The animal in you!

They are more than just 'The House of the Rising Sun'

Imagine you are just another one of God's creations. Just another one life form amongst many. Nothing special about you. Not the chosen one. Not created in His mold!
You have been having the grandiosity that the world revolves around you. That you are superior over other creations and that you are complete with senses to think, sympathise and empathise. Err... You got it wrong again. The zest, the spontaneity, the emotional display and meaningful response are also displayed by them (the others), albeit in their own vocalisation.
On the other end, animal do not exhibit human qualities like killing each other for no particular reason, other than for food, territory or mates.
Just like the concept of alpha-male in the animal kingdom, we also have set preset hierarchy to place some people in a place more superior than another.
In the video below, the non lactating cows which were actually worthless from an economic viewpoint, were initially caged for months waiting to be culled. After the animals rights group fought for their rights, they were released in the fields. See the joy of these supposedly lowly unthinking beast basking their new found freedom. They are jumping in joy in the air, rubbing their faces and bodies on the ground, caressing each other and running in sheer glee. See the joy, see the emotion. Who says animals are devoid of emotional expressions?

                                                

A life lived for others!

Europa '51 (Italian; 1952)
Director: Roberto Rosselini

I could never understand why my Aunt took upon herself to be the guardian of the homeless, the outcast and those shunned by their own families and society. I always thought that perhaps her only means of staying sane after going through a lot of upheavals in her life. Only at her funeral did I realise the extent her love touched so many hearts. In their books, she was a saint.
This week also saw the passing of Malaysia's Champion of the Oppressed. She was always considered a trouble maker by the powers that be and even managed to put her behind bars. The fruit of her work, however, was only seen during her wake. There was no world leaders or novelties to bade her farewell but the immigrants and the small men of the society, the very people she was fighting for.
This film acted beautifully by Ingrid Bergman during her exile days in Italy gives a possible explanation on why people do the things that they do.
Irene Girard (Ingrid Bergman) is enjoying her high society life as her wife to a successful industrialist in Italy. She enjoys playing a good hostess to her friends. They had just migrated from England after WW2 and things are looking bright in Italy. She is, however, concerned about her son who seem to constantly seeking her attention. She thinks, perhaps, it is due to all the mayhem that the family went through the bombardment of London in WW2. The son, Michele, yearns to talk to her but she brushes him aside.
One day, Michele has a nasty fall and fractures his femur. The doctor who treats Michele tells Irene that her son actually attempted suicide from his son's mumbling during administration of anaesthesia. A devastated Irene regrets her inaction earlier and decides to dedicate all her time with Michele. Unfortunately, Michele succumbed to a blood clots in his brain. Irene withdraws from everybody and goes into self imposed solitude in her bedroom.
Her family and friends try to get her on her feet again but in vain. Irene's husband's friend, Andrea, a unapologetic communist, convinces her that life has to go on just like a poor family that he knows that have a very sick child in his death bed. Having the same sensation that she had when she realised her mistake before her son died, she decided that she had to save the child. She took it upon herself to see to it that the child was treated and recovered. Soon she started caring for the poor families around the slump area of town. She becomes a beacon of hope to the poor.
One of the children of the family she was helping had robbed a bank and was on the run. Irene actually helped him escape when he was threatening his family with a gun. That got Irene in trouble with the law.
By that time, Irene's husband started suspecting that she was having an affair with Andrea. Her frequent disappearance from her home, loss of interest in her usual life, her fixation with the poor and their problems strained Irene's marriage.
Somebody suggested that her son's death could have pushed her to depression and institutionalisation may help.

Irene Fernandez (1946- 2014)

Interestingly, her answers to interview is misinterpreted by doctors, pastor and judge alike. The doctors think she is having delusion of grandiose to be the chosen one to save the downtrodden when she just wants to save children from death. The pastor, during his interview with Irene, tries to counsel her about the evils of extra-marital affair. She misinterprets his remarks by quoting the Holy Bible about no one is immune from committing sin. As if being defensive that Irene knew something wrong that he did, he withdraws from her case. The police and judge feel that she may be communist. Finally, everybody agrees that Irene should be institutionalised in the mental asylum.
Ingrid Bergman who acted in this movie during her exile years in Italy won her many accolades, deservedly.

Awake the fighting spirit in us!

 Alive! (1993)

I remember watching the trailer of this dubbed (Mexican) film named 'Survive!'. My sister and I were fascinated by the cinematography and the desperation of the passengers to survive in the freezing temperatures of the Andes. We never watched it till now. After the MH370 mystery, I thought of giving it a go.

This survival film shows the fighting spirit of humans to live in the treacherous, freezing, barren mountainous terrain of the Andes over two months. A group of young boys and relatives were travelling from Uruguay to Chile. As they descended, misjudgement caused the plane to lose a wing, part of her fuselage and the other wing and finally crash in the middle of nowhere, making it impossible for anyone to search and rescue. With no telecommunications and a limited food supply, staying alive in the cold was a Herculean task. If that was not enough, an avalanche hit the unfortunate victims, killing more passengers who were not killed earlier.

