Do the crime, do the time!

Nail Polish (Hindi; 2021)

In ancient China, India and Egypt, only the wealthy and royalty were allowed to don nail polish. It was a symbol of their status - the ability to show a set of clean fingernails, indicative that they have servants to do their dirty job.

When nail polish came to Europe, it was looked upon as a way to hide their dirty fingernails. Ill health, undernutrition and occupational hazards left them with ugly cuticles. Symbolically, the film's title, 'Nail Polish', refers to the shield we use to hide our inner ugliness. We also blanket our deficiencies and sadness by putting up a front to deal with the stress of meeting daily battles with a smiling face.

Court dramas just become more convoluted with movies of this nature. In a typical Bollywood show, the courts are often portrayed like cockfights or medieval marketplaces where horse-trading is being conducted. Everyone will be yelling on top of their voice. The decorum would be an unfamiliar word, and the judge would be a pusillanimous figure only fit to bang the gravel and utter 'proceed' or 'objection overruled' as story warrants. Not this one; it was a refreshing story with pleasing airbrushed scenery to the drape outdoors we are used to. The characters are not two-dimensional, but all carry their baggage and inner demons with them.

Veer Singh (a talented Manav Kaul) is a well-liked sports coach, a do-gooder and an ex-serviceman. When the burnt bodies of immigrant children were found, his name crops up as the suspect and is tried. 

A high flying legal eagle, Sid Jaisingh (Arjun Rampal, after a hiatus) with political ambitions is assigned probably to increase his chances of climbing the party ladder, to defend him pro bono. Sid seems to have issues with his deceased father, probably have to fit into his shoes. We get glimpses of his failed relationship.

The presiding judge put up a majestic posture of composure, but in actual fact, he is terribly upset with his alcoholic wife and her unwinnable battle with the bottle. He soon realises that this case is no open and shut case. During his stint in the army, the accused let a life of an assassin, opposite of his current civilian life. Suddenly, this mild-mannered man is no ordinary man but a killer machine.

Things get complicated when Veer gets assaulted in jail in prison politics and sustains a severe head injury. His physical wound recovers, but he seems to have a different personality. Veer says he is a lady and starts giving a new narrative about her past life. The rest of the story is told in a relatively sober tone without much melodrama.

At the end of the show, the dilemma is whether it is ethically appropriate to punish a person who is now is different from his old self, i.e. before the assault. It is the mind that commits the crime; can the human being be blamed? What makes the person a human? Is it the physical body or the mental faculty? Is the accused using the psychological exclusion clause to 'nail polish' himself from the crimes he committed?

A riveting, thought-provoking court drama worth the time spent.

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We, the people?

Grapes of Wrath (1940)
Director: John Ford
A novel by John Steinbeck

A typical scene in a big establishment when a crisis looms. When a patient is discharged from a hospital and has to speak to somebody who has the authority to give a discount, he will be given a runaround. Nobody has the power to approve that slash in the bill. It is always about the system, or the management has to decide. Who is managing, they may ask? Nobody can give a straight answer as a management team is not one person, and his job his not permanent. Even the CEO has to safeguard his career - too much of a discount-and may lose his job. Same with a big establishment like a bank. Even the bank manager emphasises with his loyal customers, his hands are tight. He has to toe the line of stock-owners and continue squeezing the debtor for dues. 

All the big establishments invoke the fear of the weight of powers that be upon the weak. The elites and powerful side of the society are constantly rubbing shoulder with the authority and the corporations. This unholy alliance creates a deep fissure in the community, as the haves and have-nots fleet further and further away from each other. In times of calamities, this becomes apparent; the effective use of all the resources upon their disposal to pounce upon the poor ensures that the rich continue enjoying their living style. 

If history has taught us anything, we realise that the widening of economic prowess is a perfect recipe for a revolution. When they feel powerless against a perceived autocratic system, people will raise their working tools in solidarity to fight back. We saw it in the French and Bolshevik revolutions. Hunger is a potent trigger to change the course of history.

