Don't fight fire with fire!

The Power of the Dog (2021)
Director: Jane Campion

King David, of the David and Goliath fame, went through troubles after troubles in his kingdom. He prayed to God. In the Book Psalm 22:20, it is said that King David had requested God to 'Deliver my soul from the sword; my darling from the power of the dog.'

'The power of the dogs', which the title refers to, is probably referring to the herd mentality of the mob that is out to humiliate, denigrate and decimate those who do not fall within the standard narrative. These dogs hide their deficiencies behind the strength of the pack. They may doubt their own convictions, but they know cognitive dissonance is too overwhelming. Hence, they just join in the barking match.

The best way for the abused to fight the crushing power of the dogs, as suggested by the movie, is to stand tall against the pack. There is no point in clashing head-on against this unruly band but to win them over with wit, on the sly.

The message behind this story is cryptic and requires higher-level understanding to appreciate the hidden subliminal messages. One who watches it at face value may not understand why this film is hailed as a top contender for the Oscars this year. Of course, the fact that homosexuality as a suggested theme did help. 

In summary, it is a story set in the 1920 mid-west where two brothers, George and Phil, work as wealthy ranchers. George meets and marries a widow, Rose, with an effeminate medical student son, Peter. Phil tries to exude his toxic masculinity. Peter is the butt of everybody's joke for his unmanly ways. The rest of the story is about how Peter and Phil find common grounds, and peace is maintained, albeit in devious ways.

The hidden message behind all these is there for our taking. In the ever increasingly hostile environment that we exist today, it is an exercise in futility for us to clash head-on with the correspondingly minds with mob mentality. For every reason that we state our case, they would do bulldoze with a bull in the china shop demeanour; resist and resist with dimwitted mind-boggling excuses. We should be action-orientated, focusing on the matter at hand and ignoring all the white noise. Be like the Jews or the Orientals. Despite adversities that befell them throughout history, the Jews stood steadfast against everything and came to rule the world. The Orientals, despite the slurs, abuses and bullying all through modern history, marked their dominance everywhere they went. Now, they are giving the colonial master a run for their money. It may not be the means, but the end results sometimes matter more.

(P.S. It may not be a gay movie like it is commonly perceived. It does not tread along the lines of 'Brokeback Mountain'.)

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All I can do is dream?

Exit (엑시트, Korean; 2019)
Director: Lee Sang-geun

Every time I see Koreans in action, be it in sports, movies or showcasing yet another new car, I get depressed. Koreans used to be our whipping boys in the Merdeka Tournament but look at them now, playing the same level of football with the big boys now. Kia started making automobiles in baby steps about the same time as us, but now, Korean cars are making Japanese cars sweat. Ours, on the other hand, is a national embarrassment.

With the innovation of P Ramlee and his friends at Jalan Ampas studio, they churned out hits after hits and even won cinematic awards at the Asian level. But now, all we can do is reminisce, brood about lost opportunities and imagine a country that we could have been.

Twenty years' master plan to learn, copy and innovate storytelling and moviemaking now sees Korean cinema and miniseries sweeping the world by storm. Korean culture is no longer alien to the people the world over. 

This movie is living proof of what the Koreans have achieved while we were napping, dreaming about Vision 2020 and Malay Supremacy. 'Exit' is a disaster film infused with traditional Asian family dynamics, light comedy, love interests and excellent computer graphic imaging. Just when I thought that disaster in movies would just mean run and run, here they have become imaginative. The storytellers have introduced rock climbing as a way to escape rising toxic fumes.

Yong-nam gets no respect. As far as his family is concerned, he is a loser. Even his nephew, an early teenager, does not think much of him. He is labelled a failure with no permanent job, not on his path to success any time soon, and no girlfriend to show around. He only has his rock-climbing skills to show.

The turning point comes during his mother's 70th birthday party. The girl he fancies works as a captain at the restaurant the party is held. A disillusioned scientist releases a toxic gas near the vicinity, and mayhem ensues. Everybody has to make it to the top of the buildings to be rescued by rescue helicopters. As the exit to the top is locked from the outside, our hero has to get his rock-climbing skills to good use. Of course, things get complicated, and our hero and the love of his life go through a whirlwind of adventures to win the day.

