Affirmative action can't last forever!

Yennanga Sire Ungga Sattam (என்னங்க சார் உங்க சட்டம், Tamil; 2021)

Director: Prabhu Jeyaraman

Suppose the idea of affirmative action is to uplift a particular community group and give an equal fighting chance to the oppressed to get their place in the sun. In that case, it should only be handed to one generation. After being given the levy, their offspring should not be expecting the same. Everybody only gets one chance. They are expected to pull themselves up by their boot-straps with the chance given to them. That is it. Freebies are not infinite. 

This film is one of the many new genre movies which highlights the plight of fringe people. The filmmakers named this movie a duplex as the real story with message starts with the movie's second part. The first part is essentially a draggy commercial that does not contribute much to the rest of the story. In a complicated way, it boils down to two scenarios.

The first instance involves an interview for a government post. The viewers are shown how nepotism, recommendations and quota allocations predetermine which candidate would probably succeed in an interview. A person from the higher caste has to work doubly harder to qualify for the same job as one from the scheduled caste. Things are not so straightforward, however.  A person who fails may genuinely be unimpressive but would cry foul anyway. A person from the lower rung of society may have been unexposed and deprived of many things because of poverty. Sometimes, people of influence get it anyway.

If we were to blame religion for the evil effects of caste in society, we even see discrimination within the houses of worship. It is not the religion at fault per se, but rather the people who act as pillars of the faith, in their greed to hold the rein of temple management, come up with rules and regulations at their whims and fancies. When intelligent discussions do not solve the problems, they recoil into the wisdom of ancient text to assert their point. Even within the four walls of the House of God, there is blatant discrimination.

The end result of not giving the job to the best man around only results in brain drain. Unfortunately, solving this issue is not easy. At a time now when identity politics plays a vital role in how a country should be run, politicians will continue pandering to populist politics. Level headedness is a rare commodity in the 21st century.

P.S. Extrapolate the message behind this story to our own backyard. Affirmative action cannot go on forever. It would only result in lazy, entitled rent-seekers who cannot survive in the real world. One black swan event, and they would just fizzle out.

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Poverty amongst the seniors!

The Bacchus Lady (2016)
Director: E J-Yong

Bacchus was a new word to me. It actually refers to the Greek god of wine, sometimes associated with Dionysus. Following the 1997 Asian financial crisis, many elderly people found themselves needing to fend themselves. The Miracle at Han River, following years of economic boom following the Korean War, left a country so entwined in the material chase that the traditional Confucian values had lost their appeal. Many young Koreans had emigrated, leaving their elders at home. South Korea is said to be having one of the worst social safety nets amongst OECD countries for its senior citizens. OECD (Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development) countries comprise intergovernmental economic organisations with 38 nations founded in 1961 to stimulate world trade and stimulate economic progress. Its precursor, OEEC, was started in 1948 following the implementation of the Marshall Plan to develop post-WW2 Europe.

The poverty rate of elderly people in South Korea
is the highest among the OECD countries

In 2015, the local police arrested 33 ladies, including an 84-year-old woman, in a park in Jongno district in Seoul for soliciting customers for prostitution. Sociologists determined that the poor retirement benefits put the elderly, especially single ladies, below the poverty line and fend for themselves. Many turn to prostitution to survive. These ladies make a living by selling bottles of Bacchus-F, a popular energy drink, hence their nickname 'Bacchus Ladies'. The packaging suggests that it is sold as 'Livita' here in Malaysia. The Bacchus ladies' clientele is usually lonely old men. Transitioning to sexual services is optional.

The film starts with a postmenopausal lady, So-Young (sic), getting treatment for gonorrhoea. Just she exits the doctor's room, a ruckus begins. A Filipino lady barges in to demand from the doctor paternity support for their kid. In confusion, the kid left outside scoots off only to miss a major accident and be saved by So-Young. 

Slowly the movie shifts to the day-to-day of So-Young. She lives in a house with a transgender lady and a leg-amputee artiste. Like So-Young, these people are considered fringes of society, scorned for not conforming to the perfect mould to make money. We follow her through her clientele seeking exercise, the fights for customers, the bad-mouthing colleagues, the escape from police busts, and meeting old friends/clients.

So-Young discovers that an old acquaintance, called Saville Row Song for his immaculate haberdashery perfection, is now unwell with stroke. A visit to his nursing home revealed a dispirited Song, all ashamed for his condition, incontinence, immobility and all, begging to die. After a few visits, she actually helps him to die. 

