Hogan's Heroes used to be a regular feature on RTM's slot for late-night comedy. It did not leave much of an impression on our minds as it dwelled with something quite uninspiring, in our minds at least. It was about a wise-cracking American General and his staff who were imprisoned in a German POW camp during WW2. They tried to outwit their captors, spy upon them and sabotage their every move. It went on for six seasons.
The main character, Robert Crane, or rather his death, appeared in one of the crime podcasts. Initially a family man and a church-going Catholic, he got the acquaintance of John Henry Carpenter. Carpenter was an electronic techie who introduced Crane to the then-nascent home videos in the 1965s or so.
As the film puts it, both developed a symbiotic relationship. Crane, through his good looks and contact with showbiz, got in contact with girls, and Carpenter would set the recording devices to record their sexual acts. Over the years, the sheer number of tapes in their collection hit the roof.
Crane's offers dwindled after Hogan's Heroes. Money troubles crept in. His wife divorced him. He married his co-star, with whom he was already in a relationship. He moved around performing at dinner parties whilst feeding his sex addiction. Carpenter was his partner in crime, helping out in imprinting their trysts on tape.
Crane was found dead, bludgeoned to death and strangled with an electrical cord. Even though Carpenter was high on the suspect list, his crime was never proven. It is believed that they had a falling.
Man's (and women's) curiosity about the forbidden probably started from their stay at the Garden of Eden. Voyeurism must have ensued moments after their banishment from there when Adam became curious about Eve's appendages. As more offspring sprung, rules had to be laid, adding curiosity to the young minds. The subtle art of voyeurism found its place in society. What started as yellow literature in print and illustration has morphed to capture more minds through CCTVs, tapes and now hand-held devices.
Apparently, there is no shame in viewing it on the sly. Due to its ease of access, everyone is watching it anyway. But God forbid if someone is caught consuming or assumes the role of performer, willingly or otherwise, the whole shebang of shaming and victimisation befalls upon them. It is now perfectly healthy to have a wedded couple in their birthday suits as part of their wedding photoshoot package. YOLO.
Once upon a time in Calcutta (2021) Director: Aditya Vikram Sengupta
Like Mother Nature @ Bhoomadevi, who has seen it all, like the dinosaurs' passing, and various primates and species morphing into Homosapiens, great cities have seen it all too.
Admittedly all cities expanded and developed to their present glorious states, not via virtuous paths but through acts of sin. Show me one still-standing city that did not benefit from actions considered unholy transactions. They all benefitted from shady nightlife activities, brothels, alcohol, smuggling, racketeering, and robbing, you name it.
Still, life goes on. Umpteen people migrate to cities daily with a chest full of hope. Many manage to improve their lives, breaking their backs, sleepless but with a restless dream with the sole intention of climbing the ladder of success. Some falter, crushed by their enormous goals, obviously too big for the shoulders to carry. The city has seen the successes, the decadence, the swindling and the ploys. Its duty is not to punish. It merely records to play for anyone willing to hear the lessons of what lurks behind the bright city lights.
As far as nostalgia is concerned, Calcutta must surely be a city that has many tales to tell. After functioning as the capital of the British Empire and later as the site of many bloody turmoils following Partition, its past must be painted in blood, sweat and tears. Now, in 21st-century independent India, it morphs yet again. Buildings and statues that were grand then have become eyesores and need to be deconstructed.
Against this background is where this movie is set.
Ela is an ageing actress who has many things on her plate. Her young daughter's death has drawn her to the bottle and destroyed her relationship with her husband. They live under the same roof but lead separate lives. Ela is trying to get a loan to buy a house to move out, but she has no money. She had spent all her savings on her daughter's illness.
Ela may jointly own her late father's old and run-down family house. The problem is that Ela's late mother was a cabaret dancer and her father's mistress. Ela's half-brother, Bubu, blames the mistress for his own mother's suicide and refuses to give Ela any access to the property.
