Farouk Gulsara's Blog, page 114
January 23, 2019
Why we take pictures?
Shirkers (2018)
Producer and Director: Sandi Tan
Imagine our life is like a giant boulder rolling down slowly the street without stopping. All along its path, it would be collecting grime and shedding filth at the same time. Some of the dirt that it picks up sticks for a good while others may leave as quickly as it is get attached. In our passage of life, every encounter is an event. Some contacts stay to build an everlasting bond and others may just be mere passing memories. Sometimes, we cling on to these flitting moments. We yearn to relive those moments as we feel we could have achieved more if we had followed a different trajectory or at least gasped to that speckle a little longer.
That must be the reason why old photographs and footages evoke the kind of emotion that questions our existence. Spiralling our memories to a specific time and space could stir the avalanche of sensation that could make us wonder if our lives would have different if we had taken a different path.
This documentary made by a Singaporean is a trip down memory lane of sorts. Three teenage girls got together with a filmmaker teacher to make a simple movie depicting the ordinary lives of people around the streets of Singapore. In spite of the teacher’s promise to do the post-production finishing touches on it and its subsequent release, it never came to fruition. The teacher went missing.
20 years on, after sailing the rough seas of life, the brain behind the venture, Sandi, decide to delve into this missing time capsule; especially after receiving an email from the teacher’s ex-wife from another corner of the world to take reels of film that belonged to Sandi as she was about to dispose of them. This journey into exorcising the ghost had haunted her whole life also opened the can of worms that covered her teacher’s colourful life.
An exciting watch from our southern neighbours. It managed to snatch many international accolades.
Point to ponder: We all agree that we capture that special moment for us to savour on in our lives. But surely, clicking at every angle and being the centre of every picture is not normal. We should appreciate the beauty of a natural landscape, not be the main subject every time while the landscape as the backdrop always.
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Imagine our life is like a giant boulder rolling down slowly the street without stopping. All along its path, it would be collecting grime and shedding filth at the same time. Some of the dirt that it picks up sticks for a good while others may leave as quickly as it is get attached. In our passage of life, every encounter is an event. Some contacts stay to build an everlasting bond and others may just be mere passing memories. Sometimes, we cling on to these flitting moments. We yearn to relive those moments as we feel we could have achieved more if we had followed a different trajectory or at least gasped to that speckle a little longer.That must be the reason why old photographs and footages evoke the kind of emotion that questions our existence. Spiralling our memories to a specific time and space could stir the avalanche of sensation that could make us wonder if our lives would have different if we had taken a different path.
This documentary made by a Singaporean is a trip down memory lane of sorts. Three teenage girls got together with a filmmaker teacher to make a simple movie depicting the ordinary lives of people around the streets of Singapore. In spite of the teacher’s promise to do the post-production finishing touches on it and its subsequent release, it never came to fruition. The teacher went missing. 20 years on, after sailing the rough seas of life, the brain behind the venture, Sandi, decide to delve into this missing time capsule; especially after receiving an email from the teacher’s ex-wife from another corner of the world to take reels of film that belonged to Sandi as she was about to dispose of them. This journey into exorcising the ghost had haunted her whole life also opened the can of worms that covered her teacher’s colourful life.
An exciting watch from our southern neighbours. It managed to snatch many international accolades.
Point to ponder: We all agree that we capture that special moment for us to savour on in our lives. But surely, clicking at every angle and being the centre of every picture is not normal. We should appreciate the beauty of a natural landscape, not be the main subject every time while the landscape as the backdrop always.
https://asok22.wixsite.com/real-lesson
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
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January 21, 2019
Man maketh the clothes!
Sex PistolsIt is quite comical to hear how some ladies insist that absolutely no one can tell them how to dress. I chuckle a little (to myself) when they say that nobody can restrict them from wearing a headscarf. At the same time, they cannot be pressured to don one. To wear or not to wear is not the question but the logic behind it is.
What we wear and how we wear denotes a specific identity. We identify and feel bonded to one having the same fashion sense like us. Anthropologically we must have wanted to stay together as numbers mean strength and protection from the evil elements of Nature.
