He who controls timeline, controls the Universe.

 Loki (Season1, E1-E6; 2021)
Marvel Cinematic Universe

When Loki was apprehended and transported after Avengers: Endgame, in the confusion of Hulk creating a tantrum for needing to use the stairs and Iron Man faking a heart attack, Loki escapes captivity through a Tesseract and enter a different realm. He lands in the headquarters of Time Variance Authority (TVA). 

Here, the narcissistic Norse God of Mischief Loki learns of variants of himself floating in the multiple timelines creating havoc. The Time-Keepers had set a Scared Timeline for events to happen, but somehow variants have made branches from the main timeline. The TVA's job is to ensure that the correct path of the Sacred Timeline is followed. Some of the variants are evil alter-egos and are hellbent on creating chaos. As he is charged against the 'Sacred Timeline', Loki's plea bargain is to hunt down another Loki variant who had killed TVA officers and stolen the time resetting devices.

Time, as we perceive, is a one-way single linear motion. In reality, it is a composite of multiple minor diversions which, from someone from a different dimension, sees it as one, much like we see a slithering snake past us by part by part in a twisting motion but on a straight path, with the present, past and future.

Since a Sacred Timeline is being followed, does it not mean that the characters in the timeline have no free will but have their path determined? No amount of willpower can change anything if everything is predetermined. If the variants have a free hand in doing things, then the whole balance would collapse. 

That brings us to the philosophical dilemma about battles and battleships in the context of free will and determinism. Who decides whether the war starts tomorrow? If it is predetermined that there is a battle tomorrow, what is the commander's decision-making role? If he chose not to go to war, is it his decision, or can we say that not having a battle was predetermined?

Loki and alter ego

Loki soon discovers a few disturbing revelations. The Time Keepers are mere androids but are controlled by someone else.

The rogue variant of himself that Loki was hunting for turned out to be a female, Sylvie. This must be a comforting story plot for those who look at gender as something quite fluid, yoyoing from one end to another and changing with time. The thing that takes the cake is that Loki, the narcissist, is so in love that he develops feelings for Sylvie! What do you call that? Love thyself?

TVA itself, the Lokis realised, is made up of variants. It turned out that it is not an authority to kerb variants after all. The need to find the real person who controls TVA becomes a necessity. This leads them to a new villain comparable to Thanos, 'He who remains' who is created in the mould of Kang the Conqueror.

The tenet of the storyline, which we will learn, is that branches from the Timeline would create variants. Some of them are evil and may overpower another variant on another timeline and exert their authority on the turn of subsequent events. It gets more complicated than in the final finale. A decision has to be made at the Citadel at the End of Time - whether 'He who remains' is the good variant trying to bring stability to the timeline or not. 

A wrong move... and a segue to the next season and the opening of a bag of worms where the evil 'He-who-remains' takes control of TVA, as Loki soon discovers...

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

The future is bleak!

Love, Death & Robot ❤️☠️🤖  (Adult Scifi Animation; 2019)
Season 1-2 (2019-2021)

It used to be that animation (called cartoons back in the days) were for children. It was an outlet for mindless personification of cute animals doing impossible stunts in gravity-defying postures. It was quite acceptable if a bomb explodes right in front of the character's face. It would just get off with a bandaid on its forehead. Or it could be thrown off into a mile-long deep ravine just to would crawl back up to fight in another snippet. That was entertainment back then.

Those days are over. Now animation productions are of big budgets and delve into difficult life questions. No, adult content is left to manga series for the Japanese to deal with their men's fixations in wanting their sexual partners or dolls to have round big blue eyes like their favourite manga heroines. We are talking philosophy, the future of mankind and armageddon. Since much of the presentation is animated, the storyteller and digital artists took the liberty to expose more skin than being allowed when real actors acted. Herein lies the confusion. The animation styles are varied; some are simple 2D drawings with disproportionate body parts, some use fantastic graphic designs that viewers are confused about. We are left to wonder whether the characters are played by real actors whose appearance is pixelated to appear sci-fi.

On average, the 26 short episodes, on average lasting 20 minutes, narrate a plethora of topics that carry multiple veiled messages. 

