People just want to live!

Cabrini (Italian/English, 2024)

Director: Alejandro Gómez Monteverde

After their exposè of transborder abduction of minors to satisfy the sexual needs of the deviant in 'Sound of Freedom' and hitting a runaway success at the box office, Angel Studio tries their hand at distributing a film that tries to highlight the bad treatment of early Italian immigrants at the end of the 19th century and early 20th century to the USA.

The expansion of white Americans southward and westward opened the door to an influx of economic immigrants from Europe. The potato famine sent the Irish there, and abject poverty brought Italians and Jews to escape persecution. There was plenty of menial work to be done that the locals found too dirty, dangerous and demeaning to do. Immigrants filled the gap willingly. The Americans were not welcoming of them, however. Shoving them to the most unflattering part of New York, infested with rats, crime and disease, they had to live like rats. Healthcare was poor, social amenities were dismal, pimping was rampant and in short, there was general lawlessness.

Against this background, a troublemaker Roman Catholic nun was sent to care for the poor Italian migrants in New York. The nun, Frances Maria Cabrini, and her sisters arrive in New York and find themselves in the dirty streets of Point Five. Amidst the non-cooperation of the Diocese and the Mayor, Cabrini, with her fighting spirit, despite her failing health due to past TB, starts an orphanage. The powers that be were not so excited that a woman could do so much and for, in their eyes, vermins of society. She got eviction notices and fines from the city council.

Through the help of the press, she acquired donations to purchase a piece of property, which she turned into an orphanage. She and her team soon set up a private hospital to earn money to subside the poor immigrants. Her chain of hospitals grew and had many branches worldwide.

There is a lesson for us all to learn. Recently, many videos have emerged on social media of self-appointed vigilantès who pounce on foreigners in Malaysia who set up shops, ride around without valid driving licences, or extend their premises illegally. These foreigners comprise refugees with UNHCR cards, foreign workers who overstayed their visas, and runaway workers.

Vigilantes showing foreign businesses

In the video, the vloggers quickly pass disparaging remarks about their living conditions and choice of food. In the vigilantes' eyes, the guest workers should be subservient to the locals, not independent, earning lots of money, perhaps more than the locals. The vloggers would feel unhappy that the guests bring their cultures and practices into the country, akin to polluting the Malaysian culture (sic.)

The vloggers should hear themselves speak. It sounds so ridiculous. A person in the prime of his (or her) youth is bound to have surmount of plans for his future. He would want to be a notch higher than his parents, maybe two. The desire of the human mind has no boundaries. Wealth is often used as the yardstick of success. If one does not seek wealth in his youth, when else? If his living conditions in his country are not conducive, the only logical thing to do, as generations before us did, is to migrate, looking for safer and greener pastures. The immigrants are there to do work that the locals feel is beneath them, which is demeaning and a side effect of the prospering society.

Aren't we all, the citizens of the world, all migrants, anyway? From the first hominid who walked out of the Savanah for food, we are all emigres. Some flee from famine, others for opportunities, and to escape persecution, we move. The world is for everyone. Borders are artificial demarcations, not cast in stone but in our minds.

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Unconventional Investigative Methods?

Vina - Sebelum 7 Hari. (Indonesian, 2024)
Director: Anggy Umbara

Thanks to Saravanan Decodes, my latest indulgence, for highlighting many solved and unsolved mysteries worldwide. He has 700-over YouTube presentations of some of the most puzzling and heinous murders and tries to decode them.

Two exciting cases piqued my interest. It was in how these seemingly dead-ended cases saw living daylight through unconventional methods.

The first case happened in Cirebon, West Java. A 16-year-old Vina Dewi Arsita, a student, was reported to have died after getting involved in a road traffic accident while travelling with her boyfriend, Edy, in the thick of the night in 2016. The death certificate was released as death due to Motor Vehicle Accident. There were some uncertainties about whether police did not come forward with more information about the ongoing investigations or whether their investigation was shoddy. Her boyfriend, too, perished in the accident. Burial was done.

On the seventh day of her death, Vina's best friend, Linda, was possessed by Vina's spirit, who narrated minute to minute account of what Vina endured before her death. In the local populace, it is believed that a dead person's spirit hovers around their neighbourhood before departing for good. Vina's admirer, Eky, who had made bold advances towards her, was once spat upon and humiliated by Vina. Eky was a member of a motorcycle chain gang. Keeping a grudge against her actions, Eky, with his ten other friends, confronted Edy and Vina, ramped them down, ran their machines over Vina's limbs, gang-raped her and left her to die.