The way how emergency services are seen to be devised to combat disaster gave me another low. It reminded me how dismally our emergency disasters relief plans were executed during the recent Shah Alam and Hulu Langat floods. People were left to fend for themselves whilst leaders made cursory publicity visits. It was as if there were no contingency plans for emergencies. Surprisingly, when citizens wanted to vent their dissatisfaction over the case of the fox guarding the chicken coop, i.e. the Anti-Corruption Commission's alleged corruption, the whole civil service was at German precision to squash demonstrations with anti-riot gear and even court orders to make it illegal.

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The murmurs beneath the 'Land Below the Wind'!

Mission Sabah: The Manhunt
V.G. Kumar Das

It used to be that Sabah was one of Malaysia's high income earning states. In the late 60s, Sabah was poised to go places. Then the vultures moved in .....

First, they reaped the land of its natural resources. Then they divided the lands and sealed their dominance through the ballot box. Readers well-versed with Malaysian history of the early 1980s would be familiar with project IC where citizenships were given away like M&M's to 'eligible' subjects. Thousands of Filipina boat people flocked to the shores of Sabah to be counted. The project was deemed a whopping success with the favourable state election results (to the national ruling party) that ensued. Nobody actually wondered why most congregations of Pakistanis in the country are centred in Sabah - as if there was a mass trans-subcontinental migration of Pakistan êmigrês is in the 80s. Blame it all on project IC!

Not to forget the moral and economic support of Islamic freedom fighters of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front that Malaysia gave in the name of the brotherhood of Islam. Now the dog is coming back to bite the hand that fed. Descendants of some of our leaders who still continue their traditional family business find Sabah a lucrative spot. Blessed with aquatic beauty, it lured in an array of tourists with fat bank accounts back home. Every time the pirates of the coasts of Sabah were low in cash, all they had to do was start their engines, head towards these tourists spots and catch a few hostages for ransom. Like clockwork, it worked every time.

It is helpful when the coastline is long and is manned by incompetent servicemen equipped with outdated weapons. Their replacement weapons had been approved, but somehow they landed elsewhere, perhaps outside the country, thanks to interference from the top echelon.

The watering down of news from this end of the country came in handy as well. In the recent Lahad Datu stand-off, the powers-that-be managed to paint a rosy picture of the incursion for a good one month before busybody foreign media spilt the beans.

Prof. Emeritus Dato’ Dr V.G. Kumar Das

With this background and the restrictive discomfort of the pandemic lockdown, Prof VG Kumar Dass' creative juices must have flowed in abundance to create this fiction. With the worldwide spread of radical Islam and Salafism, the secluded position of the State, and the dubious infamy that Malaysia is attracting as a transit point for jihadists, the author picked Sabah as a setting for a high-octane paced police thriller.

A spate of violence in the capital alerted the police intelligence (this appear as an oxymoron, probably because of its lack of independence) to zero in on Sabah. They stumble upon a jihadist training camp. ASP Zain of the counter-terrorist and seven-member elite commando team spring into action, with the help of the state-of-the-art telecommunication interfering devices to infiltrate and cripple their devious and megalomaniac plans of absolute anarchy.

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Complications when the dead returns!

Manifest (Seasons 1-3; 2018 - 2021)

What happens when a flight disappears from the radar one day and lands at its destination some five and a half years later? A whole lot of questions naturally crops up. Tonnes of conspiracy theories spring from nothing, and the governmental agencies will jump into action trying to put a plausible validation to the whole speculation. The most unsettling part of the entire fiasco would be the relatives, who, after months if not years of trying to get over the presumed death of their loved one and putting their past behind. Imagine trying to place them back in their new lives!

The puzzling (maybe not if one understands time travel) is that the plane passengers did not age a day older, even five years later, further complicating the hullabaloo. One twin was stuck as a preteen in this miniseries, while the other blossomed into the hormone-raged teenager. On a happy note, the preteen was sick with cancer when he started, but afterwards, he had five years of medical advancement to fight cancer.