The dilemma that the survivors had to endure to stay alive in a freezing mountain with no vegetation is the conundrum of resorting to cannibalism, feeding on the flesh of the dead. The question of God and retribution was constantly argued. Most of them relented to severe hunger pangs. One succumbed to starvation.

I quite enjoyed the movie, as the events were real, and the screenplay kept to the origin story. All five crew members perished, and 29 of the 45 passengers met their maker.

Obstacles aplenty in life!

Stromboli (1950)

This neo-realistic Italian film sparked the affair between one of my favourite actresses and Italian director, Roberto Rossellini. This union ended with an out of wedlock baby, which ostracised Ingrid Bergman for years at the Hollywood level. A neo-realistic movie (Neorealismo) would be one where the location of the set is amongst the poor and its use of non-professional actors.

Here, in Stromboli, the setting is among a fishing community living on an island with a volcano. Coincidentally, it actually erupted during the shooting.

Even though it tells a story of a Lithuanian refugee who gets herself in a marriage of convenience to escape internment camp, it questions life and God at a deeper level. It narrates the harsh reality of getting hitched to someone totally different in values, beliefs, way of life, and how he lives.
Karin (Ingrid Bergman) finds herself living in a depilated house on an island with active volcanic activity. Her neighbours are unfriendly judgemental conservative old ladies. The youngsters have all left the scene. The only person she thought she could relate to is a parish priest whom she later discovers is not forthcoming with help as he is worried about what the rest of the community would think about him. Karin's husband, who promised to work hard to keep her happy, still abuses her after hearing bad-mouthing by some old ladies. She finds herself practically imprisoned on the island. She was 3 months pregnant by the time a volcanic eruption occurred.

After exhausting all other possible ways to escape, she does a treacherous climb over the volcanic hill which had just purged magma. This is where the highlight of the movie, with its questioning of the silence of God, albeit for a short time, happens. Karin cannot understand why after going through so much in her life, running from place to place displayed by the war, losing her loved ones in her family, enduring sexual assaults in the war, she still found no freedom! The usually strong Karin symbolically loses one by one her luggage, referring to her self values, stripping her down to the bare minimum till she cries her heart, and the film ends with the outcome hanging in the air; whether she abandons her journey and returns to her husband or escapes to her freedom...

The future is not so bright, no need shades!

Soylent Green (1973)

Unlike Star Trek, where the human race seems to have attained a level of understanding of life and its purpose, most futuristic movies paint a very bleak future for us as a race.

Just like Einstein's quotation, he does not know how the 3rd World War would be fought, but the 4th will be with sticks and stones!
The opening credits start with a photo montage of events important in the 20th-century Industrial landscape. It shows how man rapes his environment and depletes it of its resources. It ends with the setting of this movie, a 2022 New York with 40 million citizens, a dilapidated city worse than any third world slump with unemployment, poverty, homelessness, food rationing, water shortage, curfews with perpetual summer due to greenhouse gas effects seem to be the order of the day. People have not seen fresh food, greenery, wines and luxury in their life. Food is Soylent, Red, Yellow and latest Green, a highly nutritious palatable plankton-rich wafer!

Detective Thorn (Charlton Heston) is an officer of the law who complains about the hard life but at the same time is glad that he has a job. He lives with a retired Professor, Sol,  who constantly laments the good old days. Sol is acted by veteran Edward G Robinson in his 101st and last movie. Unknown to the cast, he was suffering from terminal cancer and died 12 days after completing the film.

One day, Thorn is assigned to investigate the murder of an industrialist who lives in an enviable luxury apartment with running water, air conditioning, authentic furniture, security and the comfort of a comfort woman (in that era is referred to as 'furniture')! The Industrialist is played by Joseph Cotton in many classics (Hitchcock's and Orson Welles').

 
Thorn's investigation opens a can of worms involving unholy unions of politicians, lawyers and businessmen. What the public had rationed as a source of protein in Soylent Green was nothing but process meat of cadavers! There was simply no food to go around, and people were dying like nobody's business.

Chuck Connors, whom we used to know as the square-faced rifle-wielding 'The Rifle Man', plays the role of a villain here. The Industrialist confesses to his priest that he was guilty of his business dealing with the Soylent Green project. Somehow his rivals suspected him of having squealed to outsiders; hence he was killed.
Again, unlike Star Trek, where some of the technologies showcased on Starship Enterprise have actually made their presence in the 21st century, e.g. handheld video and communication devices. Here, so such devices. Even the telephones are the rotatory dials, and research means scrolling through volumes of books in 2022! By the way, paper and books are scarce.

Between a rock and a hard place!

The Householder (English, Made in India; 1963)

Ivory-Merchant Collaboration

This must be the greatest nightmare that many a goody two shoe Indian new husband must feel early in their matrimonial life. Two women demanding more attention than the other from the husband who is trying his best to be in everybody's good books.