This news soon became viral, and sympathetic netizens launched an awareness campaign. The police had no choice but to re-investigate. New investigative papers were opened. Rape was confirmed, and eight of the eleven perpetrators were apprehended, charged and convicted. They confessed to their crimes. Astonishingly, their account of what happened corresponded precisely to what was told by Vina's spirit. Eky and two others are still at large. A point to note is that Eky's father is a police officer.

Saravanan Decodes

People wonder whether its investigation was manipulated or whether justice can still be served after so many years.

The second bizarre case happened in a village near Agra, India, in 1988. A 4-year-old Toran Singh (@Titu) was born into a poor family of six children. Titu was a precocious child who started speaking at the age of 18 months. By 4, he started talking about his wealthy family, which he was born into, and the roaring electrical business he ran in Agra. And he said his name was Suresh Verma.

Out of curiosity, his elder brother checked out his assertions. It was all true. Titu even recognised his widowed wife of his last birth. Suresh Verma indeed had a radio business and was killed by foes. He was shot in his head. Due to a lack of evidence, the case stalled. Police were called in. 

Titu ( Toran Singh)

Curiously, Titu could narrate all the intimate details of the murder that only the victim could tell and that the police did not reveal for public consumption. Titu identified his shooter, who confessed to the police later. The killer was later charged and sentenced. Titu had a birthmark on his scalp, which corresponded to the area where Suresh Verma was shot.

Toran Singh went on to lead a quiet life away from media scrutiny. He is reportedly an assistant professor of naturopathy and yoga therapy at Benares Hindu University in Varanasi.

Even though the methods employed to investigate these cases will not stand alone if challenged in a court of law, they can nevertheless be helpful as part of the police armamentarium to cow the perpetrator into submission.

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Above all, think!

 Maharaj (Hindi; 2024)
Director: Siddharth P. Malhotra

There was no big hoopla to announce the arrival of one of Bollywood star's son, Aamir Khan's Junaid Khan, to the silver screen. The film, however, had to be cleared by the courts for allegedly hurting Hindu sentiments before making a quiet screening on Netflix. From the get-go, people started demonstrating in front of Netflix HQ in the USA, accusing them of defaming Lord Krishna. Many of the demonstrators had not even viewed the show. Still, they demonstrated anyway, seeing the OTT platform, as in previous instances, had repeatedly been releasing movies that tend to ridicule or put Sanatha Dharma in a bad light. In their eyes, Hindus were like dodos, easy prey for target practice. For instance, no one would dare make a movie that even gives a hint of ridicule or as much questions Islamic figures or practices using modern-day yardstick. It is an unwritten rule that Islamic bodies had to give their nod before such a story hits the filming process. 

The whole story is based on an 1862 Bombay High Court case. In this case, a social reformer and journalist, Karsandas Mulji, and Nanabhai Rustomji Ranina, a newspaperman, were served a libel suit by Jadunathjer Barjratanjee Maharaj. The Maharaj alleges that the duo defamed himself and his religious practice and brought shame to the age-old religious practices of his Hindu sect, the Pushimarg of Vallabha Sampradaya. 

Vallabha set up the sect in the 1600s when he had a vision he was a reincarnation of Krishna. He set up a centre that grew big thanks to the contributions of various business communities and Vaishvanite Hindus. After Vallabha's demise, his descendants took over. The heir would be known as Maharaj. Karnadas' assertion was that the sect had deviated from traditional Vedic teaching. Its leader had abused his position by getting sexual favours from his devotees. 

The court case exposed the ignorance of his devotees. Many could not tell whether Maharaj was a guru (guide) or God himself. They blindly followed the herd in the name of devotion and service to the Almighty. This included sending their wives and teenage daughters for Maharaj's sexual gratification. It was also revealed that the guru was afflicted with syphilis. 

The case was presided over by two judges. Chief Justice Matthew Sausse, the senior of the two, overruled the other's decision to find Karsandas guilty of libel as private matters need not be publicised in public space and fined him 5 rupees. On the other hand, he affirmed that the sect was heterodox and deviant. Its songs in praise of Krishna, sung by young girls, were construed as amorous and sung by 16,000 gopis. Karsandas Mulji was awarded cost. 

This trial was a watershed case for India's social reforms and press freedom. 

