Joy in helping others?

Irrational Man (2015) 
Screenplay & Direction: Woody Allen 

https://moviesanywhere.com/movie/irrational-man

It is irrefutable that life on Earth unfolds as we desire it to. It commences with the pain of birth, followed by a sinusoidal wave of joy and heartaches, ultimately culminating in death. Death is a sorrow not for the newly departed but for the connections formed throughout existence. One can choose to dwell on the nihilistic end of it all and brood over it throughout a miserable life, or alternatively focus on the good one can achieve while life still ticks away. 

Others make life on Earth an opportune time to sing praises to their Maker. It is unfortunate that their fellow Earthlings require assistance. They are more interested in seeking divine powers for a better afterlife or improved standings in their subsequent births. Those who regard service to their fellow mankind as their raison d'être reap unmentionable rewards by witnessing the joy on the faces of those they endeavour to help. What occurs when a nihilistic individual chooses to assist others in order to infuse meaning into their mundane existence? This sets the stage for the film.

A philosophy professor takes up a position at a small college, carrying considerable emotional baggage, including depression and a drinking problem. He forms a friendship with a fellow teacher and a student. While overhearing a woman lamenting about a judge who is making her court case difficult, the Professor devises what he believes to be the perfect murder to eliminate the judge, thinking he is providing a valuable service to the woman. 

As with all murders, none are without flaws. Before long, one by one, the so-called foolproof alibis begin to disintegrate. As each of his defences crumbles, the Professor realises he is alone. No one condones his actions. Will he confess to everything and serve time for the crime?

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Veiled messages?

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. Long story short, Ryuji and Fusako get romantically linked and has plans for marriage.

Noboru is a lonely child. His mother locks him inside his room, for he had once disappeared into the night to meet his friend. Noboru has a 'gang' at school - a group of five precocious and intelligent boys. They refer to each other as numbers, 1 to 5, Noboru being number 3. The pack leader, known as Chief, is a rich man's son who has a tight grip over the rest. A bit too intelligent for his age, Chief influences the rest with his Nietzchean look at life, about the purpose of it all and the nihilism that it brings. Chief once dissected a live cat to show the essence of life, the mighty raw power, and appreciate life's soul. 

A man needs to explore his full potential. There should not be any authoritative body to curtail his pursuit of greatness. In Chief's eyes, fathers, teachers and everyone do just that. They douse the spirit.

Noboru's keen pubescent mind yearns to analyse and make sense of things around him. In his locked room, he discovers a crack in the wall that opens to the adjoining room, his mother's. It is a kind of his pastime to peep into his sexually deprived young mother's bedroom. Noboru thinks his world is perfect; at least, that is what Chief tells him. Fathers are no good.

When Ryoji comes into Noboru's life, he is initially excited. Ryoji is the conduit to his fascination, the sea. Through Ryoji, he learns about the unknown and the dangers that the sea had to offer. Scaling the sea tests human power and resilience.

Watching Ryoji and Fusako engaged in passionate love-making through the cracked wall, and when Ryoji decides to hang his seaman cap, Noboru develops a kind of oedipal envy. He and his gang schemes a devious plan to kill Ryoji and reap out his heart like they did to the cat!

Many analysts had looked, some would say overanalysed, into this novella. Extrapolating things that happened in the author's life, seppuku and all, they posit that Mishimo is exploring the boundary of life and death. He is perhaps telling that Man has to be free from the trappings of life to explore his true potential. Maybe Man is unsure what he wants in life, like Ryoji, who runs away from land to the sea, escaping the miseries surrounding his early life, thinking that his true calling is the seas. After scaling the oceans, Ryoji finds that the unknown glory at the waters does not satisfy and yearns to stay put on dry land to start a family.

Some look at this novella as an allegory of the loss of Japanese values in society. Going to the sea was a Japanese thing to do, compared to when Emperor Meiji encouraged locals to go forth and explore after Commander Matthew Perry landed in Kyoto with what the Japanese thought was the celestial dragon. Ryoji was displaying his 'Japaneseness' by venturing out to the sea. Hence, Ryoji returning to land to marry Fusako, a lady who delved deep into Western merchandise, represents the post WW2 generation that traded traditional lifestyle to modernity. Hence, it had to be ended, the murder of Ryoji. So too with Mashimo, when he failed with his coup de tat of overthrowing the Japanese government. The honourable thing to do when he failed is performing his samurai duties, seppuku!

