Who would be your Doppelgänger*?

Dadah is Death (1988, Australian)

I decided to give this film a go after discovering it in Karpal's book by Tim Donoghue. It mentioned his famous case involving 2 Australian citizens who eventually went to the gallows in Malaysia. Their case became an international sensation in the 80s as they were the first Caucasians to be hanged under drug related charges. It even created a riff in bilateral relation between nations.

I was fascinated to read that the prolific international actor, Victor Banerjee, was chosen to portray the Tiger of Jelutong a.k.a. Karpal Singh. In the cast was also Sarah Jessica Parker of 'Sex and the City' before she was famous.

The film was made to illustrate the barbaric nature of the Malaysian drug laws, the corrupt officials, the dungeon like accommodation in our prisons, the blatant abuse of prisoners by wardens, vice activities in jail and generally looking at the Malaysian way of doing thing through eyes above the uppity stiff upper lip of an Australian. Well, the way our civil service is heading these days, it seems not too far from the truth.

It is the ranting of a helpless mother trying all possible avenues to rescue an apparently doomed son. Karpal is introduced as a lawyer/cowboy who lives dangerously having frequent brush with the government and a struggling political career.

Kevin Barlow, a rolling stone, with proper career prospects, gets into a spin when his girlfriend who has a miscarriage breaks up with him. His financial situation hits the dumps when he is involved in an accident and his car is repossessed after he lapse on installments.

Tiger of Jelutong

Geoffrey Chambers, an experienced drug smuggler, ropes Barlow for an assignment in Malaysia. This starts the cascades of events that finally land both them on the wrong side of the law. At a time when drug menace was reaching dizzying heights and many Malaysian Chinese were incarcerated under the strict Malaysian Drug Laws, sending the Australians to the gallows seem to appear to be the logical thing to do.

All the king's horses and all the king's men could not reverse the court decision. The famous Melbourne  attorney, Frank Galbally, was called in to assists Karpal but only ended in bad blood. Appeals to the Goverment of Australia and the Queen proved futile. Even the Australian public showed lukewarm support to rally behind a grieving mother to save her wayward son.

V.B. as Karpal

The film depicted some nostalgic scenery of old KL.Unfortunately, some of the scenes were deceptively made to portray Penang when it was actually Singapore as evidenced by the taxi number plates! The emotions shown by the lead character, Barbara Barlow (Julie Christie) failed to depict the helplessness of her situation or garner any sympathy from my part. Even Victor Banerjee appeared too docile for the larger than life role of the Tiger!
Just wondering, which actor would you like to choose to act out your role if ever anyone thought that you were important enough to have a movie made about?

*  Doppelgänger - German; a ghostly double or counterpart of a living person.

To Teachers with Love!

PFS '63 GTG 50 (Penang)
14th December 2013
Another trip down nostalgia yet again but this time around a potpourri of different crowd which include teachers as well. The trip down memory was sweeter with the venue being none other than where it all started - the grounds of alma mater, more specifically the school canteen where many hours were spent yakking and interacting through the much anticipated times of school recess. The tuck shop, as it was known by the older generation teacher who were educated by educators from the British Empire, was also a hub for activities of the extra curricular type, i.e. uniformed and non-uniformed societies. In addition to supplying calories to the growing bodies, the canteen was also a place to prepare themselves for human interaction and survival skills in life later.

1976

If those days, there was an invisible fence that prevented free interaction between immature teenagers and the patriarchal (matriarchal) figures of teachers, now there are none. After all the teachers are all way past retirement age and their pupils were nearing so!
It must have been such an honour for teachers to receive such a recognition for their unsung deeds over the years. And for their students, the opportune time to express their gratitude in person rather than talking about them in their memoirs or autobiographies!

It is all a package!

Autumn Sonata (Höstsonaten, Swedish;1978)
Director: Ingmar Bergman

How long can you go on blaming your parents for your behaviour, misbehaviour and emotional wellbeing? Sure, they provided the building blocks upon which you blobbed up to a multi-billion celled organism but did they not undergo all that psyche and physique altering 9 months. Then there were the phenomena of maternalistic instinct and the ever embracing comfortable bosoms that she provided. What about the story of the mother and the burning house? She would rush in to grab you from the raging fire even when the beam of the house is in the verge of collapse and even jump into a lake without knowing to swim, just to save you.

And the sleepless days and nights caring for you during your time of being under the weather. All these were done without any expectations of return. Now, you are big and strong and you blame all your failures and underachievements on her. And you say that it was not your choice to be born but your parents had a choice...