Karsandas Mulji

The movie takes the liberty to masalafy the background of Karsandas, giving him a youthful look with a modern haircut. The level of drama is hyped with a dance number, a holi celebration with Karsandas love interest herself falling prey to the list of Maharaj. Melodrama reaches a point of no return when his lover subsequently commits suicide after Karsandas annulled their engagement after her seemingly wilful act of sex with the Maharaj in the name of divine service. 

This is not a documentary film. Hence, there was a need to spice up the characters and glamourise the narrative here and there. 

Yes, Modi had been reported to have sung praises of Mulji for his work in his newspaper, Satya Prakash, and his advocacy of women's rights and social reforms, particularly widow remarriage and the rights of the oppressed. So, people were surprised when a movie about him landed the producers in the courts. 

More than one and a half centuries after the trial, we find ourselves in the same boat as the members of the Pustimarg sect. We are easily cowed into submission when the name of the Divine is mentioned. It has become a dog whistle for the believers to toe the line. Questions cannot be raised as they are considered heretical. Just following, not asking questions, is the way to go. Like the children of Hamelin, we seem to be intoxicated to the tune of the Piped Piper's flute. 

https://enfolding.org/krishna-in-the-dock-the-1862-maharaja-libel-case-and-its-consequences-i/

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Caste, not race?

Origin (2023)
Director: Ava Duverney

(Based on the book, 'Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents' by Isabel Wilkerson)

It is an interesting way of looking at all the problems affecting the world today. It is blamed on caste segregation. Traditionally, we think of caste as a problem only affecting India. And Indians believe it is a system brought in by colonial masters and divided the nation to ease control. The stifling of one layer of society over the other is not just based on the colour of their skin. It is something beyond. The group at the top end of the food chain would want to maintain the status quo and keep the people beneath them forever squashed.

The writer, Isabel Wilkerson, a Pulitzer Prize winner, compared situations in three scenarios. 

She looked at the black situation in America, where blacks are stereotyped as troublemakers, poor, unemployed, unemployable and criminals. The system reinforces this stereotype upon them to a level that even the blacks buy into the trope. The blacks become apologetic about how they are and make amends to be 'liked' by the oppressors, i.e. the white Americans. 

The truth of the matter is that the white men brought them as slaves from Africa. Everything was alright when they were the masters and the blacks their slaves. Things became complicated when emancipation happened. The whites made it a point to retain themselves in the highest perch of the food chain. They suppressed the blacks through the preservation of the white gene pool via marriage laws, housing restrictions and educational opportunities. This continued until they occupied the unsavoury aspects of the country's statistics. Stories of police brutality, George Floyd and Trayvon Martin have become a recurrent theme.

It is not the colour of the skin of the other that matters. Look at post-WWI Germany. The wisdom of the Nazi Party thought the Jews should be made the bogeymen to make their country rise from the ashes of the First World War. Propaganda after propaganda of the Nazis made Jews the scorn of the country. Jews were identified, tagged, marked, quarantined, cursed and finally sent to incinerators, all under the law of the land.

The author then travelled to India to see how caste discrimination affects the Dalit community. Accompanied by a Dalit academician, she is told how the elitist and the ruling class suppress the Dalit community from succeeding in life. The film goes on to show how members of the low rung of society are oppressed and confined to performing menial chores that nobody wants to do. Ambedkar is featured here as the living of someone who went on to obtain a double PhD despite all the odds that worked against him to keep him down. The manner in which his society had reservations about sharing, even drinking water, even as a Government official, is stressed too. A statue of Ambedkar in Delhi is shown to be placed in a cage because the statue is constantly vandalised, suggesting to the viewers that the general public hates revering a Dalit figure even though he helped to draft the Indian Constitution. Is that the hint?

The presentation conveniently failed to inform the high number of high-performing students who could not secure a place in the local universities, all because of caste quota. To continue studying, these students and their parents must fork out high sums of money to get foreign education and possibly foreign employment. India's loss is the rest of the world's gain.

The film tries to simplify everything. The innate desire for one person to dominate over the other is inherent in all of us. It does not depend on race or ethnicity. People will find reasons to suppress others with made-up reasons. This probably goes well with critical race theorists who insist that racism is inherent in the legal institution to create and maintain social, economic, and political inequalities between whites and nonwhites, especially African Americans.