This addictive miniseries tries to explain the sudden disappearance of a commercial flight from Jamaica to New York. As the passenger are all connected with flashes of vision that coax them, especially the protagonist, Michaela Stone; an NYPD cop, her brother, a mathematics professor; his son and occasionally others as well, they try to prevent wrongdoings. Hot on their trails is NSA and the US Army to exploit their powers. 

After three seasons on NBC, its popularity waned, but it started a cult following after screening on Netflix. Works on the fourth season are in progress.

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Nothing is sacrosanct!

Gehraiyaan (Depths, Hindi; 2022)

Director: Shakun Batra

The democratisation of movie-making has led to this - an Indian fairy tale movie made in the vein of a soft porn Western movie just to lure in India's Anglophile liberal English movie-going viewers. The only thing remotely linked to Indianness is the spoken language; otherwise, it is just like any garbage churned out of the factories in Hollywood, sex, lies, murder, and obnoxious flaunting of wealth. 

The following are the few lessons I leant from this movie:

• It is perfectly alright to have sex with your best friend's boyfriend without having a second thought or an iota of guilt;
• It appears to me that wealth is the justification for everything. After all, living life is for the experience. Doing the morally right thing does not fall anywhere near the equation;
• Two-timing is perfectly within your rights;
• Consuming alcohol is your birthright; indulge even when you are pregnant;
• DIY abortion is a no brainer; perform it in your bathroom; 
• Murder your lover and keep mum about it; you can get away from it!
• Be opinionated about everything and do not forget to blame all your follies on your parents. After all, they know nothing;
• Scold your live-in boyfriend for everything. He is your punching bag. You can scold, abuse or even an occasional whack; he would not retaliate because it is not cool for a dude to lay his finger on his beau. His toxicity just would not be justifiable.
• A live-in relationship is a perfectly acceptable living arrangement for an Indian couple, approved by their old folks.
• Treat your family like trash but do not forget your civil duties. Taking out the garbage is the most socially conscious duty one needs to perform.

Soon spaghetti tops and hot pants would be the national
 costume of the Indian diaspora, much like is what is
viewed as progressive in most metropolitan cities.

A struggling yoga instructor, Alisha, has just had it with life. Her procrastinating boyfriend, Karan, is dragging with his book venture, and the app that she is developing has not found investors. At that juncture, he hooks up with her childhood friend, Tia, and her obscenely wealthy fiance, Zain. Alisha has a dark cloud hanging over her. Her mother had hung herself, and Alisha blames her father for it. Alisha finds Zain a convenient catch who would help her find happiness. Things take a turn when a glitch with money happens.

Watch it just for the hoopla surrounding it. If you are pressed for time, watch something else. Precious time is better spent elsewhere. 

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So much for 'rule of law'!

420 IPC (Hindi; 2021)

Director: Manish Gupta

So that is how it is. Everybody claims to be adhering to the rule of law. For a simpleton like me, that sounds like sound advice. The law is there to protect the little people against the tyranny of the deep-pocketed. I was nurtured to believe that the Truth will always prevail in the end. Lady Justice is supposedly blind to coercion, they say. As I grew older, I realised that all these are just bunkum. 

The people who frequently invoke the phrases 'rule of law' and 'by the book' do not mean what they say. What they actually mean is that they have masterminded the nooks, corners and loopholes in the legal system that they can literally get away with murder. They can legitimately proclaim that they can legally needle themselves away from being caught in a comprising position. They have got all their sides, frontal and posterior, all concealed.

When and if ever they are queried, they have the fortitude to use the same law used to persecute them to shield themselves instead. No matter how hard truth tries to prevail, nothing can challenge the best brain that wealth can purchase. The way law can be interpreted as much as the defender can afford to pay. Top dollars can buy top lawyers. 

Law is written, and its execution is as good as the words and nuances it is written. Words can be manipulated. The first teachers of this art were the sophists. Greek philosophers like Socrates and Plato did not have any nice things to say about them. They were viewed as prostituting themselves by selling the art of speaking and providing wisdom to convince the impossible. They must be the first to have sold ice to the Eskimos.  

This is an engaging film about a seemingly small-scaled chartered accountant, Bansi Keswani, who is initially arrested when his client is caught for money laundering. He is discharged, but Bansi is re-arrested for stealing some cheques two months later. This time around, he has to face the whole brunt of the law. Why would an intelligent accountant do something so amateurish like stealing cheques and falsifying the issuer's signature in such a novice way? The defence digs deep into his sleeves and all roads plainly seem to lead Bansi to a lengthy jail term.