All through, she introspects on the appropriateness of her action. She once sees a cardboard collecting lady by the roadside and ponders who had sunken lower in society - the lady dealing with dirty discards or herself for prostituting?

A good movie with a positive social message. A good watch.

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Unplugged!

1950s P Ramlee

The teachers thought he was mental. Living in his own world, humming to the tunes that emanate from his mind, they were sure he would end up as a nobody. Some even toyed with the idea of sending him off for a psychological assessment, and perhaps to a lesser taxing environment, unlike the grammar school that he is placed in. Collectively they thought he belonged to the loony bin. Surprise, surprise, 20 years on, he was composing music, making movies and winning international awards for his acting skills. The boy grew up to be the one and only, the legendary P Ramlee, a national treasure. 

An elderly auntie once told me that she and her husband had decided to leave their first home in Lorong Seratus Tahun in Penang. They were particularly disturbed by the loitering of boys along the roadside, strumming away their guitars and crooning into the deep of the night, crooning in their high pitched squeaky voices. They were not thrilled by their unkempt beehive hair, beatings of drums, either. They thought that the neighbourhood was not conducive to bringing up their children. 

Little did they know that their kids were listening to the same guys who their parents wrote off ten years down the road. By then, three of those roadside boys had become the Alleycats. Their beehive hairdo was then fashionably called ‘Afros’!

Of course, the Alleycats are the most successful of Malaysian bands with international recognition.

The world is a cruel place. People forever want to exert their dominance over the other as much as and whenever they can. They will not rest until and unless their position on top of the perch is secure. They would be wary of any behaviours by the other that is not mainstream. What if the others’ actions put them in the limelight, and their puissance is bowled out?

Alleycats

Every time I held my guitar, people would exit the room. They would say I should not act weird and stick to my daytime job. They assert that wearing too many hats would make me a Jack of all trades but master of None. They asked me what I was trying to achieve and was it my narcissistic tendencies that pushed me to venture into new frontiers considered self-indulgence?

Covid was God-sent. They left the room, citing my contact with the public that puts me a potential transmission source. That arrangement was just dandy. Nobody was there to be bothered by my disjointed and out-of-tune strumming. They did not disturb me, and my practising did not annoy them.

Fast forward. I could say I did not do too badly with my self tutoring. As is seen in the short snippet below, everyone is having a good time.

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More than meets the eye!

The 10th Victim (La Decima Vittima, Italian; 1965)
Director: Elio Petri

Riding high on her fame as Honey Ryder, 1962 Dr No's Bond Girl, as the Ultimate Bikini Goddess, Ursula Andress continued making movies banking on her sex symbol status. She also appeared in the 1967 Bond spoof 'Casino Royale' as Vesper Lynd, whose grave we saw in 'No Time to Die'. In between, this Swiss vixen also found time to act in this B-grade Italian movie. 

'The 10th Victim' is a futuristic movie set in the 21st century, where the world enjoys peace as society has managed to put a stop to wars. Man's predilection for violence is curbed by having society-sanctioned killing. Each person has the opportunity to kill ten people in a computer-drawn programme named 'The Big Hunt'. In five of the hunts, the selected play hunter and the other five, he plays the hunted. The hunter is given all information about his target but not the hunted. The hunted is clueless about who the assassin is. One who survives all ten hunts get loads of money. In between, the advertisers piggy-bag on the televised hunt.

The Bikini has come a long way since its introduction in the
1946 Paris catwalk. It was named in honour of Bikini Atoll,
the site where the US hydrogen bomb was tested.

The two main characters in the movie are Caroline and Marcello. Both of them are nine-time winners. Marcello is in a massive financial quandary trying to pay alimony to his ex-wife and sustain his expensive mistress. Winning the competition would mean a lot to him. He is chosen as the victim. Caroline is an American who lands in Italy to hunt her prey.

Despite being a brainless movie with plenty of eye candy and blatant flaunting of the female anatomy, the film seems to make reasonably accurate social commentary of the 21st century. It showcases a time where reality TV is a craze and advertisement drives people to sell out. Advertisers are more worried about their sales than the value of human lives. Marriages are a farce. Marcello had been married eleven times before.

The iconic bikini scene from Dr No skyrocketed the sales of bikinis.

In 1965, she was asked why she posed nude in Playboy. 

Her answer was, "because I am beautiful!" 

At one time, Ursula Andress was referred to as Ursula Undress.

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Casteism is not dead?

