We are just inventory?

Asteroid City (2023)

Director: Wes Anderson

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/296207471307

This film received mixed reviews. One either loved it or hated it. The trouble is that it needed to be viewed more than once to grasp the essence of the story it attempts to tell. Even most film critics conceded to watching the film multiple times before putting pen to paper to share their two cents' worth.

Wes Anderson films have cult followings. As with all Wes Anderson movies, the most striking aspect is the deliberate choice of comforting light colours, which evoke specific emotions and imbue the story with a nostalgic feel. The images presented on screen are symmetrical; the colours selected come from a particular spectrum; the characters are quirky; and the scenes are interspersed with moments of awkward silence.

This time around, the film centres on two concurrent sets. One, presented in black and white, is a play as narrated by the screenplay and director. The second is set in the present (i.e. 1950s), where nuclear tests are taking place in a remote desert town, Asteroid City. Meanwhile, a stage announcer is seen, seemingly breaking the fourth wall, and perhaps the actors do the same. The actors move between sets, as if everything is merely a continuum, blending the past and the future. This leaves viewers wondering about its true meaning. One must make one's own judgment about the narration. 

The present set features a fictional town in the desert, with its landmark icon being an asteroid allegedly left behind by an alien, hence its name, Asteroid City. It serves as a stopover point for science enthusiasts eager to view a particular constellation in the sky. Coincidentally, a junior astronomy award presentation is also taking place there. 

Angus Steenbeck, a recently widowed war photographer, arrives with his prodigy son, Woodrow, and his three young daughters in Asteroid City. Woodrow is to receive an award. Their car breaks down, forcing all five to stay behind. Although their mother passed away three months prior, Angus has not yet told his children the bad news. Their neighbours at the chalet are Midge Campbell, a weary star, and her teenage daughter, Dinah. Dinah is also to be honoured at a grand ceremony, which will be attended by renowned scientists and high-ranking military officials.

During the event, something strange occurs. An alien spacecraft hovers over the town, and an alien descends to collect the asteroid before disappearing into the night’s darkness. A quarantine is imposed, and a media blackout is enforced, treating the city as a danger zone.

Nestled within this narration is the 'black and white' stage play, where the director recounts the story.

At the end of the day, the key lessons from this film include managing grief, the uncertainty of life, how people often dictate to others how life should be lived, perhaps the question of what is truly presented to us, and likely the question of divinity. We convince ourselves that life ought to be lived in a certain way, as if we possess that knowledge. As if someone has crossed to the other side and returned to tell the tale. What the COVID-19 pandemic has taught us is that nobody truly knows anything. The loudest and most charismatic among us lead, while the rest simply follow. Sometimes, the truth is suppressed to further their personal agendas. The person who controls the news controls the world. No matter how much the truth is buried, it has a way of resurfacing.

Lest remains the unanswered, burning question: Why are we here? What is the plan? Are we merely to create the inventory?

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Pleasure in pain?

Crimes of Future (2022)
Director: David Cronenberg

Despite all the good deeds attributed to Tipu Sultan in fighting the British and planting the seed of nationalism amongst the people of Bharat, the Muslim monarch is infamous for signature torture. He would slice off his enemies’ noses. There was a time in South India when many defeated Hindu soldiers with gaping nasal openings on their faces. 

It is said the peddlers on market squares of old India were trying to insert prostheses to correct the victims’ nasal defects. Two visiting surgeons from the UK saw this during their visit to exotic India and decided to write it up in medical journals. That was the birth of rhinoplasty and the conception of cosmetic surgery. 

Tipu Sultan

Soon everybody found something wrong with their appearances; too fat, too plain, too Asian-looking, too unalluring, lines of ageing or even too short. Everything could be corrected if one were daring enough to go under the scalpel. The fear of surgery itself was a put-off to potential customers (not patients since they were not technically sick).

For those who braved the procedure or danced the nectar of joy of improvement of their perceived looks, an enhancement to the first cut became the norm. In a way, the first cut was not the deepest but became a stepping stone to many more to follow. As experience had proven, it soon became an obsession, no longer a therapeutic correction. In the real world, repeated nose jobs have resulted in necrotic nasal cartilages and the nose literally dropping off one’s face! If the rumours about Michael Jackson were true.

