Showing posts with label trump. Show all posts
Showing posts with label trump. Show all posts

Monday, 14 April 2025

All in bad taste!

The Apprentice (2024)
Director: Ali Abbasi

youtube clip
There used to be something called decorum, a set of behaviours that everyone agreed upon, accepted as social mores and considered good manners. For example, one does not speak loudly in a library or crack a joke at a funeral. 

Now, it seems that all of this is a relic of a distant past. Nothing is taboo anymore.  

That was what went through my mind as I sat down to watch this film about the early rise of the current two-time President of the USA, Donald Trump. Narrating anyone's biopic inevitably includes some unsavoury details. With so much information available, much of it questionable in authenticity, how are we truly going to tell someone's story, warts and all, without hurting the sentiments of the person occupying the august seat, or at the very least, without tainting the highest office in the land?  

Here we have a film released about the early life of the very person who eventually won the elections to become President. In fact, he had previously served as President, a term before the current one. In America, there is a tradition. The past President is still addressed as ‘Mr President', not 'Mr Ex-President', implying the honour attached to the position. Similarly, a retired Ambassador is still referred to as Mr/Madam Ambassador. Somehow, all that goes out of the window when it comes to Trump. Rules do not apply.  

It recounts the early years of Donald Trump as a novice property dealer grappling with legal challenges stemming from accusations of racial discrimination against his black tenants. Trump endures a difficult existence, overshadowed by a domineering father, a mother who consistently hovers over him, and an alcoholic brother. He seeks assistance from a ruthless, high-powered lawyer, Roy Cohn. The name Roy Cohn emerged during the McCarthy era, when he served as the prosecutor who played a key role in sending the Rosenberg couple to the electric chair for espionage.

With Cohn's ruthless methods and Trump's foresight, the Trump brand fills the skyline of 1980s New York. The film proceeds to illustrate how Trump woos his first wife, Ivana, his infidelities, his use of amphetamines, hair transplants, liposuction, spousal abuse, betrayal of his old friend Cohn, and everything else to depict what type of self-serving man he is. I find it all in poor taste.


Tuesday, 23 July 2024

A twister!

Maharaja (2024, Tamil)
Director: Nithilan Swaminathan

If you are fed up watching the same old-time-tested formulaic Indian movies, this one is for you. The story starts as a comedy, but as it goes on, the storyline gets twisted. 

Just when you think you know how the story will go, it takes a tangent and yet another. And it goes on and on until it ends with a final twister. 

Maharaja, a mild-mannered barber, leads a simple life with his wife and a little daughter. Right in front of his eyes, he sees a lorry, with its driver obviously off its rails, crashing into his house, killing his wife instantaneously. His ‘daughter’ is miraculously saved by a metal dustbin. 

Maharajah continues life as a widower and a doting father. One day, his house is broken into, and the metal dustbin that saved his ‘daughter’ goes missing. Maharaja makes a police report. 

What happened afterwards is a series of flashbacks, parallel storytelling, police brutality, and police power abuse that all lead to good old storytelling and a satisfying end to a twisted comedic thriller, if there is such a genre. 

Spoiler alert: Maybe there is no such thing as a selfish gene. A person does not feel a buzz upon seeing someone with the shared DNA wronged. The skin does not quiver when a sibling is beaten up. If not, we would not have sibling rivalry. Neither would we have incest, postpartum violence or mass suicide of families. Empathy and caring are learned experiences. We all feel for our age-old friends and buddies in a closed community without sharing common DNA. Sharing Lucy’s ancient DNA does not count as a common ancestry, as perhaps all of mankind carries it. 

On a sobering note, we can see how creative some netizens can be. The main character in Maharaja, Vijay Sethupathi, in his 50th film appearance, is spotted with a bandaged left ear. As if like a fortunate stroke of serendipity (for the internet trolls, at least), on a platter, the news of Trump being shot in the ear became viral. Leave it to the ingenuity of the human mind, and the world has a picture of Vijay Sethupathi and Trump on the same poster as if promoting the film! 