Bubu gets increasingly paranoid about his servants. The almost single Ela has suitors of her own. She reconnects with her old flame, and a proprietor of a Ponzi scheme showers her with gifts. The ugly side of the whole city network soon comes to the surface. The Ponzi scheme collapses, and Ela's old flame's new highway collapses.
It appears that city is a scavenger and is hungry for more and more, but remember that people make cities.
Maybe, like what Schopenhauer said, every life history is the history of suffering. Life has no intrinsic worth but is kept in motion loosely by desire and illusion. We hopelessly fall in love, to marry to do everything possible to become an object of disgust to each other. The 'will to live' for continuity of progeny has hijacked our will power. He further went on to say that our inborn error is to think that we exist to be happy. But at every turn, we soon realise the contradiction that the world and life have to offer. It seems that is why the face of the elderly intrinsically appear deeply frowned and depressed, realising the futility of life and death that will ensue.
From the moment of the first cry, life is just a barrage of tests, tragedy and turmoil. We somehow are geniuses in creating troubles for ourselves. Rational people make rash decisions under the influence of emotion, giving intellect a rest. We think we are wiser with time and will not make the same mistake twice. Once bitten twice shy, we tell ourselves. But hell no! At the most crucial moment, our hormones and heart dominate over our intellect. Like Sisyphus, within the cycles of seeming joy of achievement and agony of defeat, we have to find contentment.
Aristotle believed that the final goal of mankind is happiness, and this is achieved with virtue and knowledge. The Greek thought we needed tragedy in life, through art and culture, to remind us of the hopelessness of life. It is a catharsis of sorts for us to purify our minds and souls to understand truths about suffering, loss, misery, adversity, and redemption.
Is everyone happy?
This 2016 film is not the usual Bollywood fare. Done in a not so melodramatic fashion, it showcases the issues an average middle-class family encounters as the husband-and-wife couple is married too long to each other and their children have all grown up with a mind of their own. The husband and wife cannot stand the sight of each other. Their every action seems like an annoyance. Sometimes they ponder where love disappeared to. Trying to make the most politically correct response and trying to pacify warring factions between offspring proof stressful. Celebrations come and go. Everybody puts a brave front, putting fake smiles to display of portrait of happiness. Simmering beneath the cover are the frustrations, anger and disappointments of broken dreams just waiting to explode. The display of emotion does not always end in resolution. The end result can sometimes be quite devastating, and we wallow in melancholy. Hindsight vision is 20/20. We had seen it all along. We tell ourselves that we will be wiser the next around. But we will never learn, just waiting to plunge on head-on to the speeding trailer all over again.
When a tragedy befalls a family, it is not just the victim who has to deal with the brunt of the misery. Everybody in the family also goes through hell and faces stresses on a daily basis. Relationships go sour and bonds break.
The victims cannot be thinking that they can demand special attention for the ordeal that they went through. Everyone else goes through the pain too.
This emotional drama with a string of accolades behind it narrates the story of how a kidnapped and raped young mother with her child adjust to life after escaping their captor.
Jo was kidnapped, trapped and locked up in a shed seven years previously. Jack, the product of rape, grows up cooped up without ever seeing anything beyond the skylight on the ceiling. Their routine is monotonous with repetitive unstimulating activity. Their only connection to the world is a grainy TV. Jack actually grows up thinking that the universe is the shed. Beyond the wall of his room is outer space. Jack celebrates his 5th birthday. Jo is depressed over her situation but is hopeful that things would change for the better.
Joyce and Jack managed to hoodwink the captor, Old Nick, into faking Jack's death. As Old Nick tries to dispose of the body, Jack jumps off the moving pick-up truck to alert a passer-by in a well planned and executed move.
That is when the film gets excited. It goes on to explore Jack acceptance of modern living and interaction with other people. Jo’s parents have divorced, probably related to her disappearance. Her father, however, just cannot accept Jack as his grandchild. Jo finds a TV interview that she agreed to give too overwhelming as the public tend to be judgemental on her method of handling of her incarceration and her child’s upbringing.