Some of the teachings that seem apparent to me, I have tried to enlist.

If consciousness and memory can be decoded and digitalised, they can theoretically be transferred. Hence, personal desires and ambitions can continue indefinitely just by changing body parts. We do not have to leave behind a legacy or need our offspring to continue our struggle. We can become bio-engineered gladiator beasts with infinite power for infinity. 

We can see that humans show more compassion to their pets than the neighbour next door. They buy the best for their pet animals and care for them as they would their child. So, it is not outlandish if they would genetically modify their cats. In one episode, the human penchant for nuking each other left a desolate world populated with cats with opposing thumbs (genetically modified so that they could sit at dinner with my masters, I suppose), menacing three robot visitors.

History has the nasty habit of trying to repeat itself. If a particular event is twisted, the sequence of events may vary, but the endpoint will be the same, albeit within a different timeframe. One episode asks, "What if Hitler was killed not in 1945, but in 1908 when his application to Vienna Academy of Art was rejected. The Hindu concept of time moving in a cyclical manner, rather than a linear fashion, is evident in the History of Man. Man becomes an aggressor at one time, and the same person becomes the victim. The aggressor becomes the aggressed and vice versa, indefinitely, in an episode titled 'Witness'.

We like to think that we are the legitimate inhabitants of Earth by default. The planet was made for us. Well, I got news for us. We just may be the invaders upsetting the equilibrium set by others who prevailed long before us.

Ever wondered why the mammoth structures that occupy this planet exist. We are awed how the Pyramids, Easter Island statues and Stonehenge came to be. And we still do not understand their functions. Well, the episode 'When yoghurt took over' may have explained all these. A mutated yoghurt solves all of the world's problems and leaves Earthlings with all their great inventions. This must ring a bell with fans of 'Ancient Alien', which posits that we were visited by aliens who try to impart wisdom, gave up on us and went off.

A subtle message goes out to sympathisers of immigrants in the episode 'The Dump'. Local council officers after officers who go to the illegal dumpster to repossess it for development goes missing. Apparently, all the long-standing rubbish has developed a brain of their own to claim their place. Settlers who had entered our country illegally will soon have their whole life earnings and memories invested here. Their base would grow roots so deep that uprooting will be a Herculean task. 

We talk about preserving nature but not giving two hoots to people living in constant fear of wildlife. We glamourise a time when animals roamed free. Yes, in a flick of a moment, we can be snacks to predators. The wild is not kind. (Episode: Fish Night) 

Like the message from 'Citizen Kane', the character in 'Zima Blue' realises the hard way, after working all his life to unattainable heights, that the things that really matter at the end of the day are the simple things in life.

We are all so dependent on our digital devices and sometimes feel paralysed without them. Every so often, we have been locked out of possessions. With so many safety protective features added to our machines, it is not unthinkable that there will come a day that the AI inserted in them that will treat us as the perpetrator. We may be hunted down like dogs.

With the advancement in our medical treatment modalities and fixation with healthy living, immortality is theoretically possible. If no one dies anymore, overpopulation would be a problem. In one episode, having children is illegal, and there is a special police squad to hunt and shoot down children.

In one of the last episodes, like a scene from 'Gulliver travels', a giant has swept ashore. People get all excited about this new find. As expected, the curious probe, prod, pose and want a piece of momento of the beached body. Their interest wane with time as nature takes its course. The body decomposes and slowly is swept away. The only thing that is left is memory.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

When is it enough?

The Disciple (Marathi, 2021)
Netflix

Life is easy with eyes closed, accepting whatever we 'see'. However, for someone who questions, examines and introspects his every move or feeling, life can be a very tedious affair. The indecisiveness and guilt are just too much to bear. The answers available to us are just too ambivalent and can be interpreted however we want to. The more one thinks about it, the more confused he becomes in choosing the desired path.

Probably that is why we all look for shortcuts. We look upon those who have been there and done that with reverence. We hope we can use their wisdom to manoeuvre through the options available to us. It is easier this way, leaving life's big decisions to what the elders preach. If only there were a 'to do' list that answers all our queries. Even then, the answers will be not so forthcoming.