The movie tells us of a not-so-distant future where humans develop tolerance to pain, and somehow people do not get infections. The human body constantly evolves and is able to produce synthetic organs. A group of people can digest plastic. Because pain is ‘pleasurable’ and is tolerated well, surgical incisions and public displays of self-mutilation replace traditional sex. In this topsy-turvy world where growing new organ is an art form, the authorities try to register new organs!

Kosaji, after his nose job

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What is life all about?

Star Trek: Picard (2020)
Miniseries, Season 1, E1-10.

I did not grow up appreciating the original Star Trek TV series. Hence, I do not qualify to identify myself as a Trekkie. I, however, managed to catch up Star Trek: The Next Generation when it made its way to the terrestrial TV channels. I remember the series not as much of an action-packed series but more of a cerebral one discussing life issues. I never did follow the ensuing Trek series or the silver screen productions. So, to me, Picard is only Starfleet Captain that I know.

More than a decade after his last mission and his unceremonious departure from USS Enterprise, Admiral Picard has to go to back to space. He does this clandestinely against the orders of the authorities, with a ragtag assembly of crew and space ship. In his previous mission, Data had caused the destruction of Mars. Because of that, androids, or synthetics as they were known in 2399, were banned. Picard had resigned in protest.

Enjoying his retirement in his chateau, Picard comes to know of a girl who may be the 'daughter' of Data as she was developed from Data's positronic brain. She is, unfortunately, assassinated. There is a vast conspiracy, from the Romulans mainly, as they had to bear the bunt of USS Enterprise's destruction of Mars earlier, to wipe out all synthetics. Picard's mission is to find Data's other twin daughter and save all synthetics from annihilation. 

Keeping with the characters who are all senior citizens trying to save the Universe, the series progresses slowly with a lot of dialogue and intellectual discourse.

The last two episodes are the most exciting part of the season for an occasional Star Trek fan like me. Perhaps at that time, earthlings have eradicated poverty and abated their fixation for material wealth, their discussions seem to focus more philosophical issues. People still try to create schisms and have pre-conceived ideas about 'the other' even though he never had the chance to meet or interact with them. They fail to realise that all these animosities will eventually cause self-destruction. Is it necessary for species to kill each other to survive? Is sacrifice the highest form of deed one can offer to a fellow kind? Is there logic in sacrifice or is life too precious to be wasted?

Picard, Riker and Troi (after retirement)

The finale discusses death and purpose of life. The past is already written. The future is for us to pen. How is the narration going to be? It is fear and suspicion of the unknown, which is the destroyer. Is believing that openness may allay these problems naive? To say that we do not have the choice is indicative of our lack of imagination. We are beyond all these. Our collective intellectual should be able to overcome adversities.

Being alive is not a licence to indulge. It is not a choice, but it comes with specific responsibilities. It is the price we have to pay for building consciousness. It expects us to think for the future. Mortality gives meaning to our time on Earth. Developing peace, friendship and love help us to appreciate the gift of life. At the end of our lifetime, we are left with only memories.

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Early alien visitations to India

Kalai Arasi (கலை அரசி, Queen of Arts, Tamil; 1963)

Even when extra-galactical adventures, wars of astronomical proportions and extra-terrestrial visits in vimānas are mentioned in the Hindu scriptures, somehow, science fiction movies never really had a following at the silver screen level. A 1952 Hollywood collaborated film 'Kaadu (Jungle)' is the first Tamil sci-fi movie. Many alien visitation film ventures have failed, including Satyajit Ray's effort.

40 years before 'Koi Mil Gaya' burnt the silver screen hailed as the first successful Indian science-fiction flick, Kollywood did indeed release an epic saga of alien visitation, flying saucers and alien abduction. Keeping with the interest of viewers of that era, the elements of romance, songs, dances and swashbuckling scenes were kept very much alive.

This movie almost did not make it to theatres. The project was apparently started in the last 1950s as evidenced by choice of leading actors. MGR and Bhanumathi must have been the hottest pair in the late 50s after their successful pairing in 1955's 'Ali Baba and 40 thieves' (அலி பாபாவும் நாப்பது திருடர்கள்), hence the pick here, I think.  The lyricist who is credited passed away in 1959. The song lyrics were conversational-like, unlike the ones that came out in 1963 where melody, poetry and symbolism were given more importance.