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The unseen non-medical effects of lockdown?

Unpaused (Anthology of 5 episodes, Hindi; 2020)
Unpaused: Naya Safar (5 episodes; 2021)

As the numbers of Omicron variant cases continue to rise, allegedly after a large congregation of unvaccinated pilgrims made it all the way to the Holy Land, now is an opportune time to reminisce the good old days when a virus from Wuhan labs jumped ship and affected humans. It is mind-boggling to fathom how much this pandemic had jolted the core of our existence.

It goes without saying that the pandemic has affected everyone in so many ways. Economically, it affected all, predominantly those on the lower rung of the food chain. Interestingly, the ten of the richest globally has doubled their wealth at the end of the second wave.

Inconspicuously, Covid infection started as a concern only for the affluent and frequent flyers as they picked the bug after globetrotting. The poor were not so concerned then. Soon, the tables turned. Living in a restricted living space and close proximity between family members made the poor more vulnerable and even outcasts when society started combating the disease.

What is often forgotten in the equation is the psychological component of this whole calamity. In years to come, the full extent of the post-traumatic stress of being cooped indoors, studying online for two years, non-attendance of familial functions and spending hours gazing at a blue screen will come to the fore.

These two anthology types of miniseries explore many of the stresses people endured in the past two waves of the pandemic. Many of the stories are so surreal and plucks the strings of the viewers' hearts. We stop complaining about our shoes when we see someone with no legs.

In the first season of Unpaused, the episode that piqued my interest was the one called 'Glitch'. In a futuristic universe, Covid has mutated so many times. The world is divided into two types of people - the 'hypos', short for hypochondriacs who simply live an isolated life with a morbid phobia of coming in contact with humans and the 'warriors', who are scientists and frontliners who fight hard to annihilate the virus. It is no more Covid-19; it is Covid-30 in the year 2030. Years of isolation have drained people of interactive social skills, and they have to depend on computer programmes to hook people up. A glitch in the systems meets two people' virtually' in a chat room. The problem is that one is a hypo and the other a warrior. The warrior in real life is a mute scientist. After an initial stormy hook-up, love transcended all differences. The hypo learns sign language and overcomes his germophobia tendencies.

In the second season, two of its episodes were, I thought they were very well made. In 'War Room', a quiet school teacher was assigned to help out at a hotline centre to arrange ICU beds for Covid patients. She carries the burden of the death of her teenage son on her sleeve. He had apparently committed suicide. Legal proceedings were ongoing as she tried to sue his college principal for negligence as the school did not arrange for medical assistance in time to save him. Despite the overhanging sorrow over her head, the teacher hoped to serve society to pay her dues. Fate plays its twisted humour when she gets into a position to deny a bed for the said principal when his son called in requesting an ICU bed. The rest of the story is about she deals with this moral dilemma.

'Vaikunth' (Heaven) is another exciting episode with a compelling storyline. A crematorium worker has his hands full as the number of Covid deaths increases during the second wave. He is a single parent, and his father is admitted for Covid. He also has a young son whom he is trying desperately to educate. He thinks he is doing excellent service to mankind by diligently handling the extra bodies to cremate. Unfortunately, his landlord and his neighbours believe otherwise. They are not comfortable with his close link to Covid, attending to Covid death and his father being Covid+. Nobody is willing to care for his son temporarily; hence, both stay on the crematorium premises. Meanwhile, there is no avenue available to find out whatever happened to his father. He is a 'frontliner', braving himself against the unseen enemy, but nobody actually gives him a second look. 

There are more things to appreciate than the story itself in these two and other episodes. The subtle inclusion of motifs (like the fire in Vaikunth - fire to cremate at the end of life, fire to light the stove for sustenance, and fire to light a cigarette to enjoy life) and the excellent cinematography. The episode ends with a poetic message about how the ashes from the burnt bodies are used to fertilise the rice fields to germinate new seeds, completing the circle of life from ashes to ashes. 

Hope is the thing with feathers/ That perches in the soul…." Emily Dickinson

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