See how 'man made' law need regular amendments all the time? So how is it that the 'divine decrees' stands the test of time without considering the ambiguity of societal changes and 'modernity'? 

From the viewpoint of career, most of us have to answer at one point in our lives whether to what actually gives us satisfaction in our professional duties. Is financial gain the be-all and end-all of all professions? Is being a purist and sticking to doing the right thing adhering to the profession's rules the end goal? Is financial gain the final yardstick to determine success? 

Our tutors showed us the wisdom in performing our tasks following rules and regulations set out by the doyens of our respective fields. Working in the dark, they discovered groundbreaking finds and help to enlist the dos and don'ts. We learnt and promise to uphold the 'truth' of the respective fields. We gave these truths divine statuses.

After being thrown to the deep end of the marketplace, we soon realised that the societal demands are a world of difference from what we thought. We would be caught in a conundrum whether to stay faithful to the teachings or take shortcuts to meet the customer demands? Should we be purists or pragmatists? With the passage of time and the need to perform filial piety, the pressures for monetary fulfilment supersedes that of personal vocational gratifications. Individual satisfaction takes a back seat. We crumble and fall prey to doing what is perceived as the intelligent thing.

This Marathi film reminds me of two other movies I have seen before - Satyajit Ray's Jalsaghar  (Music Room, 1958) and Inside Llewyn Jones (2013). Like in 'Jalsaghar', viewers can truly appreciate the nuances, intricacies, and various voice modulation ranges that makes classical Indian singing so unique. As in all fields of knowledge known to Indians, music is given an esteemed place as a gift from God. Singing and music are provided respectable positions in society. People submit a lifelong commitment to trying to learn music. They believe one lifetime is not enough.

Like in 'Inside Llewyn Jones', the protagonist spends a big chunk of his life thinking he is gifted musically. Only after many disappointments does he realise that he may never be good enough. Is it because his masters have set their standard too high, unattainable by his students? Or is it that the Master himself is unsure what it is to excel and what is perfection?

This movie almost made it as India's entry to the Oscars but lost out to Jallikattu. It tells the story of a young man who is in pursuit of being somebody in the field of classical Indian singing. He wants to stay true to the teachings of his Gurus, who treated the art form not as a field of knowledge but as something akin to divinity.  They looked upon music and singing as the part of Goddess Saraswati herself to master it! Thus are the intricacies and the things it is capable and we, human beings, have not even scratched its surface. One life is definitely not enough to master it. His gurus advised him to safeguard its purity. There should not be any shortcuts or selling out for commercial interests.

All these may sound romantic, but romanticism does not fill up an empty stomach. Neither does it meet the realistic challenges of modern life. Modern societies are not interested in immersing themselves intoxicated with ragas, talas and the melodic and voice control of Indian classical singing. They yearn for musical intoxication but the headbanging and lyrics with sexual innuendos, not in praise of Nature and Divinity. As one cannot sing on an empty stomach and money is essential for survival, preservation of life seems more urgent than conservation on age-old traditional music.

Slow-moving, but after all the fanfare, it makes you think. What do we actually want? How far would we go to maintain the purity of the field of our expertise? Is it alright to cut enough to meet the demand of the marketplace? Is upholding tradition at all costs worth the sacrifice, and what expense?

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Hard times, like good times won't last!

Milestone (Meel Patthar, Hindi/Punjabi; 2021)
Director: Ivan Ayr.

It has been ingrained upon us that we are what we can contribute back to society. In philosophical terms, that is the tithe we pay back to the community for providing the security of numbers and the helping hands from the herd. So, as long as we have something to offer, we will not be looked upon as a burden. It sounds simple enough to prevent sluggards from hogging on the society for alms. And we also assume life will be the same forever and the Universe will be kind to us till the end of time.

With the progressive lengthening of our life spans but incongruous to the available economic opportunities, there is a continual fight for the struggle for the young blood to fill in for the slowing older bodies. 