Sennai (செந்நாய், Clay-coloured dog, Tamil; 2021)
Directed: Jayakumar Sedhuraman

There is a new genre developing in Tamil cinema. It is usually done by independent studios as it deals with subjects no major production houses and directors would want to dip their hands in. It is called the Dalit cinema. It deals with primarily taboo issues that affect the Dalit community, Officially caste discrimination is supposed to have been eradicated from the day-to-day life of an average Indian from the early days of Indian Independence, but in reality, it is far from over.

I remember a staff nurse who was high-in-demand to assist in neurosurgical surgeries. Every time that medical centre had an emergency neurosurgical case, her assistance was sought. She was there in all such cases, nursing each patient back to health. Unfortunately, when the same nurse had a medical emergency, she had to be transferred to a public hospital due to the exorbitant cost involved in treating her there. 

The same thing happens in this story. Sorry, no glamour roles here and no drop-dead gorgeous actors here either. The story mainly revolves around the lives and times of a couple of cemetery menial workers who manage and do the final rites for the deceased. They sometimes have to transport and dispose of unclaimed bodies from a government health centre. They also act as caretakers of the crematorium there.

For them, it is more than just a job. It defined them. When nobody wants to deal with the stench and the unpleasantness, they have to weigh in between bearing the odour and surviving the hunger pangs. That thought alone gives them strength to transport the cadavers all the way to the cemetery on a push-cart.

Even at death, there is discrimination. When one of their own dies, the push-cart cannot be used, but instead, the next-of-kin has to carry the deceased on their back for miles to the burial site. Even the dais meant for cremation is reserved for the higher caste!

These messages are told poetically in two parallel narratives. One tells the tale of a hypocritical government doctor who openly claims to be colour-blind but has no qualms running down his colleagues from the oppressed caste as less qualified as they got their degrees through quota reservations. He is also quite open in stating that he does not want to get his hands dirty treating the Dalits.     

The other concurrent narration is a veiled attack on the Brahmins. A forest turns barren as it is occupied by only herbivorous deer. In wanting to return the green, the wise king got in some omnivorous animals into the jungle to reduce the deer population. With less deer population, trees grew back, restoring the wilderness to its former glory. Life is such. We need to have all kinds to keep it going.

Just by providing education to all, one cannot hope to end prejudices in society. Discrimination still rears its ugly head. Obviously, affirmative action does not benefit anybody. The disadvantaged majority has to seek life fulfilment elsewhere, and the target group will forever be thought of as intellectually challenged. 

The messages that the filmmaker is trying to put forward is not so 'in your face' but rather put subtly in long-shot takes. Posters and calendars depicting Ambedkar and Periyar and their quotations appear unapologetically. We also do not have to second guess where their political leanings lie. Again, posters of Karl Marx and Lenin will answer that. What else can it be when some crucial characters in the movie address each other as 'comrades'. Funny, when people have nothing, they want to be a communist. Conversely, when they have everything, communism and socialism are looked upon as scorn of society.  

(P.S. All these messages were told in a mere 1-hour presentation.)

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A Military Doctor, A Contradiction?

Doctor (டாக்டர், Tamil; 2021)
Story, Direction: Nelson Dilipkumar

At one look, it may look like a poorly made comedy with the protagonist appearing all sullen and grim, with a perpetual frown throughout the movie as if he holds all the world's problems upon his shoulders. And it is supposed to be a comedy of all things. On the other hand, the plot is about the hero rescuing his love interest's niece from abductors involved in an international child abduction racket! Quite a perplexing one is this dark comedy. It is, however, not short of one-liner punchlines. It conveys the message that we are all self-centred hedonists who are only interested in self-gratification and personal interest and see not beyond our immediate family members. Rules and regulations only apply to others. We are quick to close an eye and bend the rules when we are in the spotlight.

The movie starts with Dr Varun (Sivakarthigeyan), a military surgeon, deciding whether to operate on an Indian Army afflicted with near-fatal injury with dismal prognosis and a captured terrorist with a better outcome. Dr Varun chooses the latter. His rationale is that information from the terrorist would help to defeat the enemy. That is Dr Varun, the pragmatist who calls a spade a spade.

His very thing upsets his fiancée and calls off the whole wedding plan. She accuses him of being unromantic and unsympathetic. Dr Varun takes all this stoically. It is about that time that the finacée's niece is found missing, and the whole family goes into a tailspin. The police seem to be dragging their feet. The telephone tapping technologist that the police sent to their home is more interested in throwing his weight around than actually finding something. The local ruffians that the police rounded up appear clueless about the missing girl.

This is where our military doctor moves in, not as a knight in shining armour, swashbuckling style, but as a maverick strategist utilising his resources to recruit the local hoodlums, including the comical Yogi Babu, to mastermind the girl's return and dismantle an international network of child kidnappers.

