RIFLE RANGE BOY

https://borderlessjournal.com/2024/11/14/the-eternal-sleep-of-kumbhakarna/ I reported to Kuala Pilah District Hospital on 11th August 1989. Just having passed out from medical school a year earlier, followed by a year of housemanship training, I was rearing to go. Like Dr. David Livingstone, who explored the interior of Africa to treat the needy (and convert them), I thought I would change the world. This work is licensed under a  Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License .

'96 (Tamil,  2018) Director: C. Prem Kumar I remember a time in the 1980s when many Tamil movies had a particular storyline. A boy would fancy a girl, but circumstances would not allow them to fall in love. Most of the time, it would be because of different social and economic statuses, or they could be from feuding families, akin to Romeo and Juliet's story. The Family would come to know. They would put up blockades, but against all odds, the boy would persist. He would look at his beau from afar, her every move, and she would fall flat for him. She thinks he loves her so much that he finds nothing more worthwhile in life than looking at her 24/7 like a lunatic.  In most modern societies, that is called stalking. In 1983, it was perfectly normal for Sting to watch his gal's every breath and every move. In the 2000s, however, that would warrant a police report and a restraining order. Somehow, in this 2018 Tamil nostalgic movie, the girl regrets that she missed all the stal...

Meiyazhagan ( மெய்யழகன் , Tamil; 2024) Written & Directed by: C Prem Kumar How often have you been caught in a situation where someone catches you at a party and goes on a rant? They seem to know everything about you. They would tell you about your parents and obscure personal details of your childhood. The trouble is that you don't know him from Adam. You would not have the slightest clue who he is but too embarrassed to ask him. You would not want to offend the other person and appear haughty. More so when you return to your hometown, doing better than where you came from whilst the other person is still stuck in your hometown.  You slowly try to pick a cue from his sentences. You try to look deep into his eyes, perhaps to pick up any identifying features. Negative. You try politely asking people behind his back, but it proves difficult as everyone assumes both seem engaged in a conversation so deep that we are blood brothers.  You become desperate as the other person st...

Manorathangal (Minescapes, Malayalam; 2024) An anthology based on stories by MT Vasudevan Nair After the release of the Hema committee report, the murmur, which started in 2019, is heard once again. More new victims of the Malayalam film industry are voicing their bad experiences out in the open. The report results from the Government's investigations into the alleged rise of sexual misconduct, exploitation and #MeToo complaints against big players of Mollywood. The report's contents paint badly for the safety and working environment for the fairer sex. The report paints a picture of Mollywood as run by a mafia of senior directors, producers, and male actors who call the shots and decide which actress gets chosen and who gets the boot. To make it to the cast, the new actresses would have to endure much humiliation, denigration, and assault. The report prompted many Malayalam Movie Association chief members to resign to clear their names. On one hand, civil societies assert that...

The Boy and the Heron (2023) Director and Written:  Hayao Miyazaki I did not know much about this director until recently, but he has been a cult figure among those who enjoy Japanese cartoons. No, his brand of cartoons does not fall under manga, anime, or adult cartoons; instead, it carries a rather philosophical message. In fact, this particular offering is a semi-autobiographical one that the filmmaker made ten years after his retirement. In keeping with the coming-of-age era, the story is set in late 1930s Japan when the country is steeped knee-deep in the Pacific War.  It starts with Mahito, a young boy who gets up from sleep to find his mother trapped in a great fire. His mother subsequently succumbs to the fire. His father remarries his wife's sister, whom Mahito finds challenging to connect with. Mahito moves to a new town to live with his pregnant stepmother. As Japan prepares for war, we see Mahita finding it challenging to fit into his new school and accept his new ...

A lady, visibly struggling with her gravid tummy, was heard conversing with a fellow attendee at a maternity clinic. Excerpts from her conversing, which were anything but discrete, were soon made known to others. She was complaining about how she still had to go to school carrying a pair of twins in utero with just less than one month from her due date. This year alone, five teachers had gone on maternity leave, leaving a large vacuum for others to fill up.  It does not help that her school had 80% of the teachers as ladies and that recently, maternity leaves had been extended from 60 days a few years previously to 98 days now.  "I am just wasting my time teaching children who are not interested in learning, anyway," she was lamenting.  Thanks, Mr Khoo! I remember when a teacher motivated me to push my boundaries beyond my imagination, reaching for the unthinkable. I was just an average student trying to sponge whatever little knowledge my teachers were trying to imp...

The Eternal Daughter (2022) Director: Joanna Hogg This is not your usual horror movie, but it has a Gothic feel to it. It is a dark, slow movie with nostalgia, old age and loneliness hanging over it like a theatre drape.  In the formative when the rebel in us tries to surface, we tend to look at our parents as the worse examples of how parents should bring up their kids. We look at other people's parents and yearn for lost childhood. We blame them for all our not-so-fancy physical attributes and life failures. We could not wait to grow up and get the hell out of their supervision.   Fast forward in time and space. The hard dents of life knock us back to realisation. We look at our parents through a different lens. We realise that life as adults are neither a walk in the park nor a pleasure cruise. Every corner has a brick wall to give us concussions as we rush through life's journey.   We look at our parents and see that the springiness of youth and headiness of being you...

Aftersun(2022) Director, Writer: Charlotte Wells From the time of the Big Bang, the Universe is said to be moving at a pace of low entropy to one of high entropy. At low entropy, things seem harmonious, orderly and balanced. On the contrary, chaos rules on the other. Is that why our childhood was so serene, whereas our adult life is fraught with mayhem? Could it also be that 'Time', the essence of our existence, seemed longer when we were young? Imagine the time we had to wait for our next long school holiday when we had just finished one. It felt like aeons away, like forever. But then, now, a solar circle just whizzes by. We are heading towards total chaos! Our memory of the past comes in flashes, like rays of light from a stroboscope. It is cluttered. It comes in flares and disappears just as quickly. The problem with memory is that it can be deceptive. It suppresses painful ones and glamourises pleasant ones. When we were young, we were restless to grow older. We envy seei...