The film version has a slightly different feel to it. Unlike the book, where the story was set in Yokohama, this is done in Devon, UK. The lack of depth in the movie version is compensated by the appearance of the heart-throb of the 70s, Kris Kristofferson, and the liberal display of flesh by the leading actor, Sarah Miles, who plays the role of the mother.

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It is the journey.

Harold and Maude (1971)

Some look at life as full of doom and gloom, as a purposeless one. Whichever path one takes, we know what the final destination is, and the path leading to it can be paved with shrapnel and pain. Nietzschean and many existentialist philosophers perpetuate this idea. On the other end of the spectrum, others whose sole purpose of life is to savour the joy of being born as a human being push it to the tilt. They view the boon of birth as a gift on a platter to enjoy with no boundaries.

The truth must be lying somewhere in between - between nihilism and hedonism. There must be a purpose in our existence, perhaps to somehow leave a tiny mark of legacy, no matter how small, in a small way to propel our loved ones, family or community forward. A community, hence a country, is, after all, is made of subunits of families. So, improvements in families will sequentially propel the human race forward. 

We should probably get our cues about life from the words of the Stoics and Epicureans. In their minds, we have only this one life to do what we can whilst finding pleasure within all of the aches and pains it has to offer.

This 1971 film, made at the end of the time of flower power, must have been an assessment of the liberal care-free perception of society versus the traditional convention-abiding outlook of the community. It was a satire of society we live in, which involves 'groupthink' as determined by authoritative figures - religion, psychology, family, military.

This cult-following offering recently celebrated its 50th anniversary. It is a dark comedy about a death-obsessed 19-year-old young man who falls in love with a happy-go-lucky 80-year old lady. Yes, 80 years old.  Harold, brought up in a privileged background by a narcissistic single mother, grows bored with life. He is preoccupied with death and religiously attends funerals, even of unknown people, just to be closer to death. He has a warped sense of humour, sometimes faking himself hanging or cutting off his own limb. His mother's attempts at keeping him entertained with gifts and new girlfriends proved futile.

So Harold found himself quite at home with a chance meeting with Maude at a random funeral. Her care-less attitude and total disregard for the rule of law excited him. Their little escapade turned out to be a sort of coming-of-age phase for Harold as Maude shows him all the small things that make one appreciate the reason for living. Harold looks at funerals as the final destination we are all edging to as Maude looked at them as a moment to reflect the time of their existence. I guess the film's message is to accept death as an essential and inevitable recurring process that regenerates life.

The memorable scene in this movie is the one in a field of daisies. Maude said she would like to change to a sunflower most of all as they are so tall and simple. Harold replied that he would like to be one of the daises because "they are all alike". Maude turned to Harold and explained that they are not.  

"Some are smaller, some are fatter. Some grow to the left, some to the right. Some even have lost some petals. All kinds of observable differences". Harold could suddenly see the truth in her observation. The camera pans way back to show that Harold and Maude were standing in a graveyard. The gravestones were identical to the daises in one perspective. Even though the stones were all carved to look similar, they signify different lives lived - happy, sad, abrupt, or long. But the ending, the final destination, nevertheless, is the same.

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Make up your mind and move on...

Waiting for Godot (play, book)
Writer: Samuel Beckett

Thanks to MEV for the suggestion; for helping me in my journey to crack open my hard shell of ignorance. 

Albert Camus and Samuel Beckett fall into the same category of philosophers-writers who lived through World War 2-ravaged France to build a very nihilistic view of life's purpose. Samuel Beckett, an Irishman, who spent a good portion of his life in France, can be credited to have started the 'theatre of absurdism' and received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1969 for his books and drama.

The life that is laid in front of us is apparently meaningless. In this tragi-comic play, we are shown as headless chickens running, not knowing what to do and not knowing what is expected of us. We are so fickle, always losing track of our purpose and get swooned over easily by events around us. We eagerly await instructions from people in authority without an iota of a clue about the right thing to do. But we wait and follow like sheep, correctly or otherwise.