Logically, we should soon be seeing the effects of a year of Covid-induced lockdown. Civil servants continued receiving whilst the self-employed had to tighten their belts with loss of income and the inconveniences of multiple Government restrictive policies.

After the initial euphoria of the end of WW1, the world plunged into an economic depression in 1929. The weather was also against their side for the Joad family in Oklahoma. The family has to leave their farmland as the bank pressures them for outstanding payments. The family with other Okies (Oklahomans) leave their Dust Bowl State for California in their rickety truck, together with Tom, who had just been out of prison. After enduring a treacherous journey, they soon discover that California is no promised land. There is starvation, oppression by the authorities, bullying by employers and police's unholy union, and restrictions on personal liberties. 

John Steinbeck's 1939 novel is a Pulitzer-winning classic with much Reds undertone and is used as reading in many American schools. He went on to win the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1962 for that work. The book is a stark reminder that the subject matter discussed can be topical at any period. The poor will always remain impoverished despite advances in science, technology, and economic leaps and bounds. The rich and those in power will always devise ways to keep them under their thumbs. New laws will be instituted, taxes will be adjusted to accommodate the rich and novel ideas will prop up to entice the downtrodden to dance to the big conglomerates' tune.

The title 'The Grapes of Wrath' may have a Biblical reference. In the Book of Revelation, an angel swung his sickle to the earth and gathered the clusters from the vine of the world, and threw them into the great winepress of the wrath of God [14:19-20]. Grapes, when pressed, will morph into a divine and spirited drink. Hence, when the workers are oppressed for too long, they would rise to wreak justice upon greedy and self-serving landowners and bankers. The filmmakers had to modify the storyline to not arouse legislators' curiosity when Hollywood was mainly targeted for subtly spreading communist's sentiments.

The phrase 'grapes of wrath' also appears in Julia Ward's composition of 1861 'The Battle Hymn of the Republic', a famous American patriotic song.

Roman Charity: Pero secretly breastfeeds her father,
Cimon who is sentenced to death by starvation
Peter Paul Rubens

The word 'Okies' in the 1930s was a derogatory word of sorts. It denoted westward-bound white migrant agricultural workers from cotton-growing states from the east. In 1937, California brought in the 'Anti Okie Law' to make it illegal to bring in any destitute person. It was later revoked as unconstitutional.

Not everyone in the USA, especially the Californians, took in kindly to Steinbeck's book. The idea of Americans treating their own kind with so much scorn and cruelty was too repulsive. The idea of our cooperative type of setup like the one in a communist/socialist nation instead of American democracy in solving the poors' misery was offensive. To top it all, the book presents a character who performs an act of Roman Charity. She nurses a sick and starving man.

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Needs image enhancement

Infidel (2020)
Written, Directed by Cyrus Nowrasteh. 

They say this film reinforces the stereotype of people who profess the Islamic faith. It paints all people from Iran and the Middle East with the same brush that they are all terrorists. It compartmentalises all of them as closet sympathisers of sleeping cells. It assumes that they are all wolves in sheep's clothing. It is accused of propagating Islamophobia and accentuates the divide that the world plunging further into.  

Even though their new hosts have offered a hand of friendship and accepted them to share their prosperity, the newcomers still hold their allegiance to the former countries, the countries that they destroyed and the nation that become too toxic for them to inhabit. The problem is that the newcomers all have a common bond that unites them to ruin their newfound land, religion's brotherhood. 

The problem is that there is an image problem. A peaceful religion must be seen to be as one. More public relation works are wanting in making this a reality.

This problem of allegiance has been recurring all through the 20th century. There is discordance on whether to bow to the umbrella of nationhood or kneel to the universal camaraderie of religion. It happened during the khilafat movement and is happening now. There is a propensity to play victimhood and collude with the aggressor against the majority, citing the majority's conspiracy. 