The story of the genesis of the greatest punk rock band ‘The Sex Pistols’ is one that began with a group of downtrodden rebellious teenagers who identified them with black leather jackets and outrageous fashion sense.
It began when Vivienne Westwood started sewing her brand of garments in a small lifestyle shop in King’s Road in London. Strikingly named SEX, it drew droves of young crowd who wanted to stand out amongst the rest. As the shop’s popularity grew, so did Westwood’s partner’s, Malcolm McLaren’s ambition to manage a punk band. With Westwood’s shock-value garments and McLaren’s group, ‘The Sex Pistols’ with their provocative lyrics, soon the Pistols became a household name.
Fans identified each other with the same kind of outfit. Gangs of one group would frequent one drink outlet whilst another gang, maybe the skinheads, or the romantics, all differentiated by the dressing or hairdo, would haunt other joints.
It is all about being part of a pack for identification and maybe protection.
In the same manner, organisations that insist their down liners dress in a particular way has no noble intentions or divine decree to suggest so. It is all about controlling the head, to build camaraderie, exert power over and possibly make them pawns to do their dirty work.
All the explanations to act, speak, dress, eat, live and pray in a certain ritualistic way is just a smokescreen for more sinister intentions.
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January 18, 2019
Not all that glitters...
Who has the last laugh?Everyone is responsible for himself. The world outside there is just out to make mincemeat out of you. They would entice you to tread on the wild side just to get you off balance. They would appear casual just to let you lower your shields. They would encourage you to indulge in social lubricators just so that you downgrade your security level. They would talk dirty just to get you all excited. Then you let your hair down. That would be the hay that breaks the camel’s back. And the world will have a field day. And you would dig, your grave to bury all the good things that you took a lifetime to perfect. The dream that kept you awake comes crumbling like sandcastles that get washed away just like that. People would pry with judgemental eyes. Who cares if they would not be qualified to cast the first stone. Why do they bother? They were not put a pedestal to be praised to high heaven. You were. Nobody told you, but you were the icon that many schoolboys envy. Yours was a success story to emulate.
The media is brutal. Like vultures, they scavenge for victims, slowly see them die, wait patiently, peck how much they want and fly away to find other easy kills.
Beware of the smooth talkers. Not all those who make the most noise are empty vessels. Some may be slithering serpents luring you to take a bite at the forbidden fruit and condemn you to eternal damnation.
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January 17, 2019
Social mores move with the times...
Port of Call (Hamnstad, Swedish; 1948)
Director: Ingrid Bergman
The reason I thought that this movie is of value is that it depicts how much our society has changed in just about seventy years. Even though Sweden was regarded as a liberal country then, we realise that they still held many conservative values which by today's standards would be considered archaic.
Probably, for the first time, taboo topics like suicides, promiscuity and abortions are openly discussed. This must be something new for the post-World War 2 modern world.
Berit is seen jumping off a wharf, to be rescued by a sailor, Gösta, who had decided to call his sailing days quits. They develop a relationship. Slowly, we are told of Bertha's past. She is a disturbed young lady who had a troubled childhood. Growing with a strict mother and frequently quarrelling parents, she yearned to find freedom. One day, a teenage Berit is locked outside her apartment when she returns late from an outing. She runs away from home, lives in with a man and is rescued by social service. That starts the cascade of reform school, associated as a 'bad' girl, exposure to other girls with bohemian ideas about life and a few bad relationships that she later regrets. Her past reputation haunts her work as a machine operator in a factory. Colleagues are not precisely polite with their conversations and conduct.
Soon, she opens her heart to Gösta about her checkered past. With such a tainted history, the question is whether he is able to accept her as she is?
Only then do we, citizens of the 21st century, realise how the world has changed. From a time when chastity and virginity were held in such esteem, the society now views maidenhood something like a trade transaction in a garage sale, with its errors and omissions.
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January 15, 2019
With claw, cleaver or cleavage, they clamour...
They are no more the weaker sex, the fair one, the one who plays second fiddle, the subservient one, the one to be seen but not heard. Sometimes, their presence was not even made aware as veils hide either their enclosures or their faces.