After embroiled in a para-suicide, Jo is hospitalised. Jack slowly opens up and blends into society.
An intense movie which would not excite those who treat films as an outlet to relieve one of his stresses and to swim into the ocean of imagination to lands that no man has ever been. Stories like the one above are by far too common in real life. Just that we can appreciate that they may be more one reason why one does get into a mess which seems so plain to us. Who are we to judge in the comfort of cushy lives seated in armed chairs atop the ivory towers!
Thulabaram (Sacrifice, Tamil; 1968) I do not know why but I keep watching this movie over and over again over the years. Maybe because it draws me back to the time of RRF and the time that steamed with hopelessness and helplessness. At the same time, I do not agree with the melodrama and the self pity that is exhibited in full glory in this flick. So, psychoanalyse me!
This was one of the first movies that Amma took me to watch back in the days. Perhaps, she needed to reminisce her trying times of early adulthood.
Even after all these years, its songs, especially 'Kaathrinile Perum Kaathrinile' sang beautifully by K.J. Yesudass, still makes my hairs at the back of my neck stand.
This movie skyrocketed in popularity in the South that remakes were made in Tamil, Telegu and Hindi using the same main actress, Sharadha. The original film was made in Malayalam based on stage show. Sharadha went on to receive the National Film Award for that year.
Sharadha
Coming from a stronghold communist state, the story has all the hallmarks of capitalistic bashing. Bleak picture of the workers clan bullied by businessmen and crooked supposedly upholders of justice and liberty is evident here. Human values are replaced with the greed of profit and need to fatten one's wallet. In the charade of human greediness, the victims are the downtrodden working class who are not appreciated for their sacrifice but are scorned upon as an annoyance! Of course, the story takes it to the other extreme.
The story starts in a court-room. Vijaya (Sharadha) is in the dock for mercilessly poisoning her three kids. Keeping mum, the Public Prosecutor,Vatsala, (the ever beautiful Indian ex-stewardess turned actress and turned priestess, Kanjana) has an easy time proving her case. Vijaya is defended by a bumbling lawyer, Samanthan (the ever versatile TS Ballaiah) and his crook of a secretary (Nagesh).
As the case almost comes to an end, Vijaya finally breaks her silence. She narrates her side of the story. And the credits roll in as we are transported to a time when Vatsala and Vijaya are easy going bharathanatyam dancing university students pursuing BA.
Vatsala's father is a crooked lawyer (TS Balliah) who is not very bright but strikes rich with his client's ignorance and naivety. His assistant, Nagesh, uses his position to con the gullible for a little tips here and there. Looks like between of these Brahmins, they try to outdo each other in getting bribes! Their antics on-screen are great to watch. (A bashing of the upper caste of society)
Vijaya's father (Major Sunderajan) had seen better times. A disciplinarian and a stickler to time, order and natural justice, he had helped his relatives just to be left in a lurch with a lawsuit on his property and his factory for ownership. Hold behold his lawyer is the incompetent Samanthan!
Tragedy strikes when Vijaya's father loses his case and is thrown out his own house. Left as a pauper with no means to support himself and his daughter and shunned by friends and relatives, the trauma proved too heavy on his ailing heart. He succumbs to a massive heart attack. The only loyal worker who stood by Vijaya and her father is Ramu (the melodrama king of tragedy, AVM Rajan).
As the cash kitty gets smaller and the hostility of the Indian environment on seeing a helpless innocent young pretty girl proved too much, Ramu brings Vijaya to stay in his ramshackle hut of a factory worker. Ramu's household personifies the epitome of melancholia with bare necessities and a ever complaining mother who openly expresses her discontent of life and she imagines a comfortable life with her daughter and husband, which never materialises.
Back in university, Vijaya was chased around by a fun loving jovial fellow student, Muthuraman. Seeing her hopeless states of affairs in Vijaya, her beau decides to confess that their relationship was based on friendship love, not the lover's kind!
