RIFLE RANGE BOY

A Hidden Life (English/German;2019) Director: Terence Malick This is one of the movies that kept my eyes locked on the screen even after the credits rolled. It presents a long-lasting quandary about divinity and our purpose on Earth. Most movies that we see usually depict Germans as a whole of homogeneous block that unequivocally supports Hitler and what he was doing to uplift Germany from the clutches of hopelessness. For a change, the main character in this film actually stood against German nationalism in the Hitler style. A devout Christian and a conscientious objector to conscription into the Army, Franz Jägerstätter opposes Hitler's rhetoric of a superior race. In his everyday life, Franz is a simple farmer living happily on the hillside of Austrian country, minding his wife, three little daughters, and the unending farm work. So when he is called to serve the Army and state his allegiance to Hitler by instituting the Nazi Salute, he naturally refuses. Franz is arrested and i...

We were told to be ready for dinner by 6 p.m., so we had one and a half hours to kill before gathering at the lobby. My varsity mates and I, fourteen of us, on our regular bromance outing, had decided to embark on a six-day tour around Sri Lanka. Colombo was our last stop.                                       https://borderlessjournal.com/2025/01/14/not-quite-a-towering-inferno/ This work is licensed under a  Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License .

Spirited Away (2001) Written and Directed: Hayao Miyazaki All through our childhood, my sisters and I had been watching manga without manga was referred to as so. It was then just Japanese cartoon, with characters having big round eyes, cute demeanour and screechy loud voices. Later, Japanese cartoons developed into separate entities grew wings and started telling more mature stories and themes. The written graphic form became known as manga, and animated forms that appear in games and films are known as anime. I was recently introduced to Japan's eminent cult figure in the field of animation and direction, Hayao Miyazaki. His film ‘Spirited Away’ has been hailed as Japan's highest-grossing movie for 29 years. It also won the Oscar at the 2022 Best Animated Feature Film. BBC listed it in its 100 greatest films of the 21st century. Partnered with Disney, this film infiltrated the four corners of the globe. Thanks to the vibrant colours, creative storytelling, and interesting cha...

Oru Nodi (Tamil, One Second, 2024) Director: B Manivarman https://www.jiosaavn.com/album/oru-nodi/9-Xa0ZWs2NU_ Even though the trailer depicts MS Bhaskar, the bald character actor who had graced many blockbusters recently, it was all a business gimmick. He only appears for a short while, and his character is killed off quite early in the movie, but he is shown in brief flashbacks. The rest of the film is completed by newbies and unfamiliar faces. Nevertheless, they all did a decent job. The story, however, could have been made more interesting. At one juncture, I wondered why the police were flip-flopping between one case and another as if they knew they were inter-related.  To get the story straight, a forty-something lady shows up at a local police station to report her missing husband. Having watched so many police procedural dramas, one can guess what would follow. The lady is bombarded with wisecracks like he had run away from her torture or that he had gone on a drinking esca...

Awakening Bharat Mata: The Political Ideologies of the Indian Right By: Swapan Dasgupta (2019) History tells us of a time when Indian soft powers ruled beyond their lands. Indian (read Hindu) way of living was the only way to live to the East of the land irrigated by the Sindhu Saraswati river systems. The nearest advanced culture to them was the Persians. Now they had an issue pronouncing 'S'. They did not have 'S' in their spoken language but used 'H' in places occupied by 'S'. Hence, the people living around the Sindhu Valley became known as 'Hindus', and their way of living was Hindu. The perplexing thing is that from an era when the whole world was imitating their culture whilst the rest of the world was in the dark ages, at the time of its independence, it was a nation quite apologetic to its way of life and its history. What gave? Perhaps it was the repeated invasions and trans-generational traumas with a tinge of Stockholm Syndrome. Still...

Lucky Baskhar (Telugu; 2024) Director:  Venky Atluri There are different rules for other players. The rich have it good. The system ensures that they stay wealthy. Money begets money. The law provides that the bulk of wealth remains within the confines of those with them. There are different rules for other players. The rich have it good. The system ensures that they stay wealthy. Money begets money. The law provides that the bulk of wealth remains within the confines of those who possess it. T he legal system makes justice swifter for all the money that can be bought. The middle class stays put in a self-imposed restrictive loop. The middle class is trapped in a cocoon by concocting rules of morality as well as divine and social justice. Grabbing an obscene wealth escapes them and can only be an unattainable dream.  The middle class is often used as a scapegoat to show society that the system is fair. By periodically using them as sacrificial lambs, society sets an example t...

About Elly (Iranian; 2009) Director: Asghar Farhadi Sometimes, we think a white lie would not hurt. Along with the lie, we squeeze in a little mischief. We justify our lying by convincing ourselves that it is all good in the grander scheme of things. Little do realise of its repercussions. To cover the embarrassment of one's untruth being discovered and maybe to uphold the white lie, there is a need for more untruths. The trouble with truth is that it has a funny way of showing up at all the wrong times. The lattice of lies will eventually crumble. Unless the individual has perfected the art of the sleigh of hands, the bluff will fall flat. To add insult to injury, God forbid if anything untoward happened, all the blame would fall squarely on the person who initiated the white lie and the good intentions! This is precisely what happens in this story. Old classmates, three couples with their kids and another divorced classmate decided to spend a few days by the beach. Sepideh, who o...