The play narrates a conversation between two tramps, Vladimir and Estragon, who await mysterious Godot's arrival. It seems that Godot is very elusive, does not keep to his word and has no qualms keeping his men waiting. Vladimir and Estragon, in their endless wait, have to do things to pass the time. They encounter Pozzo, a rich man, and his slave, Lucky, who traverse their path. They realise that their miserable lives are much better than that of the slave, but still, they are unhappy. They keep on waiting for Godot hoping to get instructions from him.

That is life as we know it. We are clueless about why we are here, why we are alive, what is our mission. We create stories trying to justify our existence. We are not convinced and need validation from someone, anyone. We grope in the dark, making along. This aimless journey is so long and arduous.  

Like Sisyphus, we are cursed to be doing the same repetitive unending chore. The boulder pushed with so much exertion, and determination just rolls down just as it hits the pinnacle. His job is repeated and repeated yet again. Sisyphus can just call it a day and call it quits. Sisyphus knows he is destined to do throughout his life. He has to find happiness and purpose in life within that miserable ordeal. Life is tough, but he has to find joy and fulfilment within that wretched circumstances. 

Looking at this paradigm, we can distract ourselves into doing things that take our mind off of what happens at the end of it all. The indulgence in primal pleasures, intoxicants, flesh and music remain possible options. One desirable alternative could be the dissipation in art forms. It numbs the pain but at the same time, open up the mind to gaze at our lives from different perspectives. We can be leaders and serve society or delve deep into science to uplift mankind. The bottom line is that this is our existence, we have to accept it and make sense of it all and make our own conclusion.

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In pursuit of knowledge

Just the other day, a discussion brewed in our WhatsApp group. This group was started with the intention of educating ourselves and understanding the nuances of the world. We discussed politics, world events, philosophy, religion, ancient history, epistemology, Trump, Vedanta and almost anything under the sun with the hope of peeling open the sleeping inner eye within us to see the bigger picture of things around us.

Brihadaranyaka Upanishad:
असतो मा साद गमय, तमसो मा ज्योतिर् गमय, मृत्योर मा अमृतम् गमय
(Asato Ma Sad Gamaya, Tamaso Ma Jyotir Gamaya, Mrityor Ma Amritam Gamaya)
Lead us from ignorance to truth, Lead us from darkness to light, Lead us from death to deathlessness.

(recited at the end of the climatic end of arthi, Hindu prayers, when the Jyothi, fire, is shown to the deity. If only the congregation appreciates the true meaning of the verse and put it into practice.)

On one hand, we see some who perceive the world as one going through a 'dystopian age' of 'an age of anger'. These angst-filled people look at the world around them as if it is approaching the end of times. They realise that it is their worldly (?God-sent) duty and the civil thing to push forward their rhetorics to 'correct' the imbalances. They spread anger and negativities to everyone to rise to the occasion to change their dystopia to utopia, knowing well that it is an unattainable dream. This group of people comprise those of the intelligentsia, writers, art practitioners and media personnel. They spur ideas to propel us forward to face all challenges and to be prepared for an uncertain future. Looking at a nihilistic future makes them better in dealing with a catastrophe, should one befall them. Appearing too optimistic, on the converse, may be self-defeating as they would be lulled into their comfort zone. They would forget the survival skills to smell fear with the option to flight or fight.

On the other hand, we have those who, with their blissful look, swear that we are indeed leaving in the golden age. The best time to live is now. With the advent of advances in science, technology and much more, people are living healthier lives, free from various communicable diseases and live longer meaningful lives. They deny that end is nigh. Our knowledge and understanding of the world around us has been incrementally increasing. The truth is out there to harness. The only thing that is holding us down is our ignorance and our inertia. We will never perish us a human race. We are too smart for that. Defeating more massive mammoth beasts in our past, we are now indeed the defacto most dominant species on the planet. Game theory applications predict that it is unlikely that we would annihilate each other as our arsenal of weapons gets too big for our own good. The only thing that could destroy us is a meteor hit, which is beyond our control.