Bergman's movies as always make you think about life and you end up more confused than ever as there are no self-help and no directions in the voyage of life.

This film is the ramblings of a daughter to her seemingly aloof mother on the turn of events in her recent life and the horrible childhood that she had. Eva (Liv Ullman) is living with her pastor husband (Victor) in a lonely home and in a loveless relationship. Eva invites her mother, Charlotte (Ingrid Bergman), to stay with her after the demise of her partner.
Charlotte, a renowned pianist, spend a lot of time during Eva's childhood away performing much to the chagrin of little Eva. The lonely days that Eva spent with her father, a quiet man, resulted in her in having a resentment to her mother. During the time the mother is back home, she is too busy practising for hours on end. Eva also has a sister, Helena, who has been inflicted with some neurological condition needing constant care, whom she feels her mother had abandoned when she left her in a nursing home.


Being constantly left alone, Eva had apparently befriended a guy who impregnated her. Charlotte decided that this would not do for an 18year old lass. The ensuing termination further infuriated the young mind against her mother.
Charlotte, this time around, has to face the bitter truth of reckoning. She finds that Eva had taken the severely handicapped Helena into her home to care for. Charlotte had to answer to her now-grown daughter, after staying away for 10 years. She had to 'face the music' to all her actions or inactions.
On her defence, Charlotte had to bring in the money and the joy and the attention that she received at the keys. Eva's marriage had also become unhappy after the drowning of her 4year old boy.

This showdown did not really end with a kiss-and-all forgotten kind of finale, however.
After the confrontation, the mother left the house after facing the demons. She is quite happy just corresponding with her daughter. Absence does not really make the heart grow fonder. Out of sight, out of mind is more like it. Time heals.

We do not choose our relationships, we do not choose to be born. The relationships and bonds that come to us can good, bad or ugly. It is up to us to sieve the favourable to the undesired ones and make the best that what life has in store for us...

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Symbolism of life...

Persona (Swedish, 1966)
Director: Ingmar Bergman
A highly complex film which showcases the human emotions in a rather abstract manner. Viewers of left to interpret the story in their own way.
It starts with Elizabeth, a famous theatre actress who is brought in to the psychiatric ward after she just went blank during a performance and just refused to speak afterwards. Sister Alma is assigned by the psychiatrist to get close to her and tries to get to the root of her problem. All the while, Elizabeth does not talk, refuses to talk when spoken to. She does her own things, she reads, watches TV etcetera. She is visibly shaken by violence shown on TV - self immolation of a monk in Vietnam, pictures of Auschwitz. In the meanwhile, Sr Alma seem to be talking all the time revealing a lot about herself. She is engaged to be married soon to a doctor. Secretly, in her bed, Alma is grateful with her life, apparently complete and soon to have a few kids. Within the next second, she questions herself whether that is what she really wants.
One day, Elizabeth receives a letter with the picture of her son in it. She is disturbed and tears it away.
The psychiatrist in charge suggests a beach bungalow for Elizabeth's recovery. Sister Alma accompanies her there.
Things improve there. Elizabeth becomes more chirpy, they do things together and they get close. It is only Alma who speaks all the time whilst the patient remains mute. In an evening, after too much of drinks, Alma confides in non talking Elizabeth some of her inner secrets -  her one time impulsive infidelity, her pregnancy and her clandestine termination of pregnancy. And Alma breaks down. Wait! It looks like the role had reversed; Alma the confused and Elizabeth the silent listener.
The next day, life goes on as if nothing happened. In fact, on the night previously, Elizabeth had broken her silence but Alma was too drunk to appreciate. Elizabeth passed some letters for Alma to post. Unable to resist her temptation, Alma sneaks into an unsealed letter to find a letter to her doctor telling about Alma's health condition instead. Realizing and angry that she is being psychoanalyzed, a cat and mouse game starts. Alma tries to hurt Elizabeth and abhors her silence.
Then, in the next bizarre scene (dream scene?), somebody calls for Elizabeth. It is supposed to be Elizabeth's husband and he starts talking to Alma and becomes quite passionate with her right in front of Elizabeth!
The climax of the movie is a scene which is repeated, each showing each character's facial expression as Alma delivers a monologue. In this scene, both actresses look almost alike at their faces are superimposed. Elizabeth is accused to be a renowned theatrical icon who cannot leave the limelight of the stage but the inner desire to fulfill her need to conceive. When she actually conceived, she realized that the mistake she has made- the change in body shape, size and absence from work etcetera. She tried unsuccessfully to abort the child and secretly hope the child would be a stillbirth. The child was born after a long difficult labour. The cry of the newborn was torturous to her that she left the child to be cared by relatives to continue her work in the theatre! And that is when she had that catatonic episode!
Alma behaves in a way unbecoming of a person of the medical profession. She physically abuses Elizabeth. Looks like that they had switched roles - the healer and the patient!
In the next scene, Alma leaves the retreat alone with her luggage on a bus. The camera rolls on towards the ground. We are left to wonder whether the nurse buried her patient!
This film is full of symbolism. It is supposed to show the eternal conflict that broils within an individual. It is something like the constant fight between Id, Ego and Super-Ego or the battle between the conscious and sub-conscious! Alma and Elizabeth are one and the same individual. Elizabeth is internal core of a person and Alma signifies the external appearance (persona) of a person that always changes and this film is a study of introspection of one's self!
If it sounds very complicated, you should watch it and draw your conclusion.

