A family noir drama!

Mildred Pierce 1945
It starts with a scene of a man shot at repeatedly. Joan Crawford is stopped by a policeman trying to jump off an esplanade in an apparent suicide. She walks away and is called in by a guy to have a drink in a bar. She takes the guy home.
The guy whom we saw shot at is in the study.
Crawford leaves the guy from the bar locked in the house. He discovers the body, makes a dash out of the house when a couple of policemen nab him.
At first look, it looks like an espionage film with one outwitting the other to escape the long arms of the law but, no it is not! It is a family drama, noir style!
Mildred (Joan Crawford) is called upon to inform about the demise of her husband and is requested to come to the police station. At the station, she is told that her first husband, Bert is accused of murder.
Mildred alleges that such a crime is not possible as Bert was the best guy she ever met. When asked how come she divorced him if he were so good, she started telling her life story....
Bert and Mildred's marriage hit a rough patch when Bert's booming real estate business dwindles. To maintain the same lifestyle, Mildred tries to supplement income by baking  cakes for her neighbours. Quarrel often erupted over Mildred's insistence that their two girls must get the best nurturing - ballet and music lessons. This, and Brad's liaison with a certain lady, made their relationship sour and they went separate ways.
Mildred shields her elder daughter, Veda, from the hardship that she goes through as single parent waiting at tables and baking cakes part-time. Her second daughter dies from pneumonia. With her experience, she starts her own restaurant with help from Wally, Brad's friend. They buy a property from a flamboyant playboy, Beragon, who is living off his family treasures.
Beragon, has an eye on Mildred and the other on her money (now that Mildred is rich with a chain of restaurant). They marry. By now, Veda has grown into a spoilt imp who is drowned in the rich life, looking down at the working class, refusing to see her mother's struggle to ensure her good life. She goes wayward, spendthrift and lying for money to maintain her lifestyle. The confidence that Mildred tried to inculcate through exposure to the finer things in life had turned against her. Veda became too haughty and too confident for her own good. Frequent fretting and disagreement saw Veda leave the house to live on her own, eventually living a live of a dancer in a restaurant!
Bert and Mildred managed to bring her to fold after some time. She started living with Mildred when Mildred married Beragon. Her way of life is encouraged by Beragon, now her step father. At one juncture, Mildred catches Veda and Beragon kissing.
The arrogant Veda claimed that they were getting married! Mildred leaves the scene.

The daughter she pined for!

The next thing she knows, an argument ensues as Berangon never made such promise of matrimony and Veda shoots Beragon. Mildred tries to takes the blame for the daughter but is tricked by the police. Veda goes to jail and Mildred is reunited with Bert.
A melodramatic story which would do well as a Tamil film. The take home message seems to me is that one should not shield children from poverty and hardship of life. They would be spoilt to the core and would expect to be bailed out even they are well into adulthood. By then, they would turn the table around and put the blame squarely on the parents for failing bringing them up well. In the first place, the parents thought the children should be spared of the hardship that they themselves grew up and dreaded every minute of the early childhood!

Even P. Ramlee must have got his idea for 'Anak Ku Sazali' from this outing...

The sad tale of the over the top first wife!

This year's Penang Bridge International Marathon was a quieter affair than its usual pomp and lustre. Missing most conspicuously was the loud music and unnecessary announcement on the PA system which kept occupants of nearby hotels fuming mad. Maybe because this Bridge run is the last one on the soon to be the old bridge.

This bridge which I had the honour of seeing its conception, development and expansion (to 6 lanes) has slowly attained its limit of capacity. In a way, this bridge, which was the brainchild of the first Prime Minister of Malaysia, has reached senescence gracefully and is now like in the case of a first wife who is soon going to lose her glamour and attraction to the soon to appear wife No. 2. The new wife, in this case, being the Batu Maung to Batu Kawan New Penang Bridge.
Even though the Malay term for being left to marry another is 'madu'. Honey is also referred to as 'madu.' But believe you me, any first wife will vouch that it is no sweet feeling playing second fiddle in spite of what the societal and religious pressures may dictate.
Today, even nature was moaning the loss of prominence of this second link to the mainland. The night (early morning) was gloomy with not a single whiff of breeze. Temperature was at uncomfortable level of 28-30 degrees Celsius and humidity stickily high for the early part of the morning.

With that background, the whole running gang (of five) drove up to Penang for a weekend bonding time. Not being at the top of their physical condition, everyone was whining about their physical disability, ranging from swollen ankle to sore feet!

Only when the race was flagged off, did we realize about the adverse running conditions that we had put our sorry self into. Gone are are cold early morning sea breeze and the drizzle that the rest of the country had. The route was long and straight surrounded by pitch blackness of the night, at 3am, with not much view to see. The slow incline which took almost 2 kms to peak was no child's play and the humidity made it twice as hard. 