Prem Sagar is a lowly paid lecturer in a private college. He is newly married to a girl whom he cannot stand. He is unhappy with his students whom he cannot control and his principal who refuses to give him a raise, or rather he cannot raise the courage to ask for one! He has a landlord who is not too busy or drunk to listen to his pleas to reduce the rent. And he does not like his new wife's cooking. In midst of all these uncertainties, his wife, Indu becomes pregnant.

A desperate Prem thought getting his mother to stay with him would reduce his burden. On the contrary, his mother becomes a domineering attention seeking female who likes to run down the inefficiencies of Indu and glorifies her role as a mother, wife and daughter in law in her younger days. Indu, after some time, packs her stuff and leaves for her parent's home.

A distraught Prem tries to understand the aim of life by discussing his plight with his colleague, his childhood friend and a new American friend. This American friend left his home in USA, and together with his other friends are mesmerised with India and what it has to offer. They are into yoga and to immerse themselves in Indian culture.

Prem find them not giving him the answer he is seeking for. 

By then, another friend introduces him to a swami (holy man) who knocked some sense into him when Prem wanted to renounce everything and go into religion full time. He was told that he had certain duties as a husband and a father before head on into religion.

By then, Indu had returned. Prem arranged with his sister to take his mother away in the pretext of using the mother's services for some ceremony. Prem's mother goes off happily thinking that she is so indispensable. 

Sanity prevails. Prem and Indu are happy together.

Through this movie, I came to know of an actress, Leela Naidu, who was Miss India in 1954 and was voted as the 10 most beautiful women for that year. She is of Indo-Franco-Swiss parentage and is the daughter of an Indian nuclear physicist who worked with Marie Curie. She is her mother's only surviving child of her mother's 7 pregnancies.

As the years roll on by...

Sesudah Subuh (After Dawn, Malay; 1967)

A gem from the Malay silver screen's bygone era where national integration was high on the agenda. The cast is a multi-ethnic one, and the spoken language include Cantonese, Tamil and English. Life is depicted as it is in real life, almost.

Times were terrible for P Ramlee and the gang. Out of Singapore, in Kuala Lumpur, with few hit movie to brag about, fighting a losing battle with colourful movies from Hollywood and Bollywood, the going was tough. The coffers understandably were dry. 'Pop Yeah Yeah', and 'A-Go-Go' rave filled the air. These were bad times.

Then came A.R. Tompel, his partner in crime with a story true to the times. Life in the city with western influence and how the dynamics of modern family changes. With a skeleton cast of mainly newbies and a couple of famous icons, Ramlee thought he could rekindle the audience's interest.

Ms Vera Wee, 1964, Ms Singapore, who withdrew at the Ms Universe pageant, came in a significant role. Even though she was pleasing to the eyes, star presence was sorely lacking. V.I. Stanley, the veteran Malaysian comedian who used to act in many radio dramas, stage shows and even a Malaysian Tamil movie, gave a stellar performance. I remember seeing him in another P. Ramlee movie, Gerimis.

The mind goes awandering...

With this type of sombre background, P. Ramlee acts as Ariffin, a 50 something unimpressive man with thick-rimmed glasses and a pipe. Ariffin leads a boring life, gets early to work in his book shop and returns home late. He is more of an outcast in his own family, shunned by his children (Salim and Salmiah) for being too preachy, miserly and not hip! Ariffin's wife, Salmi, is not too keen to take care of her husband's welfare but instead, seem to find bliss in performing charity work and lazing around. Ariffin just carries on with life like a zombie, not wanting to upset his family's status quo. As long the family is happy and does his filial duties, he seems pretty content. Actually, what Ariffin really wants is some respect in the family. The only soul who shows any care for his well being is his Javanese gardener, Diro. Now, Diro is quite a comical character. He stole the show with his bumbling antics and his ramblings in Javanese. After P. Ramlee, in my view, the only characters who shined were Diro (Raden Sudiro) and Krishna Moorthy (V.I. Stanley). The other stars were quite stiff.

Who needs him?

Everything changed by Ariffin's chance meeting with Ms Alice (Vera Wee). Being given dignity and recognition, as she moved in to work in his shop, she also moved into his life.

Ariffin's fiery son is Ed Osmera, who went on to star in many of the Malay movies in the 70s. In this movie, his love interest is an Indian girl, Chandra (Surya Kumari), and her household banter are spoken in conversational Tamil. In fact, there is plenty of Cantonese spoken too. Ramlee also strings sentences in quite an impressive Cantonese!

In the end, Ariffin decides to leave the family and migrate to Sabah. In the final scenes, we see a scenic view of Federal Highway scarce of concrete and lush vegetation leading to the Subang International Airport.

The film ends predictably on a happy note, with Alice admitting that it was all a conspiracy to get the family together again. Hence, starts new dawn...

A family that eats together stays together!