As you like it....

Breaking Bad (Seasons 1-5; 2008-2013)

“I did it for me. I liked it. I was good at it. And I was… really… I was alive.”

At the end of 68 episodes and 50 over hours later, Walter White realised that his transformation from a bored high school teacher to a methamphetamine cooking drug lord, Heisenberg, was not, after all, to leave a legacy of bottomless supply of wealth for the family after he was diagnosed to have terminal lung cancer but for himself. After losing many opportunities in life and teaching a group of uninterested students, and leading a simple life, he thought of leaving something behind for the family to lead a comfortable life. But, after meeting many resistances in his shortcut to luxury, he persevered all in the name of providing for the family.

In the end, he died an unhappy man. Hated by his wife, humiliated by his son, who was ashamed of his father's background, his earnings refused by the family, dying on the run as a criminal, having his beloved brother-in-law dead were not his idea leaving the family in a serene environment. But, in the end, Walter realised that he did what he did because he was good, liked it and was appreciated for it.
Indeed this is a funny place to learn about the more delicate things in life amongst killers and drug peddlers. But, interestingly, there are many subtle things that the mind wonders as you watch this addictive saga which ended its seasons in September 2013.

We don't dress our women!

Just the other day, I was watching a Youtube clip by the world's most famous atheist, Professor Richard Dawkins called 'The God Delusion'.

I was particularly fascinated by one scene in this man's crusade to convince his audience that the institution of religious actually brings more disharmony to mankind. In that scene, Dawkins was interviewing an American secular Jewish man who got his divine calling and had embraced an ultra-conservative form of Islam. He was residing in Gaza. Upon being the state of affairs of world today, he went ballistic. He blamed the evil of the world on the Western civilization. 

"You dress your women like whores and send them to the streets, you expect the world to be a better place!" To which, Dawkins coolly told him, "We don't dress them, they dress themselves!"
I think that statement says a lot of things. You set a certain set of rules for people and say that some are more than equal than others and expect people to follow them forever and ever till the end of time. Unfortunately, suppression and repression has a threshold. After a certain point, it loses its elasticity and reaches a point of no-return!

Frustrations will be aplenty but can violence be justified
or can this primal reflex ever be leashed? (S'pore, 8/12/13)

Social experiments in animals have shown them reacting violently when one is given preferential feeding over the other. Recent outpour of emotions over the demise of a fellow worker in unrelated bus accident is also testimony of a group of unhappy workers who felt short changed in the flow of development and the sea of economic prosperity. It is not enough to tell them this is what you deserve as Man, being Man, will always strive to be at higher place and is forever searching for that freedom, happiness, liberty, truth, nirvana, moksha, whatever you call it....

Will never learn

Dr. Strangelove - or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)
Director: Stanley Kubrik

A satirical look at the world superpowers who seem more interested in annihilating each other rather than policing the world and living in harmony. The seed of destruction seem to have planted from the time we, Man, either as Adam and Eve or as primordial ancestors started walking this Earth.
This British-American black comedy showcasing the ever versatile Peter Sellers in 3 roles - a bumbling Army officer, a handicapped ex-Nazi German scientist and as the President.

Peter Sellers

The special effects seen here are a pale comparison to what Hollywood and other studios have to offer these days, nevertheless, the film is quite entertaining if you are looking for a different brand of clean dark humour.