RIFLE RANGE BOY

Kadaisi Vivasayi (Tamil, கடைசி விவசாயி , The Last Farmer; 2022)  Director: M. Manikandan As you grow older, you think you grow wiser. You assume you are slowly getting the neck of how things work around you. You realise everything in Nature has a pattern, and everything around it is tailored to adapt and survive. If you were a farmer, you would figure out a greater force that balances everything. The worms, ants, bees, birds, butterflies and flowers are all part of this delicate equilibrium. No one member is more important than the other in each other's survival. Try killing the creepy crawlies like the DDT experience taught us, and you will have an eerie, dull, quiet spring with no colourful butterflies or chirping birds. Like that, in other aspects of life, you mellow down. You realise that there is no point in getting excited about everything. Most things resolve by themselves. The younger ones around you think you are too laid back. You give in easily. They are convinced you ha...

Us (2019) Written and Directed: Jordan Peele We think that we deserve the life we are leading, that everybody else there is to serve us, that the Universe owes us a living. We live under a false assumption that we merit the comforts and luxuries that are showered upon us. We demand that the little people be subservient to us. "You know who I am?" we tell them. It only takes a single catastrophe to turn the tables. When the balance is tipped, when equilibrium is tilted because of man-made or natural catastrophe, pandemonium would rule. There would be no niceties. The hierarchical order of the societies would crumble. The Master-Servant role would be reversed. For survival, one has fight tooth and nail. In my opinion, the above message is subtly conveyed in Jordan Peele's latest blockbuster 'Us'. At the word go, it is staring right at our face. The symbolism in this movie can only be rivalled by Dan Brown's 'Da Vinci Code'. 'Us' may impl...

The Wizard of Oz (1939) Even though 'The Wizard of Oz' (the film) based on the 'The Wonderful Wizard Of Oz' (the book in 1895) played important roles in many people's childhood, I was always under the impression that it was one of those silly children stories that one can do without. Of course, the soundtrack of the movie, especially 'Somewhere over the Rainbow' kept ringing in everyone's ears to remind that the right time will come one day or was it a message just to keep the crybabies quiet? Now they tell me that 'The Wizard of Oz' was satire through and through. Subtly hidden behind the outrageous storyline was the fight of the Populist Party in the 19th century USA against their monetary system. In 1895, there was an economic depression that affected most of the typical Americans. Part of the reason for that money was pegged to gold. The Populist Party, under the auspices of its leader William Jennings Bryan, a two-time Presidential c...

I have a confession. When I was young, at an impression age, when my guards were down, naive and the eyes of knowledge were still in slumber, I was ashamed whenever I attended religious functions. The theatrics showed by the professors of religions were, in my nimble mind, laughable. During Thaipusam and fire-walking ceremonies, the high decibels, high energies and activities that they emanated just took away any semblance of divinity from it. Now, I know better, I think, I hope. Like the Oracles of Delphi, messages are transmitted in coded languages and double speaks. They are all symbolic notes to the secret of life. We have to understand that the religious leaders were spreading the good word to mostly illiterate simpletons and agrarians with primal needs. The power, force, fire, sounds, noise, water and light are not as they are. The evil or dark forces are not from without but within; our naivety, ignorance and our inertia to progress. The sceptic in me, however, asks myself ...

Eyes Wide Shut (1999) Director: Stanley Kubrik There are many versions of Hinduism and their search for the truth and attainment of blissfulness. The Vaishvanaites seem to think that the conversation between the charioteer and his Master encompasses all questions of life whilst the Shaivaites accept the union of the male and female counterpart of Nature as the way to reach peace. A different group of Tantric followers refer to a time when Shiva is said to be in a carnal embrace with Shakti as bliss. The lustful union of male and female is described as like a serpentine union that arise from the base of the spine to reach its peak as it reaches the brain to give a feeling of complete enlightenment called Kundalini. Interestingly, the medical caduceus uses the picture of a pair of snakes coiled around a twig as a symbol of a human body in perfect health! The right-sided snake refers to the male component whilst the left is the feminine part. No, said yet another group. The left p...