Gruelling the adversities just like the calamities that they had jostled in their lives, the gang laboured through J-2'02''; S-2'10''; FG-2'19''; Rv-2'35''; Rj-2'37''.

Scorn of first wife

Madu Tiga

Children these days!

In a better world (Haevnen, Danish, 2010)
This Danish Academy Award winning film in an unusual one dealing with complex issues. Two stories go concurrently told in present and past.

It starts with a doctor, Dr Anton, in Sudan treating victims of atrocities of militiamen. He has a son, Elias, back home in Denmark who befriends Christian who saved him from some school bullies. Christian's mother recently died from cancer and he is upset with his father of not doing enough to save his mother.
Elias' parents (Dr Anton and Dr Marianne) are in the process of separation.
One day, while Dr Anton is out in town with Elias in Denmark, his brother and Christian, the good doctor tries to stop a fight between two boys. The father of the boy defends his child and hits Dr Anton. The boys are disappointed that he did not fight back.
Dr Anton, one day, back in Sudan, receives the warlord who been torturing and killing people, with a maggot infested leg wound to be treated. In spite of objection from the local staff, he treats him as a patient appropriately diligently. As he was getting better, he was mocking the doctor for failing to save another patient. He suggested that his assistant takes over his patient because his of preference for necrophilia! The incensed doctor drags him to the patient's relative who beat the pulp out of him.
Back home, Christian's relationship with his father worsens. With a little help from the internet he builds a bomb from old fireworks to bomb the car driven by Dr Anton's assailant. The plan goes awry when 2 innocent joggers pass by. Seeing that Elias runs to alert them and gets hurt in the process. Things gets complicated when Christian thinks that Elias is dead. He attempts suicides by trying to jump off a building. He is saved in the nick of time by Anton.

Everybody reconciles - Anton and Marianne, Elias and his family, Christian and family. Anton returns to Sudan to continue his humanitarian work.

The story goes on to tell the difficulties parents go through trying to bring children up. They have to deal with their own problems and to put up with all the nonsense that ungrateful and arrogant children gives them. All the teachings that the parents seem to impart seem exercise in futility. Modern parenting is not easy!

Memories are made of these...

Suckling piglet, anyone?

Just the other day, yours truly happened to gate crash into my cousin's friends' farewell party. The crowd had known each other for, like forever, ever since they were siphoned to a foreign land at an impressionable age to do good with their future. Just out of the confusing age of teenage years, shuffled into the turmoil era of the twenties, they had the scary sight of their whole future laid bare for them to mold. With the grace of the divine powers and help from some friends of the same boat, they sailed the rough seas. Amid the choppy waters and howling winds, they got across in one piece, shaken but not beaten. And boy, did they have heap of tall tales to tell of the journey.
I came to understand that that is what apparently happened every time they meet up. All their university days' stories will be told and re-told and they would have a good laugh at it as if they are hearing it for the first time. And the free flow of booze helped in the process of loosening up the heavy burden and the inhibitions that wear them down.
After the jam session of the same story, the similar minded comrades would go on to their respective lives, do their day-time jobs that they endeavoured so hard for with the belief that the gang would meet up again to laugh at their antics of a time of innocence when the world was the oyster when they were kings.
This is how brotherly bonds stronger than Spiderman's web shooters are made!

Controversy to alert the masses?

A Clockwork Orange (1971)
Director: Stanley Kubrik
Stanley Kubrik is one heck of a director who seem put his hand in many various genre of movies. Just like many of his films, Clockwork Orange received contrasting reviews when it came out, ranging from being a pornography to a stroke of genius. Pretty soon they were in the same level as being a classic.

The story is from Anthony Burgess' 1962 book of the same name.

Alex is a socio-path teenager of a futuristic London who finds sheer pleasure in hanging around a milk bar and going around beating people up just for the kick of it. He plays truant from school and bullies his gang members too.

One day as he and his friends were trying to hoodwink a lady to get into her house, the police is alerted. His gang members double crossed him and Alex ends up in jail alone. As his last victim dies, he is imprisoned for 14 years.

He goes along with his chores in prison as a helper to a pastor. With his help, he manages to be a volunteer in an experimental form of aversion therapy. He is injected with a special anti-sera and is exposed to violent movies. Alex develops intense aversion and reaction to any form of physical and sexual violence.

His remarkable transformation is the proud brainchild of the Ministry and is hailed as the way to reduce congestion in jails. The pastor however is not impressed. He exerts that any change should come from within, not induced by drugs. His argument is steam rolled by the fact that the end result is what that matters.

