we need both. It emerges from nature itself and can be applied in our day-to-day activities, from art, psychology, ethics to politics. Apollonian way of doing things can be visualised how a scientist functions with his obsession with precision, discipline and punctuality. The Dionysian effect can be seen in music and art form, which may appear chaotic and not following the rules but nevertheless is music as it is, pleasant to the ears and emotive. Nietzche saw the fusion of frenzied energy of the Dionysian to be applied constructively inside an Apollonian framework as ideal. This biopic depiction of the professional rivalry between two F1 racing legend...

Continuing in our series of exploration of smacks of philosophy in Tamil film, we will look into a MGR starred 1971 film, Rickshawkaran. It must have been a year to honour the little men of the cheaper mass public transportation sector, the trishaw men! Later that year, another film, Babu, was released with Sivaji Ganesan as a dedicated cart pulling trishaw man makes a graduate out of his adopted daughter. I did not realise that quite early in childhood I had been infused, rather subliminally with Nietzschean philosophy. Of course, the Indian screenwriters need not look up to Nietzsche for inspiration as the Vedic scriptures already have in abundance a treasure chest so filled with philosophy that would last many generations.  In this song, MGR a MA graduate, yes Masters of Arts, who just finds being a rickshaw rider more rewarding than other bourgeois professions, tries to pacify a child from the monstrosities around her. Her father had  been murdered and MGR is try...

Bread and Roses (2000) Director: Ken Loach Staying true to what Nietzsche was saying about masters, slaves and master morality, the economic migrants put their lives at stake to get to be like their masters. They (the migrants) yearn to be like the masters; speaking their language, dressing like them and abandoning their age-old traditions. Whatever the masters did was good and their own self-depreciating. They achieve what they want, but they are still not happy. They have a kind of self-realisation. They realise that their back-breaking endeavours are only to make the masters' life comfortable at the expense of their (slave's) health and life. They rebel, demanding appropriate recognition and remunerations. That is when the boat starts to rock. The masters do not like all these melodramas. After all, there are many other newcomers ever-ready to fit into the workers' shoes. The master's continuity of comfort and high-brow lifestyle is of supreme importance. Hence...

When Nietzsche Wept (2009) In real life, Frederick Nietzsche and Josef Breuer technically would have never met, even though their paths may have crossed in Vienna. For the uninitiated, Nietzsche is a famous 19th-century German philosopher and Dr Breuer is a neurologist who was Sigmund Freud's mentor who together treated the first patient of psychotherapy, Anna O. (Bertha Pappenheim). Rather fictitiously, the story, which is taken off a novel by Irvin D. Yalom, created an imaginary meeting of four famous Viennese individuals - Nietzsche, Breuer, Freud and Lou Salome, Nietzsche's love of his life. Salome approaches Breuer to request for him to treat Nietzsche who was at risk of committing suicide after she rejected his hand in marriage. She wanted Dr Breuer to treat him for a migraine but at the same time try some of his 'talk therapy' on him to cure him of despair. However, things become complicated. Breuer, even though appearing very composed, contented, prosper...

BBC Four: Genius of the Modern World (Part 2: Friedrich Nietzsche) They say life is the single most precious commodity that one can receive in his lifetime. We are expected to embrace it with gratitude and hold it close, well, to our hearts. Ours is not to ask its purpose and its meaning, they say. Philosophers are a strange kettle of fish. They think when people indulge head-on together with their herd. Historian Bethany Hughes continues her journey into exploring geniuses of the modern world. This time, it is Friedrich Nietzsche, a Prussian philosopher who dared to question the authority of the Christian church. Times were changing. Development in the sciences in the 19th century opened man's eyes and questioned the existence of God. Nietzsche was primarily thinking of man's behaviour in a godless world. He was thinking of where Man would get guidance if he were to disregard the scriptures. Life started so blissfully for this son of a Lutheran preacher. His memory ...