In case viewers are wondering about the role of the snake in this movie. Fret no more. Snakes are notoriously known for not recognising their offspring and eating their own eggs. Helpful to understand the ending. In a world that sees mothers rushing helplessly into burning buildings, we also have mothers who feed their cubs to the wolves!


google.com, pub-8936739298367050, DIRECT, f08c47fec0942fa0

Friday, 26 April 2019

Symbolism galore!

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 imply that the story is the US, the country! The word 'us' of late has been used as a confrontational tool - us, the citizens of the greatest country of the world versus the rest of the sub-human countries of the world; either you are with us or against us etcetera. The people who the USA had wronged over the years, like their interference on the affairs of the Central and the South American countries, are arriving in convoys and banging at their doorsteps, screaming to come in. And the established US citizens are not willing to part with their share of the American pie.

'Us' the movie also tries to incorporate many established urban legends. There is a mention of a secret Government project to clone people to aid in their nefarious activities. Somehow the project failed miserably and the doppelgangers were screaming to reclaim their lives as the other. The only successful part of the project is the tunnels that all under the USA.

That brings us to the frequent mention of 1986 campaign 'Hands across America', the time when the lead character goes missing in a funfair and swaps places with her cloned double. This initiative was run along the lines of 'USA for Africa' - to collect money from well-meaning and well-to-do Americans to help the needy. Even though it is humanly impossible to join hands across America coast to coast, bearing in mind the terrain of the continent, the organisers made everyone believe that it was possible. In the film, unlike the people above, who could not complete the human chain, the 'Tethered People' (the products of the clone) had a complete tunnel beneath. It goes to show our insincerity in helping people. We create an illusion of prosperity when in actuality we are not. We think we are happy but we have to pacify ourselves in alcohol, rubbing shoulders with the rich and famous, immersed in the culture of over-consumption and addicted to our hand-held devices to fool ourselves into believing that we are indeed happy. 

Fake too is the 'Hands Across America' project. It failed to reach its target but only raised the stardom of the personalities involved. The 'haves' only seems to show that they empathised the 'have nots' and have them in their heart and mind. In reality, it is just lip service. They want them to stay at the impoverished levels. They do not want them to have equal footing with the rest. 

The oppressed or the underprivileged will rise. When that happens, in short, nothing can stop. There is a frequent reference to a biblical passage, Jeremiah 11.11, in the film. It forecasts a bleak future for the surface dwellers, for they shall not able to escape despite their pleas to God. It was referenced to God wrath to idol worshippers in Babylon.

In short, it was an interesting movie. Forget the horror genre attached to it. It would be more fun knowing that there are more than meets the eye. Having a background of the symbolism appearing in the flick makes it doubly captivating.


Wednesday, 14 December 2016

Karma bites back?

Death by China: How America lost its Manufacturing Base (2012)
Writer, Director, Narrator: Peter Navarro


As the world and the economic punters go on double guessing what President-Elect Donald J Trump and his team may bring to the table, this documentary, made by one of his financial advisors, Peter Navarro, may give an insight into what is in store for the next four years.

Twenty years ago, Singapore, one of the up and coming Tigers of the East roared itself to build cordial economic relationships with the then newly open economy of the New China. Pretty soon, Singapore had to retreat, licking its wounds with a bitter aftertaste.

Near home, under the guise reliving and recreating a time beaten era when Chinese ships graced our shores, and into our cosmopolitan ports, China is making big inroads into our space, our land and even salvaging our bad debts. This documentary will drive the adage that there is no such thing of a free lunch. Like the witch in Hansel and Gretel, all the feeding could just be a ploy to fatten up for the big kill!

After watching this presentation, it would appear crystal clear why Trump won the elections, and it would be unthinkable to assume otherwise.