Forget logic, indulge in the comedy and take in the message. 

Some professions need their practitioners to perform without fear or favour. They need to be fair, unwavered by emotions, but full of compassion. The controversies surrounding vaccine passport and accusation of the unvaccinated piggy-bagging on the herd immunity conferred by the vaccinated population makes us question whether this is fair. Knowing very well nothing is absolute in science, can the medical practitioners stay idle when the politicians and the Big Pharma go on churning out statistics to meet their agenda?.

An exciting combo - military doctor. An army person is just supposed to follow orders, not ask questions. A doctor is supposed to question, not take things at face value and hearsay. A doctor is supposed to investigate and make a decision. Conversely, the military does not need smart alecs; they want unquestioning loyal followers who hold the silence till the end. A military doctor, a contradiction?

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Of police brutality and power politics...

Jai Bhim (ஜெய்பீம், Tamil, 2021)

Director: T.J. Gnanavel

The Sivakumar family, by default, has come to be known as the first family of Kollywood. Of late, their production company has been churning out movies that dare to question the status quo in their state. With their clout and close association with the state's ruling party, DMK, they are often accused of pandering to the party's political agenda. Political analysts familiar with the Indian political scenarios are quick to highlight such glaring examples. (More of it later!)

The real Judge Chandru with his celluloid representation.

We have seen countless movies painting cops in a bad light, showcasing their inefficiencies and manipulative skills in 'fixing' cases. It is not all fiction. In fact, the truth is stranger than fiction. Ask Judge K. Chandru. He has thousands of such issues and more examples in his illustrious career. This movie is a dramatisation of one such case, which happened as late as 1993. Viewers who have seen this movie would agree that some of the scenes depicted in this film are pretty brutal, unbelievable that a human being, what more a public servant who promised to protect the nation, would resort to such inhumane form of torture on a fellow kind. Surprisingly, when K. Chandru was interviewed on a Youtube channel on this matter, he revealed that police brutality was even worse, much worse than was depicted on screen.

Parvathi (portrayed as Sengani), a woman
scorned by police brutality.

Judge Chandru, a Madras High Court judge, has the unenviable reputation of having presided over 96,000 verdicts in his career. On average, he would listen to 96 cases a day! As a lawyer, he worked on many human rights cases, fighting pro bono for the oppressed population.

Watching the film reminded me of the too many police lock-up custodial deaths that have happened in Malaysia. Much of the media hype surrounding many of these cases 'die' a natural death without anything concrete happening afterwards. The coroner here will accept the cause of death healthy male of early 30s as 'pulmonary oedema' as perfectly normal with no one kicking up dirt. Perhaps we need a firebrand lawyer like K Chandru here.

In 1993, a tribal lady was troubled after the police apprehended her husband and relatives for theft. They allegedly escaped detection and were at large. When she demanded to know what had happened to her husband, as she had witnessed him being tortured, she was given the run-around. No lawyers were willing to help her. Through the comrades of the Communist Party, she was introduced to lawyer Chandru. The lawyer petitioned for a habeas corpus writ at the courts.

As the story goes on, we can see how pressures from the top force the downline police officers to speed up the closure of cases by falsely fixing men from the tribal community. To get their conviction, the police beat them to pulp and creatively devised torture tactics to achieve their goals. Perhaps the mindset of the uniformed body is such that orders must be followed contributed to this. Blind obedience is expected from the subordinates, not the prick from their inner mind of mindfulness! The feudal mentality of subservience and not questioning the independence of the police need to be re-assessed.

There is no secret to K. Chandru's political leanings, even as a judge. He had been an active member of the Marxist Communist Party of India. After Kerala and West Bengal, Tamil Nadu has the most robust network of the communist movement. It shares a cordial relationship with the similarly atheist-minded DMK, which won the Tamil Nadu elections recently. With a name like Stalin, one cannot be faulted for assuming his political leanings.

This movie got a hail of praise from the Chief Minister, MK Stalin. Images of Karl Marx, Ambedkar and Periyar, and proud hoisting of 'hammer and sickle' red flags do not hide the ideology discussed in the film. If one were to scrutinise the story, there were some subtle changes in the name and caste of some characters. It may not be due to cinematographic licence, but perhaps to put forward some self-serving political agendas. The name of the brutal sub-inspector who led the brutality had been changed from Anthony (a Christian name) to Gurumurthy (suggestive of a Vanniyar caste), and the tribal group had been identified as Irular instead of Kurumbar. I wonder why?

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