The average worker will give his life, breath and blood to perform his job to the best of his abilities. He does that not necessarily due to his undying passion for his job. It may be the only thing he is good at. It may be the only thing he has control over; perhaps the scene at the homefront is too depressing with constant harassment or a tone of overbearing melancholy. His job could be his escapism. Over the years, he would be comfortable in his position and start thinking that he is indispensable to the establishment. Slowly he will realise that his service may be replaced by the younger generation. Reality will strike hard.

In this movie, Ghalib, who had just clocked 500,000km on his lorry trips, is respected by his fellow lorry drivers and employers. He has been working in a father-and-son run transportation company. After seeing his colleague dismissed for deteriorating eyesight, Ghalib realises he could be next. Hanging like a dark cloud over his head is the sad memory of his wife, who had just committed suicide. On top of that, his wife's family demands compensation for Ghalib's alleged neglected duties as a husband. Ghalib's wife had suspected that her husband was having an affair which Ghalib vehemently denies. She attributed his constant absence from home due to that. 

Meanwhile, Ghalib's employers ask him to train a young apprentice. Ghalib can see his pink slip coming...

The exciting thing that is apparent in this movie is how senescence may vary according to one's economic strata. A blue worker has an exact shelf life; after that, he has to fend for himself. On the other hand, the professional or managerial groups can continue working till health permits. In the movie, we can see Ghalib living in fear of being replaced at any time. His boss, an old Sadarji, carries on life, delegating the complicated work to his son whilst still holding the right to make crucial decisions. He does not have to worry about retrenchment. He is the boss. 

This is a very slow-moving movie but is heart-wrenching in showcasing the hard knocks of life and how we have to deal with them.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Doing the right thing by whose standards?

Jagame Thandhiram (ஜகமே தந்திரம், Tamil, The Universe is Cunning; 2021)
Written and Directed: Karthik Subbaraj

Do not expect any high brow stuff here. This is purely a masala movie with a 'feel good' element with little cerebral activity involved. Suruli, a gangster from Madurai, Tamil Nadu, is summoned to London to be a consultant to a bigoted white gangster. The kingpin, Peter, is having a hard time with a rival Sri Lankan Tamil gang, and only Suruli seems capable enough to clip their activities.

Like a faithful dog and a coolie, showing gratitude to the alms strewn to him, Suruli hunts down Peter's nemesis, Sivadoss. After gunning down Sivadoss, Suruli realises that Sivadoss was actually a modern-day Robin Hood who had made it his life goal to help illegal immigrants who come into the UK from war-torn countries by getting them valid documents. His criminal activity helped to finance his noble intention. He contends that since the UK and its allies are responsible for all the world's population displacement, his nefarious activities are justified.

Suruli then changes allegiance and work for the rival faction. Through their language commonality, he gangs up with the remaining members to avenge Peter instead for his white supremacist stance. 

Although the storyline is nothing much to shout about, it did manage to bring out a few common questions that plagued the Indian psyche. It is a commonplace to compare Indians' behaviour to that of crabs. In a bucket of crabs, each crab would pull on the other, preventing the other from climbing out. 

It is also said that the Indian diaspora been has been subjugated so long under the colonial powers that they tend to seek validation from their former colonial master, even now. Macaulay's vision of wanting Indians to turn their backs on their glorious past has reached its intended target. Now, the former colonial masters have sepoys and baboos running around bending backwards doing their dirty job. The masters, through their years of warring, have mastered the art of instigating brothers to fight each other. They not only sit back and watch the melee, but they also fan the fire!

Kattabomman to Jackson
"How dare you!"

History buffs can remember a particular time in Indian history when the British were making inroads into India, then the country with almost a quarter of all world's GDP. The European traders tried to play the role of peacemakers and deal brokers by instigating wars between chieftains. A scene where a local leader, Ettappa Naiyanar, acting cahoots with the British Collector, Jackson Thurai, to win over Kottabomman comes to mind.

Everyone claims to be fighting for the truth, that the truth will prevail after all. Then the question is, what is that thing called truth; truth as decided by whom? In the case of this film, the protagonist thinks he is siding the party that is doing the right thing. The other feels that Suruli is a sell-out as he derails the Sri Lankans' efforts to give their brother-in-arms a chance at survival. 