Alien (MN Nambiar) with vision goggles and spacesuit

Talking about its songs, I have to say that, even though I can swear that I had never heard the songs before, they had a haunting feel to it. The lines were quite prophetic. One particular line in the opening song struck a chord with me, 'under enclosure of the blue skies, in the lap of the sea and earth, the Lord of Time rules over us'.  If one were to scrutinise the lyrics, we could also learn about the planet's weather, terrain and its day-night cycle. It had midnight sun and inhospitable environment.

I have a funny feeling about MGR showcasing his atheistic outlook in this movie. As per the norm in most Tamil films, praises and salutations to the God are the order, either in the opening credits or as props. Surprisingly, none of these was present. As if reading my thought, a line was heard, something to the effect of 'time is under the purview of the sun, and that decides all the occurrences on Earth', i.e., not God who runs the world!

Mission: Earth!

Another line which says about the same ideology towards the end of the movie is 'எங்கிருந்தோ வந்தோம், எங்கேயோ போகிறோம்,எப்படி செந்தோமோ, அப்பெடியே செண்டுகிறோம், வருட்டோமோ?' (Don't know where we came from, don't know where we are going to, don't know how we met, the same way we are going.) It looks like the Creator is nowhere in the equation of birth and death. This, the main character (Mohan, MGR) says this to an alien being as he departs from her planet.

The story can be described as a bit wishy-washy sometimes. The filmmakers must have got some of their ideas from 'Flash Gordon' as seen with some of the cinematography. One can sense that some scenes were added. At one juncture, Mohan is running dressed in dhoti just to continue in another locale in pants and trousers. This can be expected as filming had come to a halt due to MGR's other prolific offers and had to rejuvenated years later after the producer held a hunger strike in front of MGR's office!

It starts with MN Nambiar as the commander of an alien ship navigating through milky way past Jupiter and Saturn heading towards Earth (Boologam). Even though his race had attained great heights in the field of science and technology, it lacked wisdom in art and music. The two-manned flying saucer was heading to Earth to kidnap Vani (Banumathi) whom the aliens knew to be good in this field. The mission was to get Vani to teach his people music and singing.

What is Tamil movie without dual roles?

Mohan, a do-gooder farmer, lives with his sister (Sachu) and an old mother. He is in love with Vani, and the feeling is mutual. Aliens abduct Vani and Mohan is imprisoned as the kidnapper. In the meantime, the no-good manager (VS Veerapa) spots a village idiot who resembles Vani as her replacement. Mohan is freed. Mohan spots the alien who was left behind, overpowers him and sneaks into the flying saucer and makes it to the planet where Vani is held.


She is treated well and is promised of her freedom after she imparts her knowledge to the prince of the land. Guess what! When Mohan reaches the planet, he spots his doppelganger who is kind enough to teach him a thing or two about the planet like using anti-gravity shoes and the environment. Unfortunately, he is hit by meteor and Mohan uses his costume to enter the palace as a jester. The rest of the movie shows the princess (Jaishree) falling in love with Mohan, Mohan wriggling himself away from the princess, convincing her of his undying love to Vani, getting a crash course on manning a spaceship, having a duel with MN Nambiar who is keen to get Vani, saving Vani and safely returning to Earth!

Is that a bird or a plane? No, that's a flying saucer!

Bearing in mind that the film was made in the late 50s, it can be said to be quite unconventional. Although you cannot compare it to Star Trek or Star Wars where all the tiny details are thought of, it can be said that they did introduce something new as far as Indian cinema is concerned. The idea of anti-gravity shoes is refreshing. Laser guns came in the form of flame-spewing taser guns. Some of the scenes look like they are preparing the people for a time in the future where spotting a UFO in the sky is as uninteresting as seeing a cow on the Indian street.

Unconventional also is the fact that there were no comedians in the cast. The only light moment that I found is a line at the finish when Mohan and Vani are met by Vani's father and questioned about their disappearance, Mohan just says, "Oh, we were abducted to another planet!" To which the father says, "Oh, come off it, we have a lot of work to do."

Mohan and Vani just say to each other, "One day all these will be possible!"
At another instance, farmers are fascinated by the flames in the sky. Mohan, the knowledgeable one, just tell them matter-of-factly, "Oh, that is a flying saucer in the sky!"