Alex's prison term is shortened and is released.
He returns home after two and a half years to discover that his room has been rented out to a lodger. The lodger is loved by his parents for he does all the things that Alex, as a son failed to perform. Feeling dejected, he leaves his parents' home.
As he was walking along the streets, he bumps into a drunkard whom he had bashed up before his incarceration. The drunk with his friends give him a sound beating. Lucky for Alex, he is rescued by 2 young policemen. Hold behold, the 2 bobbies turned out to be blokes who were whacked by Alex and his gang earlier!

Again he is taken deep into a jungle and beaten up and left out cold. You see, the effect of the treatment has left him completely defenceless against the cruelty of the real world!

Alex drags his sorry self to a house nearby. But what do you know? Alex had beaten up the occupants of the house too. The man of the house, a writer, has been left a paraplegic as a result of the assault and his wife had succumbed to pneumonia. Alex was confident that he would not be recognised as he was masked during the assault.

His cover, however, was uncovered when he started singing Gene Kelly's 'Singing in the Rain' in the bath - the same song that he was singing during the mayhem.

The writer called in his friends who interviewed Alex, pledging to help him. After discovering that his weakness was Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, which was incorporated into his treatment regime, he lock him up and played the tune repeatedly to drive him to jump through a window.

He miraculously survives the fall with multiple injuries needing prolonged hospital stay. The papers have a field day lambasting the Government for failing in their bid to control man's activity. The government ratings plummets.

The Minister moves in to use Alex in their public relations exercise whilst promising work and perks for life. Alex happily agrees. Only then we realise that the fall had somehow reverted him back to his wayward ways as his dreams are filled with sex and violence again...

Clockwork Orange is described as a social satire ridiculing the society's endeavour to control what is acceptable in a society. It is fine if they just stick to that message. There is no need to have unnecessary irrelevant exposure of flesh and forbidden parts of both  gender. But then, it would not have drawn so much controversy and publicity and it would have just gone down in the annal of history of time as a just another forgettable futuristic film! 

Balancing act

Scenes like this was common

around Block G. The blended

spice makers would be

balancing their merchandise

(masala) on their head,

not potatoes as shown here.

There was a time in RRF, when G Block was vacant for a long time. Later as the Kedah Road underwent some development programme, the bulk of its dweller were mass evacuated and placed in the lower couple of floors there. These people were initially were quite reluctant to vacate their Kedah Road ancestral homes but relented after much prodding. They were quite contended with their lifestyle and livelihood of selling grounded spices in the market nearby. Their ancestors, Mussalman from Thenkasi area of Southern India introduced the trade of aromatic freshly grounded blended spice for instant stomach tickling South Indian cooking. Their main reluctance of relocating being inability to continue using the mammoth wooden grinder with massive hand held wooden poles! They did not want the whole flat to rattle. Seriously, I think they thought the structure of the flat built with German technology and pre-fabricated concrete would not be able to stay the constant pounding. They finally agreed when an area between Blocks G and H was sanctioned for their pounding activities and their merchandise were marketed in the morning market nearby.

Traditional grinder

The trade was left to the female folks whilst the guys usually indulge in jobs which took them away from their homes for months (from my astute observation, if it is indeed accurate). The women folks were usually imported as brides from India and were generally not conversant in the local languages. For convenience and security, they would move in droves with innumerable children in the eye catching multi-coloured attire. To keep tab on their crowd so as not to leave out anyone behind, they would usually make a big ruckus calling out each others' names to ensure attendance! Their antic would be a spectacle and sometimes embarrassing to fellow Indians as they would converse in Tamil, especially on a crowded bus. When I was young, I thought the balancing act of putting things on the head would pass in the future as Malaysia becomes 'advanced' as, to me, this practice was confined to under-developed countries of the Black Continent and some hill kingdom somewhere far away (and perhaps Chinese Acrobats and Circus performers).

Balancing at the fringe of civilization

As I listened over and over of the media propaganda of Malaysia progressing by leaps and bounds over the various 5-year programmes and industrial efforts, my assumption was reinforced.
Hold behold, 40 years later, what do I see? People in the fringes of the capital city still loitering around aimlessly with no documents to show their existence selling Java batik balancing their commodity on their heads and flashing their betel nut stained horrible teeth!

Life is Brief

Ikiru (To Live,Japanese,1952)
Director: Akiro Kurusawa

At first look, you know you are into something good. It starts with a Barium Meal film of a picture of stomach with a filling defect. The commentator, a bloke (San) with a razor sharp tongue and witty remarks, tells us that that Xray was that of a civil servant with gastric cancer but he does not know about his disease.
Then the frame goes on to a sombre unfriendly elder gentleman (Kanji Watanabe) at his desk, doing his uninspiring work, like he had been doing for the past 30 years, stamping documents over documents at the City Council 's Public Affairs office. Even though his colleagues are jovial, cracking jokes amongst themselves, he as the leader stays serious. He is marking his time to retirement which is just 6 months away after toiling away 30 years in that department.