Nanthini
The world realised that second-classing half of the population was counterproductive. With the demand for extra pairs of hands in meeting the requirement of the times, the members all sexes were pulled in.
For the first time, women realised that they too could walk shoulder to shoulder with men. With generations of oppression and suppression, their DNA must have understood there was dire need to evolve to stay relevant. Now more and more of them came out their cocoons, demanding equal rights. The powers that be had to relent.
By then, everyone realised that it was the way to go. The cake was big; there was plenty for everyone.
Somewhere along that path, something went astray. Socio-economic rights were confused with biological differences. Even though both sexes had been intrinsically made with differing roles and liberty, ladies insist that they want the exact leeway that was provided to their other opposing half. Rather than looking at their position as like that of two eyes working in synchrony to provide stereoscopic vision, now each eye liked to think that one is superior to the other.
Lately, the gender with the extra X chromosome had realised that they had a secret weapon. Liberation of sexes saw more than tunics that became scantier. The less the people hid, the more people wanted to see. Ladies have mastered the art of showing too little too much; giving little to the imagination but stirring the curiosity, nevertheless. Raising the hemline and lowering of the cleavage were sure ways to raise eyebrows or capture a roving eye.
Once the attention is of the intended is grasped, they moved in. Absorbing the knowledge denied to them thus all this while, they demanded more. They cried foul when their opportunities were denied. They wailed and drew crowds.
The coup de grâce must surely lie in the skilful exposure of the mammary glands. Enticing of the intended unassuming victim to ogle may knock him off his rockers. Even though the subsequent course of events may have been mutually entertaining and beneficial, or even educational, it is the self-proclaimed 'weaker sex' that decry injustice. They have no qualms in washing dirty linen in public and is equally at ease at invoking secretions from the lacrimal glands for good measure. Mission accomplished, and they would soon scale greater heights.
What is the point of all these; to prove that they are more powerful and resilient? Biology has already shown that their kind is already strong. After enduring aeons of hardship, their survival skills and ability to combat adversaries are proven. Their strength must have come from their task of carrying, caring and protecting their young from the womb. Now, if they willfully decline that role, are they going to lose that quality in time to come?
A scene from 'Young Frankenstein'
Remember the line?
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NanthiniThe world realised that second-classing half of the population was counterproductive. With the demand for extra pairs of hands in meeting the requirement of the times, the members all sexes were pulled in.
For the first time, women realised that they too could walk shoulder to shoulder with men. With generations of oppression and suppression, their DNA must have understood there was dire need to evolve to stay relevant. Now more and more of them came out their cocoons, demanding equal rights. The powers that be had to relent.
By then, everyone realised that it was the way to go. The cake was big; there was plenty for everyone.
Somewhere along that path, something went astray. Socio-economic rights were confused with biological differences. Even though both sexes had been intrinsically made with differing roles and liberty, ladies insist that they want the exact leeway that was provided to their other opposing half. Rather than looking at their position as like that of two eyes working in synchrony to provide stereoscopic vision, now each eye liked to think that one is superior to the other.
Lately, the gender with the extra X chromosome had realised that they had a secret weapon. Liberation of sexes saw more than tunics that became scantier. The less the people hid, the more people wanted to see. Ladies have mastered the art of showing too little too much; giving little to the imagination but stirring the curiosity, nevertheless. Raising the hemline and lowering of the cleavage were sure ways to raise eyebrows or capture a roving eye.
Once the attention is of the intended is grasped, they moved in. Absorbing the knowledge denied to them thus all this while, they demanded more. They cried foul when their opportunities were denied. They wailed and drew crowds.
The coup de grâce must surely lie in the skilful exposure of the mammary glands. Enticing of the intended unassuming victim to ogle may knock him off his rockers. Even though the subsequent course of events may have been mutually entertaining and beneficial, or even educational, it is the self-proclaimed 'weaker sex' that decry injustice. They have no qualms in washing dirty linen in public and is equally at ease at invoking secretions from the lacrimal glands for good measure. Mission accomplished, and they would soon scale greater heights.