With Nixon's 1972 seminal visit to China, the trade gates with the USA opened. Bill Clinton ushered China in the World Trade Organisation (WTA) to increase bilateral commerce. Unfortunately, over the years, the US may notice that the arrangement was lopsided. The Chinese flooded the American market with substandard, cheap and potentially unhealthy products. The currency manipulation by the Chinese gave them an unfair advantage. The multinational companies are also guilty of putting national interest aside in favour of profit to relocate factories in China. Small and medium enterprises had no choice but to relocate, unable to stay afloat with lower production cost in China. This robbed jobs from the American plant and factory workers. Pictures of abandoned factories in America soon became a familiar landscape.

The US of A, over the decades after the World War 2, have been instrumental in orchestrating political directions in many third world countries the world over to suit business climate in their favour. When the tide turns around, when karma bites back, they cry like babies. They whine and allege foul play. They say the Chinese do not care about the environment. They pollute the world with their the unabated toxic waste. The Chinese towns are most polluted cities in the world. They contribute vastly to carbon emission and environmental degradation. They have no respect for human rights and do not have labour laws. They force prisoners in labour camps with long hours of work to increase the country's productivity. They do not respect intellectual property. They promote piracy and counterfeits.

Another bone of contention with the Americans is how the production of military sensitive equipment and software are outsourced to China. It puts the US in a precarious situation as their national security may come under threat. The Chinese are known to copy and mass produce, even military hardware, putting the USA at the mercy of the increasing Chinese military might.

The filmmaker accuses the American multinational companies of selling out on its citizens. They did not use their resources to keep jobs for the Americans. The smaller industries could not compete anyway. He suggests that the trade reform is reviewed to balance trade. Research and development should go in tandem with production. The unholy union between politicians and entrepreneurs need to be nipped. Navarro emphasises that the criticism that he hurls is made against the Communist Party of China, not to the people of China, as they just want to survive and are oppressed. It is not the People's Republic of China but the Communist Party of China who called the shots.

He also tries to wake the patriotism of the Americans to resist the temptation to purchase the cheaper Chinese product which would increase US deficit but to buy American. It is easier said than done as it appears that there no more American products in the market.

Thursday, 10 November 2016

The sun would still rise...

They say the silent majority has spoken. They say this is democracy in its full glory. That a single swallow would not make a whole summer. The loud and verbose cannot hoodwink the masses with their rhetorics and statistics. After all, they, the elitists and the deep-pocketed, only make a small portion of the general public. The 99% do not share the same sentiment as the top 1%. They do not care what the foreign policy is or who does what to whom in the name of justice or freedom. They are interested only in bread and butter issues. They want their continued way of life, their style of doing things and their rights. And they saw through the media bulldozing of intelligentsia agenda and meaningless smokescreen. Did they really? Do they not expect some decorum of their leaders, some politeness in speech and inclusiveness in leadership? Are they persuaded by his media presence, his fast talk, his ability to go down to their level to speak their lingo?

Some say that people are stupid, that they think with heart or sometimes at groyne level. If you look back in history, many leaders have been saying this as well. Sayyid Qutb, a leading member of Egypt's Islamic Brotherhood, had said after his short stint in American for his sabbatical that people generally do not know what they want. They need a knowledgeable and strong leader for them to pave the way. This sentiment was echoed by Steve Jobs when someone asked whether people would like his product. He had replied, "... people do not know what they want, we will show them what they want and like!". Schopenhauer posits that we pick our choices not with our minds but with other primal urges.

The self-proclaimed 'know-it-all' thinkers think that big decisions involving repercussions of world proportions or even our civilisation should not be left to the commoners. The public is viewed as sheep easily herded to march to the slaughter, or perhaps like the mice or children who follow like zombies to the tune of the Piped Piper! But hey, this democracy. The government of the people, elected by the people to serve the people. Ironically when a politician wins the elections, they conveniently forget the third part.
Now that storm is over or is it just beginning, or it is the eye of the storm? Time will tell. Meanwhile, the sun still rises for the mortals to strive another day. It is reconciliation time...

Please remove the veil of ignorance!