Like the two opposing poles of a magnet, like the Ying and the Yang, like the duality of life, like the opposing forces of Siva and Sakthi, these two effects complete us. We need both parties to help us to be on toes to face an unexpected eventuality, be creative to plan our next move, to explore different dimensions, to remember the glory of past achievements. Like the newest Magnetic levitation train where two opposing poles of magnetic strips push a massive structure to travel forward, it is our sincere hope that the human race does the same.

[Thanks AqS for his invaluable deeds in paving towards the Path of Knowledge]

With or without you!

Moon (2009)


You work day in and day out with the conviction that your purpose in life is to do your job. You perform at your best from 9 to 5 or 24/7 or as and when you are required to do. You give your 101%'s effort with the gumption that you are the man for the job; with the motto, to serve is divine.

Hold behold. At the blink of an eye, it dawns on you that you are indeed not indispensable. You are made to just to serve as a cog in the wheel of time. When your time is up, the task will still go on, with or without you, upon somebody else purview! You are just a pawn in the master plan of existence.

That is how life is. You give your life and soul. You think the system would collapse without you. Believe it or not, everything just goes on, with or without you!

This 2009 sci-fi nihilistic drama was directed by debutante Duncan Jones (son of David Bowie). It was set in an unspecified time in the future when the world's energy crisis is a thing of the past. Man has developed a clean energy harvested from the rock over the dark side of the moon, called Helium-3. Sam Wells is about to finish his 3-year contract overseeing the job on the moon base. He just cannot wait to rejoin his wife and young daughter. As the days draw closer, Sam starts having visual hallucinations. He crashes into a harvester during his tours. After recovering from his injuries, assisted by a robot, GERTY, his only companion on the moon, he discovered a severely wounded person outside. He starts becoming suspicious when the person appears to be his splitting image and GERTY can contact Earth at real-time when his messages are delayed.

It opens the ugly story of evil capitalistic corporations cloning humans to do the dirty job that nobody wants to do and implanting false memories to keep them happy.

Isn't it something like our lives? Everyone does the predesignated jobs, without questioning too much but satisfying themselves with pleasant memories and hope of reaching a point of bliss which may just be an elusive dream or conditioning to keep us pleased knowing that we are doing all these things towards a perceived tangible end!

We are all caged animals!

High-Rise (2015)

Where are those happy days,
they seem so hard to find
I tried to reach for you,
but you have closed your mind
Whatever happened to our love
I wish I understood
It used to be so nice,
it used to be so good

ABBA's 1975 SOS

Continuing into the saga of nihilistic movies, this is one that fits the bill perfectly. When we were young, we always thought that the future would be so bright that we would need shades. Unfortunately, when we are here, in the future, it is still doom and gloom. The only vision that is clear to us is that of hindsight! And the ability to savour the memory till that too gives up on us!

In our formative years, we also thought that ABBA's songs were full of love and hope. Only now do we realise that the lyrics are dark and screams of melancholy. Even though this movie is set in the early 70's the director decide to use ABBA's music score of 'SOS'  (of the mid-70s) in the background in a few instances to subtly remind the audience of those happy days when we were full of zest to face the world had vanished

'High-Rise' is a British satire on the classes of the society. It metaphorically displays the tension that builds up in a 30 storey apartment complex. It starts off as an efficient self-sufficient building with a gym, swimming pool, playground and even a supermarket. The living arrangement is nicely choreographed. The architect (aptly named Royal, Jeremy Irons) occupies the penthouse with a separate private lift and a massive lawn to add to the splendour. As we descend, the occupants tend to be of the lower economic class. The protagonist of the movie, Dr Liang, is like a go-between. He can communicate with the upper and bottom floors' dwellers.

What starts off as a chirpy, upbeat state-of-the-art venture with full of hope for the future slowly starts breaking down. The power supply gets erratic; the garbage chute gets blocked and the main lift gets jammed. Somehow, the rich one still continue their uninterrupted supply. Their decadent parties still continue. They sneer upon the poor. The poor in return try to outdo their master by having even a wilder one with the bare minimum.

Things become more twisted as Dr Laing, who moved into this new apartment after the demise of a sister, is getting morose. His medical student, an arrogant son of an aristocrat who occupies the upper floors, commits suicide after Dr Laing pranks him on his CT Scan report.