What is the point of all these; to prove that they are more powerful and resilient? Biology has already shown that their kind is already strong. After enduring aeons of hardship, their survival skills and ability to combat adversaries are proven. Their strength must have come from their task of carrying, caring and protecting their young from the womb. Now, if they willfully decline that role, are they going to lose that quality in time to come?
A scene from 'Young Frankenstein'Remember the line?
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January 13, 2019
Not impressed
A Quiet Place (2018)
The movie 'Bird Box' has been compared to this film when the former was released. If in 'Bird Box' the visual apparatus was the weak link, here any kind of sound is the stimuli that agitate the beast. At the slight presence of noise, a creature which looks like the one discarded from the set of the ‘Alien' franchise appears from nowhere to swallow the propagator. As viewers can see later, high-decibel acoustics turned out to be its Achilles’ heel after all.
The viewers are left in the dark on how it all started but what we are told is that nobody is supposed to make any noise. We end up watching another silent movie without intertitles. There is an option, however, for subtitles for ASL (American Sign Language) as it is used in the film.
Even though all the film critics seem to sing only praises for the film, I was left feeling disappointed. Nothing much really happens in this movie. A family runs for their home as their youngest child is killed by the beast for playing with screeching toy plane.
The family (father, mother and two kids) reach their new hideout. A year after the first scene, they live in a world of silence, just communicating with each other in sign language. Their house is filled to the brim with sensors to alert them on a beast attack. Knowing very well that they have no communication with the outside world and that their lives were hanging on a thread, the mother is seen walking around with a gravid tummy. Nothing extraordinary that is not expected really happens. The rest of the story is about each member of the family wards off the creature while the mother delivers her baby after a near-death experience.
The audience is left wondering what really happened, and what is the point of the movie. The mighty powers that be in Hollywood are trying to shove us something mediocre like this down our throats and trying to impress us as something with high artistic value. But I beg to differ. I am not impressed.
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The movie 'Bird Box' has been compared to this film when the former was released. If in 'Bird Box' the visual apparatus was the weak link, here any kind of sound is the stimuli that agitate the beast. At the slight presence of noise, a creature which looks like the one discarded from the set of the ‘Alien' franchise appears from nowhere to swallow the propagator. As viewers can see later, high-decibel acoustics turned out to be its Achilles’ heel after all.
The viewers are left in the dark on how it all started but what we are told is that nobody is supposed to make any noise. We end up watching another silent movie without intertitles. There is an option, however, for subtitles for ASL (American Sign Language) as it is used in the film.
Even though all the film critics seem to sing only praises for the film, I was left feeling disappointed. Nothing much really happens in this movie. A family runs for their home as their youngest child is killed by the beast for playing with screeching toy plane.
The family (father, mother and two kids) reach their new hideout. A year after the first scene, they live in a world of silence, just communicating with each other in sign language. Their house is filled to the brim with sensors to alert them on a beast attack. Knowing very well that they have no communication with the outside world and that their lives were hanging on a thread, the mother is seen walking around with a gravid tummy. Nothing extraordinary that is not expected really happens. The rest of the story is about each member of the family wards off the creature while the mother delivers her baby after a near-death experience.
The audience is left wondering what really happened, and what is the point of the movie. The mighty powers that be in Hollywood are trying to shove us something mediocre like this down our throats and trying to impress us as something with high artistic value. But I beg to differ. I am not impressed.
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January 10, 2019
We came to see a Tamil movie.
Vishwaroopam II (Tamil, 2018)
Okay, we get it. The Tamilian diaspora has spread its tentacles to the four corners of the globe. The only problem is that the world is almost spherical and has no corners.
Everywhere one goes, much like Men at Work's 'Down Under', one is bound to see a fellow Tamilian, not just as among the blue collared strata but amongst the upper echelon of the food chain. But I sense that the moviemakers hint of a particular bias in their caste of these characters. Most, if not all of them, speak with a certain intonation and lingo specific to those in the Brahmin community! But Tamil in Afghanistan...?