It only goes to show that a revolutionary thought just stays a thought if the time is not ripe for the general public to accept. Many forward thinkers who were way ahead of their times just disappeared without having ideas jotted in the annals of time. The performance arts, literary work and now with the aid of cyberspace, every thought process can potentially reach every nook and corner of the civilisation. Ideas evolve so fast in this restless world that even before you say "Eureka!", your discovery is already yesterday's news.

http://www.thenewsminute.com/article/tamil-film-had-aliens-spaceships-anti-gravity-boots-half-century-ago-44272

http://milliblog.com/2010/08/11/was-mgr-starrer-kalai-arasi-the-first-indian-film-to-feature-an-alien/

Dedicated to SM in JB, you know who you are!
Juno makes it to Jupiter orbit!

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!

Stay young, enter a worm hole!

Interstellar (2014)

Looks like science fiction movies these days dwell on philosophical topics rather than display wizardry of pyrotechnic prowess and special effects. They tend to question the meaning of life and begs to find the question of what is life and what we are we doing here!

As in most futuristic movies, Earth is depicted as a depressing place mutilated by man's own activities. With no future to carry on, in the film, people are mainly farmers trying to feed themselves in hostile weather. Even though Cooper (Matthew McConaughey) is a retired NASA pilot, his children are taught in school that the whole space expedition was a hoax and that it was a ploy to bankrupt the Russians who were making headway in the field during space chasing era.

Cooper lives his father-in-law and two kids. As a single parent, he is finding it tight with the lousy sand storm and the kids who are under-performing in school. His daughter is also perturbed by the presence of poltergeist in their home.

One day, father and daughter interpreted a sand storm pattern as a bar code which understood to coordinates to a location. The location turned out to be a secret hideout for scientist Prof Brand (Michael Caine) who is hellbent on finding a new place for mankind. He had found a wormhole near Saturn which would open up to another world. If that plan failed and they failed to return, there was Plan B where the spaceship carried embryos to start civilisation elsewhere all over again!
Cooper is chosen to lead the mission with Prof Brand's daughter, a scientist, Amelia (Anne Hathaway) and 2 others. Two blocks like robots were also in the crew to complement the marvel of special effects in the movie.

The daughter takes Cooper's departure badly as he was meant to go for years. As he was going to travel at the speed of light, when he returned to Earth, he would be of about the same age as his young children.

In the course of his trip, Cooper communicates regularly with his kids via delayed messaging. He can see that his kids are quickly maturing physically whilst he remains the same.

Cooper's mission includes finding data of previous spaceships which had made the trip via the wormhole to study 3 planets there. The first planet, Miller, proved inhospitable with tidal waves and shallow oceans. Time moves extremely fast there. As they were to return, they were caught in a mishap that the life of one crew member. They made it out anyway.

The second planet, Mann, saw the astronaut surveying there still alive. He had falsified his data just so that Earth control would send somebody to rescue him. He tried to sabotage Cooper and gang but failed. Mann is killed.

Meanwhile, back on Earth, Cooper's daughter, Murphy, is now a scientist under the tutelage of Prof Brand. The dying Prof confesses that his whole gargantuan plan for repatriation on another planet was all falsified. He actually just wanted to pursue Plan B - i.e. start life anew with human embryos in a new planet!
Amelia is catapulted to the third planet while Cooper and his robot return to Earth through a black hole. This black hole was man made in the future. Back at home on Earth, however, Cooper, finds himself to be trapped in another dimension (the fifth). He can see his young daughter, Murphy, but is unable to communicate with her.

He discovers that the only common denominator between the third and fifth dimension is gravity. Hence, he connects with his daughter via sand patterns on the floor transmitted in Morse Code through his watch, which he had earlier presented to his daughter during his departure.
Now, it all makes sense. The 'ghost' or poltergeist interference was actually Cooper trying to communicate with his kid and telling how to save the rest of mankind.

Fast forward, Cooper is in a space station somewhere named after his daughter who had helped to change the course of mankind with his help! An old ageing Murphy visits Cooper.
In the next scene, Cooper leaves for planet Edmund to join Amelia...

This offering is said to be true to principles of quantum physics. A scientist was consulted to edit the story to keep real and sensible from the point of science. It may not draw interest from the audience who look for visual gratifications as the subject matter is very cerebral, and plenty of dialogue is involved with a tinge of philosophical punchline thrown in for good measure. From a storytelling perspective, the storyline itself is entirely predictable and does not surprise its viewers in the awe department. The only new idea seems to be the sand pattern and the suggestion that poltergeist is actually attempted by people from another dimension communicating with the living!

A 9GAG diagrammatic representation of turn of event in the movie.