The sarcastic commentator says that his life had literally ended when his wife died and he is now living a wasted life doing unproductive public service work, appearing busy doing nothing.

To illustrate this nothingness, a bevy of housewives present at the counter with a suggestion to build a playground at the living area which had clogged up with stagnant water and breeding mosquitoes. They are shuttled and pushed around from department to department (Engineering, Sanitation, Park, etc.) to Mayor's office and back to Public Affairs again, fuming mad!
As Watanabe's heartburn worsens, he is seen waiting at a gastric clinic. A fellow patient scares him with all the symptoms and sequelae of cancer and how the doctors conceal the gravidity of their real sickness. Sure enough, when it is Kanasawa's turn he receives the same sanitized news!

Stomach Ca and EtOH?

Knowing that his days are numbered, a depressed Watanabe sits in his dark room. He inadvertently overhears his son (Mitsuo) and daughter-in-law making plans to buy a bigger house, eyeing his pension money, making unsavoury remarks about him.
He recollects how, after losing his wife at young age when Mitsuo was 5. He decided no to remarry against relatives' advice and dedicated his life in bringing up his son. He was there for all major milestones in his life- baseball game, college etcetera. Watanabe feels that he had wasted his life!
Watanabe withdraws all his life savings (after stinging for years), absents himself from work, after 30 years of unblemished record and leaves the house for a few days!
His subordinates are making plans on taking over his post and his son is eyeing on Kanji's pension fund.
Whilst drinking sake in a local shop - a teetotaler drinking his woes away, he befriends a writer who lends him a sympathetic ear. He decides to show Kanji the nightlife that he had never experienced. Crawling between pubs, cabarets, red light districts, Kanji realises that he did not fit in.
Kanji returns home. On the way, he meets the young lone female staff in his Department. She was looking for him to sign some paper for her to quit her job. The bubbly girl was bored stiff with her current job and wanted to venture out to more lively jobs. They return home to get his office stamp to the roving eyes of his son, daughter-in-law and maid. They assume that he had taken a young mistress.

What makes you happy?

Meanwhile, Kanji spends a lot of time with this girl. He envies her positive carefree outlook of life. She tells him that doing things that she likes (like the toys that she is making in her workplace where she feels that she is playing with all the children of the world) makes her going.
With renewed zest, Kanji returns to works. He works untiringly against the irritation of his colleagues, bosses and even the underworld to build the earlier stalled playground project (in the beginning of the film). Kanji dies just as his project is complete.
During his wake ceremony, the Deputy Mayor and his staff have an elaborate discussion on Kanji's sudden change of working style, his obsession with the playground project and whether Kanji did indeed know about his terminal cancer. As the sake consumption increased and the crowd become louder, they realise that Kanji was aware of illness and was making amends to his work style. The colleagues decide that they should emulate Kanji's action.

Drunken promises!

The next day, as they sober up, we discover that it is business as usual. Nobody has the courage to change the status quo. The staff continue siphoning off complaints to other department without going out of their way to solve the clients' complaint!
This story is based on Leo Tolstoy's short story titled 'The Death of Ivan Ilyich'. Tolstoy in his days was a revolutionary thinker who influenced people like M.K. Gandhi to embark simple living and passive resistance.

This story asks us the question of the purpose of our lives. We can choose a life living (sacrificing) for your children, your job, yourself (by indulging in activities to satisfy your psychological happiness) or for the people who needs your assistance.You must find joy in whatever you do as seen in the tail end of the movie where Kanji plays the swing in the playground that he helped to build, smiling, feeling contended having achieving something!

The gripping song, a favourite of the protagonist titled 'Life is Brief'

[singing] Life is brief, fall in love, maidens...Before the crimson bloom fades from your lips...Before the tides of passion cools within you...For those of you who know no tomorrow...Life is brief, fall in love, maidens...Before our raven tresses begin to fade...Before the flames in your hearts flicker and die...For those to whom today will never return..'The Gondola Song' (1915) 

Memorable quotes: (Wikiquotes)

• I can't afford to hate anyone. I don't have that kind of time.

• I have less than a year to live. When I found that out... somehow I was drawn to you. Once when I was a child, I almost drowned. It's just like that feeling. Darkness everywhere, and nothing for me to hold onto, no matter how hard I try. There's just you. 

• Dying is very difficult. I don't know what I've been doing with my life all these years.