We also understand that our girls, who used to be typecast as long-haired well oiled exotic beauties and hidden gems of intrigue behind their charming smile are no longer that demure and quiet one anymore. The Tamilachis have answered Bharatiyaar’s call for that modern thinking woman. They have permeated into all fields of knowledge, including defusing bombs and deep sea diving. They have learnt to groom themselves so well that they can fit into any herd. They can be mistaken for a person of Mediterranean or South American stock. Their offspring would probably be unrecognisable as the union of global citizens of all kind becomes the norm.
Yes. Tamils movies have got so big that the budget can accommodate overseas shoots, hi-tech gadgets and even underwater filming. But, surely there can be no dearth of a good story to be told. The faithful viewers of this genre flock here for its Indianess and probably some thought-provoking Indian philosophy. The industry should not morph into another mindless larger-than-life pyrotechnic frenzy display of uninspiring waste of time. We can already see that in Hollywood.
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Okay, we get it. The Tamilian diaspora has spread its tentacles to the four corners of the globe. The only problem is that the world is almost spherical and has no corners.
Everywhere one goes, much like Men at Work's 'Down Under', one is bound to see a fellow Tamilian, not just as among the blue collared strata but amongst the upper echelon of the food chain. But I sense that the moviemakers hint of a particular bias in their caste of these characters. Most, if not all of them, speak with a certain intonation and lingo specific to those in the Brahmin community! But Tamil in Afghanistan...?
We also understand that our girls, who used to be typecast as long-haired well oiled exotic beauties and hidden gems of intrigue behind their charming smile are no longer that demure and quiet one anymore. The Tamilachis have answered Bharatiyaar’s call for that modern thinking woman. They have permeated into all fields of knowledge, including defusing bombs and deep sea diving. They have learnt to groom themselves so well that they can fit into any herd. They can be mistaken for a person of Mediterranean or South American stock. Their offspring would probably be unrecognisable as the union of global citizens of all kind becomes the norm.
Yes. Tamils movies have got so big that the budget can accommodate overseas shoots, hi-tech gadgets and even underwater filming. But, surely there can be no dearth of a good story to be told. The faithful viewers of this genre flock here for its Indianess and probably some thought-provoking Indian philosophy. The industry should not morph into another mindless larger-than-life pyrotechnic frenzy display of uninspiring waste of time. We can already see that in Hollywood.
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January 8, 2019
The curse of memory?
Thirst (Törst, a.k.a Three Strange Loves, Swedish; 1949)
Director: Ingmar Bergman.
Do you really know what we wonder what we want in our lives or are you dreaming up something and spending our whole lives trapped in a nightmare attempting to achieve the impossible? When mores in a society used to see so strict, perhaps it gave a certain amount of sanity to the general population. With empowerment and the decline in needing to conform, people started doing things as their wish. Happiness and self-contentment is the end-point. The problem is that the quenching of this thirst is an ever-elusive unattainable goal.
The film, which is quite revolutionary at this time, in its cinematography and storyline is typical of Bergman's movies. It speaks of things that are considered taboo in the society at that time- suicide, infidelity, lesbianism and depression. It revolves around three love stories which are somewhat inter-related. It is narrated from the point of view of Rut, who is returning from her Italian vacation with her thrifty husband, Bertil, to counts every penny that they spent together. Their relationship is really fantastic with constant bickering. Rut is frequently moody and nags most of the time. During their long train journey return home, the unhappy Rut reflects on the things that she has had. She used to be an up and coming ballet dancer who had an affair with an abusive married man who scooted off at the news of her pregnancy. After undergoing a complicated termination of pregnancy which doomed her to infertility, she yearns to be a mother. Bertil had a baggage of his own. He had previously married a widow, Viola, who nowhere really got her deceased husband and needed therapy.
In another flashback, we see Viola being treated by a psychiatrist who could easily be labelled as a whacko himself. She runs away from the therapist's office only to meet a former schoolmate, Valborg. Now Valborg used to be Rut's confidante in her ballet school when they were terrorised by a fierce instructor.