Wilkerson looks at black suppression not as a race issue but as a caste suppression. A group of people, in the USA's case, it is the Hispanics and the Blacks, are put at the bottom of the hierarchical 'caste system' through generations of oppressive laws.

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A twister!

Maharaja (2024, Tamil)
Director: Nithilan Swaminathan

If you are fed up watching the same old-time-tested formulaic Indian movies, this one is for you. The story starts as a comedy, but as it goes on, the storyline gets twisted. 

Just when you think you know how the story will go, it takes a tangent and yet another. And it goes on and on until it ends with a final twister. 

Maharaja, a mild-mannered barber, leads a simple life with his wife and a little daughter. Right in front of his eyes, he sees a lorry, with its driver obviously off its rails, crashing into his house, killing his wife instantaneously. His ‘daughter’ is miraculously saved by a metal dustbin. 

Maharajah continues life as a widower and a doting father. One day, his house is broken into, and the metal dustbin that saved his ‘daughter’ goes missing. Maharaja makes a police report. 

What happened afterwards is a series of flashbacks, parallel storytelling, police brutality, and police power abuse that all lead to good old storytelling and a satisfying end to a twisted comedic thriller, if there is such a genre. 

Spoiler alert: Maybe there is no such thing as a selfish gene. A person does not feel a buzz upon seeing someone with the shared DNA wronged. The skin does not quiver when a sibling is beaten up. If not, we would not have sibling rivalry. Neither would we have incest, postpartum violence or mass suicide of families. Empathy and caring are learned experiences. We all feel for our age-old friends and buddies in a closed community without sharing common DNA. Sharing Lucy’s ancient DNA does not count as a common ancestry, as perhaps all of mankind carries it. 

On a sobering note, we can see how creative some netizens can be. The main character in Maharaja, Vijay Sethupathi, in his 50th film appearance, is spotted with a bandaged left ear. As if like a fortunate stroke of serendipity (for the internet trolls, at least), on a platter, the news of Trump being shot in the ear became viral. Leave it to the ingenuity of the human mind, and the world has a picture of Vijay Sethupathi and Trump on the same poster as if promoting the film! 

In case viewers are wondering about the role of the snake in this movie. Fret no more. Snakes are notoriously known for not recognising their offspring and eating their own eggs. Helpful to understand the ending. In a world that sees mothers rushing helplessly into burning buildings, we also have mothers who feed their cubs to the wolves!

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At 6am, 6th June!

The First Omen (2024)
Director: Arkasha Robertson

Recently, I heard about a mysterious case of a missing teenager in Rome, Italy. She was 16 in 1983 when she was allegedly abducted. Her father was an administrative staff member in Vatican City. 40 years into her disappearance, the Italian Police never found her. Along the way, there were allegations of abduction by international terrorists, murder by serial killers and many more. Pope John Paul II was also heard to have appealed to the perpetrators to no avail. The Holy See was not spared of accusations. Conspiracy Theorists accused a convoluted union of the mob and the Papacy, a collusion between the Italian Police and the Vatican, as well as the possibility of an unmarked grave in the Vatican.

It is not the best of times for the Roman Catholic Church (RCC). At a time when many from the developed world had strayed away from Catholicism, stories of deviance and malfeasance spread quickly like wildflowers. 

This movie is set at a time when the RCC was losing its fervour. In 1971, a young nun-in-making, Margaret Daino, arrives in Rome to work in an orphanage. Margaret observes many strange things happening in the place. Many odd characters, such as senior clergy, use unconventional methods to run the institution. Margaret herself had a checkered past as a young American, moving from foster homes to foster homes and having visual hallucinations. 

Margaret discovers that certain clergy members tried to reignite people's attraction to Christianity. How they chose to do it was twisted. They invoked Satan to be born as an anti-Christ here on Earth to create mayhem so that people would once again go to the Church and God for help. Little does Margaret know she was the vessel to bear this devilish child.

The movie is actually the prequel to the 1976 blockbuster The Omen, which told the story of the US Ambassador's wife who delivered a stillbirth. A baby boy was swapped in the place of the stillbirth without the knowledge of the mother. The swapped baby turned out to be the anti-Christ. The child, Damian, went on a killing spree, killing his parents, abetted by his disguised nanny.

In terms of horror and suspense, the 1976 version is far superior to the latest offering from the Omen franchise. Despite what IMDB may say about 'The Omen' being banned in Malaysia, I distinctly remember seeing its posters around Penang in my teenage years. 

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