Left hanging on a thread, Vijaya takes the bold step to nosedive into the web of poverty, to marry the sad faced Ramu. They had bliss in their humble abode. Testimony of their happiness were the three kids and the song which showcases the joy of celebration in a poor man's home.' " Come ponggal or diwali, there are only tears in our home...!" How more pathetic can you sound?
As if not enough, tragedy strikes yet again. Due to management-workers' dispute, the factory is closed indefinitely and Ramu and his co-worker are left to starve. Union disputes becomes intense and Ramu is finally knifed down, leaving Vijaya and the kids hungry and penniless. If fate is cruel, the society is also unkind. Relatives and neighbours soon start hurling various unsavoury accusation against this young widow. Hunger drives the children to beg, enraging Vijaya. Soon they start to steal food. All these proved too much for someone who at one time had her future all paved ahead of her. She opts for mass suicide. Unfortunately, she survives and is put on the dock.... The storyteller tries to justify the protagonist's actions and inactions to the cruelty of society and fate. She does not admonish the lack of her initiative to uproot herself from misery but instead look for self pity. Perhaps if we had walked a mile in their shoes..
A timeless classic with melodious melodies to match the path of nostalgia. A reminder though...
Now, if only the children knew a soup kitchen they could go to....
Roscoe Conkling "Fatty" Arbuckle
24 March 1887 - 29 June 1933
mentored Charlie Chaplin, discovered Buster
Keaton and Bob Hope, contemporary of
Harold Lloyd.
My wife cannot understand why I keep on watching murder movies (the spouse is the usual perpetrator) and even reading crime dramas, like the current one I am reading on 'Crimes of the Century'. I simply tell her, " You never know when it may come in handy!"
I read this sad true story of a silent movie star (Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle) who had a sad life from birth, achieved unenviable stardom as a comedian and got entangled in a nasty murder case which made him a pariah amongst the movie industry and drained all his earnings.
He was born as a 13lbs baby raising suspicion on paternity by his father that he actually named him Roscoe Conkling, after a philandering politician whom he despised (the exact name)! His mother never recovered from the traumatic birth. She became chronically ill and died 12years later. His father refused to care for him after her death needing him to fend for himself. Roscoe had been called 'Fatty' all his life as he remained big. He was however quite agile and could sing well. So when a fat slob sang with an angelic voice, it naturally excited a singer who took him under his wings. And the next thing that happened was that he was a bumbling comedian after an accidental fall into the orchestra while performing! And he became the first performer to gross $1million annually!
All that came to zilch one fateful day when he feted his friends with drinks at the a room in a hotel that he rented. America, at that time was going through a period of self-realization and self righteousness. It banned liquor beverages of more 2.9% alcohol content; that started the many gangs and corrupt enforcers.
Among the many invitees were also gatecrashers. An aspiring actress of questionable reputation got intoxicated and Roscoe helped her to the rest in one room. The next thing thing he knew was that the girl was dead due to a ruptured bladder and peritonitis. Her companion with a history of giving false evidence in court vouched for Roscoe to be sexually involved in her demise!
That started the never ending saga of trial by journalist, question of decline of morality in US and the film fraternity with their hands all dirty, three trials, Roscoe losing all his saving, Roscoe's movies being banned on both sides of the Atlantic and essentially a fall from grace that Roscoe never recovered. In spite of the long trials, Roscoe could not be convicted but instead was issued an apology by the courts.
His clean bill could not undo the damage done by the press. He tried to make a comeback as a director with a pseudonym with little success. He died an unhappy man at the age of 46 battling the bottle, in his sleep.
The jury statement as read by the jury foreman stated:
Acquittal is not enough for Roscoe Arbuckle. We feel that a great injustice has been done to him... there was not the slightest proof adduced to connect him in any way with the commission of a crime. He was manly throughout the case and told a straightforward story which we all believe. We wish him success and hope that the American people will take the judgement of fourteen men and women that Roscoe Arbuckle is entirely innocent and free from all blame.
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