The unstable Viola was overwhelmed by Valborg's unabashed romantic confrontations. It proved too much for her that Viola committed suicide by jumping off a pier.
Meanwhile, Rut-Bertil's shaky marriage gets more bizarre. Unable to stand the wife, Bertil actually has thoughts of throwing her off the moving train and at another instance, whacking her at the back of the head with the end of a beer bottle.
It ends with a happy note with both parties secretly promising to work harder at making the marriage work.
Maybe our ability to remember things is a curse. Despite the leaps of progress we have made with our increase in our cognitive function over the aeons, in the emotional field, our inability to forget our bitter experience impedes our desire to put our past behind and move on. Our daunting histories keep bringing up trapped like a rat whose feet are stuck in sticky glue. The more it tries to entangle itself, a bigger mess it creates for itself.
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Director: Ingmar Bergman.
Do you really know what we wonder what we want in our lives or are you dreaming up something and spending our whole lives trapped in a nightmare attempting to achieve the impossible? When mores in a society used to see so strict, perhaps it gave a certain amount of sanity to the general population. With empowerment and the decline in needing to conform, people started doing things as their wish. Happiness and self-contentment is the end-point. The problem is that the quenching of this thirst is an ever-elusive unattainable goal. The film, which is quite revolutionary at this time, in its cinematography and storyline is typical of Bergman's movies. It speaks of things that are considered taboo in the society at that time- suicide, infidelity, lesbianism and depression. It revolves around three love stories which are somewhat inter-related. It is narrated from the point of view of Rut, who is returning from her Italian vacation with her thrifty husband, Bertil, to counts every penny that they spent together. Their relationship is really fantastic with constant bickering. Rut is frequently moody and nags most of the time. During their long train journey return home, the unhappy Rut reflects on the things that she has had. She used to be an up and coming ballet dancer who had an affair with an abusive married man who scooted off at the news of her pregnancy. After undergoing a complicated termination of pregnancy which doomed her to infertility, she yearns to be a mother. Bertil had a baggage of his own. He had previously married a widow, Viola, who nowhere really got her deceased husband and needed therapy.
In another flashback, we see Viola being treated by a psychiatrist who could easily be labelled as a whacko himself. She runs away from the therapist's office only to meet a former schoolmate, Valborg. Now Valborg used to be Rut's confidante in her ballet school when they were terrorised by a fierce instructor.
The unstable Viola was overwhelmed by Valborg's unabashed romantic confrontations. It proved too much for her that Viola committed suicide by jumping off a pier.Meanwhile, Rut-Bertil's shaky marriage gets more bizarre. Unable to stand the wife, Bertil actually has thoughts of throwing her off the moving train and at another instance, whacking her at the back of the head with the end of a beer bottle.
It ends with a happy note with both parties secretly promising to work harder at making the marriage work.
Maybe our ability to remember things is a curse. Despite the leaps of progress we have made with our increase in our cognitive function over the aeons, in the emotional field, our inability to forget our bitter experience impedes our desire to put our past behind and move on. Our daunting histories keep bringing up trapped like a rat whose feet are stuck in sticky glue. The more it tries to entangle itself, a bigger mess it creates for itself.
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www.riflerangeboy.com
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January 5, 2019
Keep calm, or appear so!
Nirai Kudam (நிறை குடம், Full Pitcher, Tamil; 1969)
Sivaji Ganesan was at the zenith of his career. It was at a time when almost every month saw the release of one of his movies. It must surely be a record of sorts. The 'modern' world may accuse him and the films of his era as melodramatic, stereotyping and over-acting. To his loyal fans, however, to date, place him and his skills in a pedestal so high that cannot be filled by anyone yet to be born.
Being so prolific must have its downside. This film must provide the testimony of such an endeavour. The story is such loosely knitted that defies logic; that a group of three final year medical students (a brother-sister pair and her boyfriend) should engage in such a foolhardy prank that kills one of them and blinds the other. The girl blames her boyfriend for her brother's death and her loss of vision. The truth of the matter is kept a secret until the remaining student becomes a successful ophthalmic surgeon and discover a ground-breaking surgery to reverse the blindness. Along the way, we see family melodramas, hiding of truths, testing of human relationships and the third medical student masquerading as somebody else and marrying the blind student without she having an iota of suspicion that his voice and probably body scent may connect him to the person she abhors so much. Along the way comes the mandatory comedy reliefs, this time from the Cho-Manorama combination. Sivaji, Vanishree and Muthuraman take the lead.