This film tells the story (based on a true story, it seems) of a Christian preacher-blogger with a CIA wife who is a guest of Egypt. He is to attend faith dialogues to bridge the divide between Christians and Muslims in that conservative country. In a TV interview, he goes overboard with his discussion. His speech was construed as proselytising the Muslims and kidnapped by Hizbullah terrorists backed by the Iranian Government. The main reason for his abduction was that back home in the USA, the preacher is accused by his American-Iranian business-partner to have squealed to the CIA about subversive anti-national pursuits.

An average movie that can be given a miss. 3/5.

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Storm in a teacup?

Sins (Indian-English; 2005)

Director: Vinod Pande

Vinod Pande had been a screenwriter, director, broadcaster in his own right. And he is still at it. He had been the centre of attraction, sometimes for the wrong reasons. This 2005 film, done in English, set in God's own country, created a lot of hoopla in its days. Despite its adult listing by the Indian film board, the public was still livid as it painted a Roman Catholic clergyman as an abusive adulterer.

Against the background of idyllic Kerala beaches and countryside, a priest gives a student nurse a ride who was late for her examinations. What a ride it turned out to be. Little recommendations here and help there to help the nurse in her studies and employment turned into a torrid affair. Despite being an open secret, the preacher climbed the ladder of the priesthood and later became a Bishop. To appease the incessant public chatter, the parish arranged for a yeoman to marry her.

The situation became bizarre as the priest becomes suspicious that the nurse had fallen for the mock husband. He becomes abusive. The nurse does indeed see the tender side of her husband and plot an escape hatch. The plan gets ugly as the cleric, in return, plans an elaborate intent to harm her. She (with her unborn child) is killed, and the disgraced priest is convicted and sentenced to death by hanging.

It is supposed to be based on a true story. But, so what? People do not enjoy being critiqued, and the lowest point being highlighted. They rather hear the achievement than their embarrassments, but not as much as other people's lowest ebb.

The public's disgruntle on this film not just about the abysmal portrayal of a holy man and the total disregard of their religious sensitivities, but also because of the bold exposure of the female anatomy, relatively to what the Indian public was used to. The producers rebutted, showing that the film is classified as an adult film; hence it is a choice. The filmmakers would like to showcase the cinematography's beauty, the display of changing human emotions, and the destructive nature of forbidden love.

Anyway, the movie had its due screening, and the directors went on to make other movies. It may have just been a storm in a teacup. So did the leading stars.

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Any which way but loose.

The Mule (2018)
Director: Clint Eastwood

It may not score high in the dramatic storytelling department. Neither would it be of high octane action nor of unpredictability tally. Nevertheless, the viewers are left pondering on the subtle message that it questions.

Clint Eastwood, now at almost 90 years young, after donning his rugged cowboy persona and uncompromising cop images at the height of his acting career, understandably assumes a more sedate role here. 'The Mule' is a straightforward tale of a Korean War Veteran, Earl Stone, who, after having put his work way ahead of his family all his life, to go back to his family upon foreclosure of his horticulture farm. In his heydays, he had won many awards in flower shows. 

Toughie of spaghetti westerns

His business went out of flavour after the internet business became popular. He is scorned by his family members, including his ex-wife and daughter. His granddaughter, with whom Earl is close, is getting married, and Earl has to help out. A chance meeting of her granddaughter's guest draws Earl to smuggle drugs across states. Somehow the pull to perform more trips just keeping on mounting as every turn of events becomes a reason to get more money - his dilapidated truck needed changing, the War Veteran Centre needed repair and so forth. His luck finally ran out, and Earl is apprehended. What does he have to do in prison - do his favourite pastime, gardening!

It makes one wonder what is actually the role of the father here. If he spends too much time outside the family circle working, i.e. to provide for the family, can he be blamed for missing all the so-called family time and skipping 'memorable events'? Conversely, if the parent decides that spending quality time with family rather than raking moolah for their wellbeing is more important, will the rest be happy? Can strengthening familial bonding be a substitute for wealth to prosper in life? 

@ 90 years old.