As amenities supplies dwindles, sanitation declines and sanity plunges, the clash of the classes begin. The animalistic desires and primitive behaviour of the occupants surface. The whole societal structure collapses. Nobody works anymore and nothing works anymore. The once spanking new building with its seemingly harmonious occupants is just a fraction of its glory days in a distant memory.

Surprise, surprise. Despite the outcome of a social experiment that went pear shaped, many similar apartments are built in the vicinity.

Human beings are just kind on the surface when the ambience is conducive. When their space or their right is impinged, all the niceties will dissipate. They would just recoil into their inborn native tribal warfare mode. Chaos and caveman justice would be the order of the day!

Deserve’s got nothing to do with it!

Unforgiven (1992)
Produced & Directed by: Clint Eastwood

This depressing Western is not your typical swashbuckling gunslinging escapade that one would expect. It instead, looks at nihilistic look at life through the eyes of a reformed bandit in late 1800s of the Wild West.

Bill Munny (Clint Eastwood), a reformed professional gunfighter, is now a struggling hog farmer. His pigs are sick, he is poor and has two kids (children) to feed. He gave up his wayward ways after his wife changed him into becoming a new man, giving up his whiskey and the senseless killings. Sadly, his wife succumbed to smallpox. Mundy lives a broken man, pledging not to go to his old ways ever again.

But when a young punk (Schofield Kid) turns up at his home with the news of two crooks with a bounty on their head for mutilating a lady’s face, at a time when he was in dire straits, the temptation was too much. For his children’s future, he joined forces with his ex-partner, Ned Logan (Morgan Freeman) to hunt the crooks. The trio is a hodgepodge of Kid who is short-sighted, Bill, who had forgotten all his old ways, even saddling a horse and Ned, who had the ‘nerves’ when the moment of reckoning arrived.

The lady who was mutilated was no angel but a worker in the brothel of a small town run by a mean Sheriff Little Bill (Gene Hackman). He runs the town with an iron fist, anyway he deems fit.

The most compelling dialogue that struck me was when Munny was about to put the coup-de-grace on Little Bill.

Bill: I do not deserve to die like that this. I am building a house.

Munny: Deserve’s got nothing to with it! Boom!

That is life for you. Nature is a ruthless son of a bitch. It does not bother about your plans, your aspirations or feel pity for dependants. If you are there in the path of its plan, poof you go. If you got to go, then you have to go. No special preference is given to royalties, professionals, leaders or those in the privileged part of society. You are not special. You cannot bribe the powers that be by appeasing them with showers of salutations and persuasions. You are just a minuscule of a fragment in this vast universe.

Nihilistic look into humanity

True Detectives (2013)

This TV detective show has been quite a hit the world over. Its story paints a bleak outlook on humanity. Its dialogue is so profound and tears up the fabric of the type of society that man immemorial have tried to develop over the generations. Its nihilistic message is uttered week over week as the detectives go on to detect a series of ritualistic murders involving young children. Whilst they were at it, they also took a jibe at the evangelical Christians who have ulterior motives behind the supposed spreading of God words. The word white thrash repeatedly rings in this show, which uses the backdrop of the eerie countryside of Louisiana in its setting.

The story is told in two timeframes (1995 and 2012, also 2002 when they split) as Marty Hart (Woody Harrelson) and Rustin Cohle (Matthew McConaughey) investigate some gruesome murders as cops initially and later as private investigators.
Woody Harrelson whom most of us came to know the bartender in Cheers in the 80s is a married cop (Marty) with two young daughters but not much of a family man. In the pretext of working overtime, he is out with a mistress. Mathew McConaughey, who is often seen a beach bump more attention from exposing his torso than his acting abilities, have been doing an excellent job in the past few movies that I have seen. Here he is a depressing pessimist who looks at everything from a negative aspect, let it be religion, people or humanity. He has not got over the loss of his young daughter in an accident.

Marty juggles his police work, extracurricular activities and bringing up his daughters. His philandering ways soon comes to his wife's attention and out hell broke loose. It effectively ended Marty and Rustin's partnership.
They unite in 2012 during a police enquiry. They bury their hatchet and continue where they stopped.

The joy of watching this show is not the story but the low down nihilistic dialogue especially by Rustin and the depressingly directionless souls of the dwellers of the interior of the most advanced country on the planet.