I suppose one should not ask too many questions when watching mainstream Indian movies. One should enjoy the message, the value and the traditional Indian philosophies imbibed in its storyline. Perhaps, as the title suggests, a person in power should not be too boisterous or hellbent on creating mayhem. Like a pitcher (container) which is filled to the brim, he should be quiet. An empty vessel makes all the noise. Everything will reach a steady state. We do not need people on the top of the perch also be screaming blood or revenge when things go wrong. Those in the higher echelons should appear calm. No problem cannot be solved. Everything would fall into place eventually. What we need is to a step back, assess, put on the thinking caps, re-evaluate and execute.
On the other hand, the saying 'Nirai Kudam' (நிறை குடம்) may refer to completion. In traditional South Indian auspicious functions, a metallic vase is filled with water almost to the brim and is adorned with garlands, coconut, mango leaves and is inscribed upon it sacred symbols to invoke the feminine forces of Nature. I wonder how this is related to the title of this movie.
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https://www.facebook.com/groups/riflerangeboy/ http://asok22.wix.com/real-lesson
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Sivaji Ganesan was at the zenith of his career. It was at a time when almost every month saw the release of one of his movies. It must surely be a record of sorts. The 'modern' world may accuse him and the films of his era as melodramatic, stereotyping and over-acting. To his loyal fans, however, to date, place him and his skills in a pedestal so high that cannot be filled by anyone yet to be born.Being so prolific must have its downside. This film must provide the testimony of such an endeavour. The story is such loosely knitted that defies logic; that a group of three final year medical students (a brother-sister pair and her boyfriend) should engage in such a foolhardy prank that kills one of them and blinds the other. The girl blames her boyfriend for her brother's death and her loss of vision. The truth of the matter is kept a secret until the remaining student becomes a successful ophthalmic surgeon and discover a ground-breaking surgery to reverse the blindness. Along the way, we see family melodramas, hiding of truths, testing of human relationships and the third medical student masquerading as somebody else and marrying the blind student without she having an iota of suspicion that his voice and probably body scent may connect him to the person she abhors so much. Along the way comes the mandatory comedy reliefs, this time from the Cho-Manorama combination. Sivaji, Vanishree and Muthuraman take the lead.
I suppose one should not ask too many questions when watching mainstream Indian movies. One should enjoy the message, the value and the traditional Indian philosophies imbibed in its storyline. Perhaps, as the title suggests, a person in power should not be too boisterous or hellbent on creating mayhem. Like a pitcher (container) which is filled to the brim, he should be quiet. An empty vessel makes all the noise. Everything will reach a steady state. We do not need people on the top of the perch also be screaming blood or revenge when things go wrong. Those in the higher echelons should appear calm. No problem cannot be solved. Everything would fall into place eventually. What we need is to a step back, assess, put on the thinking caps, re-evaluate and execute.
On the other hand, the saying 'Nirai Kudam' (நிறை குடம்) may refer to completion. In traditional South Indian auspicious functions, a metallic vase is filled with water almost to the brim and is adorned with garlands, coconut, mango leaves and is inscribed upon it sacred symbols to invoke the feminine forces of Nature. I wonder how this is related to the title of this movie.
https://asok22.wixsite.com/real-lesson
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/riflerangeboy/ http://asok22.wix.com/real-lesson
http://.facebook.com/farouk.gulsara
www.riflerangeboy.com
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
January 3, 2019
Fight the demons to be stronger!
Haunting of Hill House (miniseries, 2018)
Gone are the days when the sole purpose of horror movies was to scare the living daylights out of you. Apparently, the 'boo'
Gone are the days when the sole purpose of horror movies was to scare the living daylights out of you. Apparently, the 'boo'