Either way, the father is going to be at the receiving end of it all. He may be accused of being an absent parent if he is not around and be taken for granted if he is seen everywhere in the household while not providing the bacon. Amidst all these, one wonders where the needs of the father go to? Is he supposed to quash all his happiness, immerse himself in providing for the family and find joy within the ambit of his familial achievements? Is his fate sealed once he utters 'I do'?

Nursing a dying tiger back to health is no guarantee that it would not pounce on you at the height of its hunger pangs. With the empowerment and wisdom imbibed upon the downlines, they use the very same new-found knowledge to attack the hand that fed them. They blame all their misgivings and failures in their lives on their perceived sub-optimal parenting. 

(P.S. 'Any which way but loose' is the title of Eastwood's 1978 movie. The title soundtrack was sung by Eddie Rabbitt. The title is an abstraction from the phrase 'you turn on any which way but loose'. The girl turns him on but cannot turn (cut) him loose, i.e., release him or give him back his freedom.)

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The problem of information overload!

Crime Scene: The Vanishing at Cecil Hotel (S1 E1-4; 2021)
Netflix Docu-series.

This case shows how information in the wrong hands can create a lot of unnecessary tension and can sometimes be potentially dangerous. With the ease of access to an ocean of information literally at their fingertips, everyone goes around with a halo thinking that they are better than the professionals who spent half their lifetime learning and doing the things they are trained to do.

In 2013, a 22-year-old Canadian girl, Elisa Lam, goes missing in Los Angeles (LA), where she went for a short holiday all by herself. The police were alerted when the girl failed to call home daily as promised. Three days into the investigation but the police were at a dead end. They knew she stayed in Cecil Hotel, and the hotel had a CCTV recording of her acting bizarrely as she was entering a lift. Even the sniffer dog could not locate her. All investigations revealed was that she had a personal blog on Tumblr, where she poured all her inner feeling. Her parents and sister revealed that Elisa suffered from bipolar disease.

At this stage, the police decided to release the CCTV footage to the public to obtain more about the missing person. That started an avalanche of input from internet sleuths from the world over. Many self-appointed armchair investigators and You-tubers spent many many man-hours scrutinising and dissecting the recording with a fine toothcomb coming up with many theories; some were quite outrageous. A group of them accused the hotel staff of tampering with the CCTV tape as the video flow was not smooth and the time recordings were smudged. There was the insinuation of the hotel covering up for its personnel, and police corruption was mentioned. At the time of Elisa Lam's disappearance, there was a tuberculosis outbreak among the homeless community in Skid Row in LA, where Cecil Hotel was located. Healthcare workers were doing random testing on potential victims using a kit named LAM-ELISA. This sparked a conspiracy theory that somewhat Elisa Lam was a biological weapon in a secret governmental project!

Cecil Hotel had indeed seen better times. Built during the heady times of the swinging 20s, it fell into hard times after the Great Depression and never really recovered. It drew in seedy characters and was the venue for murders, drugs, prostitution and many more. It housed vagabonds and serial killers. Against this background, that part of LA, known as Skid Row, became the USA's poorest part, probably the world. Because of its location and local housing rules, Cecil Hotel developed part of the building to house in the society's disadvantaged segment. It was the same building but with clear demarcations except for the elevators. Hence, there is a certain level of interaction of the hotel guests with the hapless long-staying renters.

Another idea floated around was that Elisa was on recreational drugs, hence, the abnormal gestures seen in the lift footage.

About 19 days after her disappearance, hotel guests complained of plumbing issues. The janitor who inspected the water tanks found Elisa's body in one of four water tanks, naked and decomposed. The police, in their press statement, in narrating the find, described how the janitor had to open the hatch to discover Elisa. (It was later corrected).

The coroners' report classified the cause of death as indeterminate awaiting toxicological findings. As the authorities dragged on with the final report, the internet sleuths became more restless. There was a lot of yoyoing between suicide and homicide. It was Youtubers from the four corners of the world who wanted to have their say. The whole scenario mirrored that of the Korean paranormal blockbuster 'Dark Water'.