Money changes everything. It gives status, recognition and takes care of generations to come. Once an obscene amount of wealth is usurped (and the usurper goes scot-free), everything is sanitised.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

All meddling comes biting back

Kingdom (킹덤 Korean, 2013)
Netflix

It seems Man has the penchant for screwing things up most of the time. Look at the story of insecticides. He thought he was smart when he created highly toxic chemicals to kill insects to get a better yield on his produce. He deduced that he would get more returns on his plantation if there were fewer pests to suck on the fruits. Little did he realise that insects were needed to complete pollination. Not only that. He soon realised the following summer had no birds. They were either dying ingesting poisonous insects or had no insects to eat!

Then there was a certain Level 4 Biosafety Laboratory in Wuhan, which claims to delve into combating unknown possible virus epidemics in the future. What it managed to do is just to let out one of its experimental bats infected with lethal and possibly genetically modified viruses to somehow make its way to the Wuhan wet market. And the rest is, as they say, is history for generations after us to tell their kids, "... and children, this is how your ancestors screwed up this world!"

This zombie film is set in medieval Korea during the Joseon period. Legend has it a certain Governor named Ahn Hyeon led an army of 500 soldiers to defeat an invading 30,000 strong Japanese army. Unbeknownst to most Koreans, this victory is attributed to a rare herb known as 'resurrection plant', which resurrected diseased villagers into ferocious zombies. After the battle, they were executed and buried in secret. This miniseries is based on this folklore.

There is much secrecy about the King's health since he was diagnosed with smallpox. The Crown Prince wants to know, but the Queen Consort puts the King under quarantine. The Prince smells a rat. The King has been sick too long. And the absence of any news may indicate that he may be too grimly ill or even dead. In such a situation, he has to take over. No, says the gravidly pregnant Queen, who may soon deliver a legitimate heir to take over the throne. The current Crown Prince is born to the King's concubine.

After being prevented from visiting his father, the Crown Prince heads South in disguise to contact the physician who last treated the King to get a clearer picture of his father. To his utter dismay, he discovers that the physician's hospital had been ravaged by zombies. The gist of the story is how the Prince and his followers defeat the zombies and find out the happenings at the royal courts.

The Queen had instructed the physician to use the 'resurrection plant' to keep the King alive whilst awaiting her child to be born. Fate had it that the plant harboured a particular worm that attacked the brain to turn the patients into zombies.

An exciting show with a picturesque view of the Korean outdoors shows the Korean movie industry's best. It may be a tad bit too graphic for the faint-hearted as the main characters go on a decapitating spree to keep the undead dead. Unlike other zombie shows, here, they seem to be able to run quite rapidly but cannot manoeuvre over obstacles encountered along their paths. Kudos to the make-up artists and the stunt coordinators.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

I think, therefore I am!

 The Thirteenth Floor (1999)

Sadly, this film got all lost in hoopla created by the Matrix trilogy that nobody actually remembers this under-rated film. It is a convoluted film about consciousness, reality, altered reality and possibly parallels the universe.
'I think; therefore I am', said Descartes. We use our senses to make sense of who we are and our surroundings. Every input that goes through our sense organs helps build composite pictures of our personalities and determine what is right and what is not. We cannot merely rely on our powers of physical perception to ascertain reality, can we? How often our eyes have lied? What we saw was not what we got. Our dreams can sometimes appear so vivid and so real, surreal!

With our addiction to experience everything and yearning for impossible things to achieve in one lifetime, our wants have no boundaries. The creation of alternate universes in cyberspace, where we can take different personas, certainly offers escapism from the stresses of modern living. Are we going to be so impressed with our alter ego that we decide to stay in our alternate life and opt out from this present life? What happens to our current life (or it just consciousness, since all of life is just memory) after that? Do we wonder about in another realm altogether? Are there parallel universes that fit different consciousnesses? Is cyberspace a conduit to other dimensions? Can crime be committed when offenders jump from one universe to another? Well, that is the discussion in another post.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.