Around that time, a Death Punk artiste named Morbid (aka Pablo Vergara) stayed at the hotel. As his song describes death and murders, some eerily similar to Lam's death, the social media vilified him as the possible murderer. He took it so badly that he developed suicidal thoughts and had to be institutionalised.

Elisa Lam

The coroner's office finally issued the cause of death as accidental drowning with bipolar disorder as a precipitating factor. Her psychiatric drugs levels were almost non-existent, indicating that she had not been compliant with her treatment. Elisa had had another similar a couple of years previously.

This unfortunate case shows how a simple, straight-forward tragedy with a simple explanation ends up with various other equally compelling arguments. There is no such thing as beyond reasonable doubt. The element of suspicion can be conjectured by creative minds to escape conviction. There must have been so many wrongful convictions based on compelling circumstantial evidence aided by our tunnel visions and laissez-faire attitude of people commissioned to perform specific tasks. It must be the cruel twist of fate that made the innocent pay time for crimes they did not commit. Some call it the misalignment of his stars; others call it paying dues of past karma.

Sometimes unrelated events change the course of the trial and subsequent fate of the accused. I think the shut hatch of the water tank can be explained like this. I guess the opened hatch must have been noticed by the hotel workers who frequently hung out at the roof. They must have inspected the tank and did not find anything as Elisa could have had submerged. He must have shut it thinking that it was an oversight by the plumber. How one action can change the narrative?

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Just a file number?

Liar's Dice (Hindi; 2013)
Netflix

A good 10 years ago, as the mass rail transit tracts were being constructed, amidst all the chaos of redirection of traffic, a restless driver overtook me as I was carefully manoeuvring my vehicle through the diversions. He barged into a blockade and collided head-on with a general worker who happened to just minding his own business, clearing some debris. I saw him being flung into mid-air, landing on his back after doing a full-body somersault. From my rear mirror, I could see the victim lie motionless as the driver alight his car to attend to the victim.

That incident left an uneasy feeling within me the next few days that followed. I often wondered what thoughts went through his mind just before he was hit. Was he thinking of his young daughter, whom he had not seen or wondered how she would react to the present that he had bought? Maybe he was just going back home for Eid? Or was he thinking of pleasant memories of his childhood?  I also wondered what things would be found in his body when he brought to the hospital; maybe his wife's portrait, his child's father, his dream house. 

Imagine, after all the debt, sacrifices, sweat and tears, he is just to return home in a body bag, with shattered dreams, broken bones and fractured bonds. Is it all worth it? Did his sacrifices alter the path of the family? Did all the penances push his family up the ladder of affluence? Or is he just another file number in the statistics of human casualties in the chase to make Malaysia a developed nation?

In a way, this film may give an account of the aggrieved family members of the above example. Kamala has not heard from her husband for the last five months. Her husband had gone off to work in town previously. Kamala lives in the interiors of India, bordering China, with her three-year-old daughter.

The daily phone calls just stopped abruptly, and her calls went into voicemail. Despite reassurances from friends and neighbours, she had a gut feeling that something was not right. One day Kamala took the bold move to go out to town to search for her husband herself. With a little money, her daughter and a kid (a young goat), she embarked on a long journey searching for her husband at the last given address. 

The trip appears to be not as straight forward as she thought. Encountering shady characters at every corner and conman at every turn, she wonders if Nawazuddin, a dice-throwing gambler, is just another fraud with tricks up his sleeves? 

A slow-moving intense low budget drama that brings out human emotions and transports the viewers into a breathtaking spectacle of the outdoors and the scrutiny of the back lanes, as well as the not so savoury glimpse of India that most visitors would give a miss.

(P.S. The running around looking for the missing husband reminds me of a Japanese cartoon that my sisters and I use to enjoy in our childhood - 3000 Leagues in search of Mother, where an Italian boy goes on a long journey to find his mother in Argentina.)

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