Tsotsi: Loss of childhood

We hear a lot about juvenile delinquencies and try to pass judgements on them, without understanding their background and circumstances in which they grew into delinquents. Tsotsi is a South African film that deals with this theme. It is the story of Tsotsi, a juvenile delinquent. He has become so due to various circumstances surrounding his upbringing in dire poverty.

In the film, though, he is faced with a peculiar situation. While trying to steal a car, he realises that he has got a baby as bonus in the car. He has no choice but to take care of the little one. He uses his gun and muscle power to force people around him, especially a mother of a new-born, into taking care of the kid. In the meantime, he has to make a lot of compromises on his ‘profession’ of extorting people. In the end, though, his real human nature comes to the fore.

Director: Gavin Hood

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What is unique about this film is that it suggests even deviants as having a human face. No-one by nature can be bad. There is some goodness in all of us and different crucial circumstances bring forth that goodness in all of us. In fact, he seems to regain his lost childhood in the company of the new-found baby.

The film is indeed a class art for more than one reason. The camera work is smooth and uninterrupting. The narration too has its beauty, in that it does not tend to overdo the crime décor of the theme. Tsotsi (Presley Chweneyagae) captures our attention, despite him being an ‘anti-social entity’. The film has a unique touch of Zulu culture in most parts, especially in the Kwaito background score.   

- Melwyn Pinto SJ

Akheela and the bee: Making the most of life and spellings

In the American spelling bee competitions, for quite sometime now, students of Indian origin have been winning laurels, beating their American counterparts. However, the pain and hardwork that goes into achieving that feat is anybody’s guess. Spelling bee is not just another competition. Preparation for it needs a scientific approach, learning the root of the words, their formation, understanding as to from which language they have come to English and so on.

Director: Doug Atchison

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However, can this competition also be fun, if taken with the right sportsmanship? Why not!

Here is a film Akheela and the Bee. The protagonist in the film, a black girl Akheela Anderson (Keika Palmer), wants to achieve something more than mere name and fame for herself, by winning the spelling bee at the highest level. She is the daughter of a widow, who struggles to make ends meet. The family has several internal problems. However, for Akheela playing with spellings is a passion.

The film is somewhat like a sports thriller. Of course, here the contenders do not play with balls and bats, but with spellings. And it is Akheela who steals the show, teaching a lesson or two in sportsmanship to her main opponent, a boy of Chinese origin.

The message that the film sends across is that it is important to work hard with determination to reach the highest goal that you have set for yourself. However, life is not only about that. There is more to life than just achieving the only goal of your life. How true! To those scores of young people who easily give up when they fail to achieve the aim of their life, perhaps this film has a message. Yes, Akheela goes on to achieve what she values most in life – a prize in spelling bee at the highest level. But, not at the cost of cherishing the beauty of life, unlike the more ambitious parents who make the life of their children miserable by setting unreasonable and unrealistic goals. May Akheela’s tribe increase. 

- Melwyn Pinto SJ

Sophie Scholl: Paying price for fighting 'war'

Here is yet another poignant tale of the brutality of World War II. The film narrates in an unsophisticated manner about people from Hitler’s so called community itself who saw the futility of the war and protested the illusion of Hitler. They were the real prophets who were punished when they tried to tell the truth of the impending destruction of Hitler’s malicious and ambitious designs. It is a German film based on a real life incident and is directed by Marc Rothemund.

Director: Marc Rothemund

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Sophie Scholl The Final Days is the story of three students of White Rose who are convicted for distributing pamphlets that speak the real truth. They are convicted unjustly without even being subjected to the existing law and thus are done away with. However, they die not before enkindling a doubt in the minds of the executers.

This film, no doubt, is one of the best narratives of the consequences of the war. And what makes it even more powerful is the absorbing performance by Magdelana Scholl (Julia Jentsch). The music too adds to the sordid tale of the victims.

What grips the viewers perhaps is the approach of the parents of Sophie who say, “You both have done the right thing and we are proud of you.” It is indeed admirable to see that even within Germany there were scores of people who did not approve of Hitler’s type of adventure at the cost of millions of innocent people. Perhaps, it is because of such people that the world, despite all its cruelty and uncertainty, is still a good enough place to live in.  

- Melwyn Pinto SJ

22 Female Kottayam: Fighting the 'man'

Kerala film industry was once known for dolling out soft porn films that made money. Surprisingly, the trend is changing. For the last couple of years, a number of interesting films with contemporary and very relevant themes are being made in Kerala. And most of these films are low-budgeted, but they are making more than double in terms of profit. Some of the interesting films that have come out in the recent past in Malayalam include, ‘Chappa Kurish’, ‘Ee Adutha Kalath’ ‘Indian Rupee’, ‘Salt and Pepper’ and ’22 Female Kottayam’. Each of these films has been well-crafted.

’22 Female Kottayam’ is a female-oriented film that portrays how a woman can fight male exploitation through which she all but loses her self esteem and confidence. While man thinks that woman is essentially at his service, here woman proves him wrong and makes him learn a lesson or two on what woman is and can be capable of.

Director: Aashiq Abu

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The film revolves around Tessa, a nurse who aspires to go to Gulf in search of better prospects. She meets a travel agent Cyril who, knowing well that she has no one, dupes her by pretending to fall in love with her. While the concept of love is real for Tessa, for Cyril it is just another game. She is raped twice by Cyril’s employer and later accused of drug peddling and sent to jail. Life seems all lost for her. However, she is not the one to give up easily without making the culprits realise what it means to suffer and for no reason. And lesson she does teach, for as she admits, she has nothing to lose, after being raped twice and seeing hell in jail.

The film raises several issues. Who has to bring about liberation for women? Who has to empower her? Traditionally, it is believed that men have to secure liberation for women. However, the film seems to suggest something different. It is women themselves who have to fight their own liberation and also fight the injustice meted out to them by patriarchy. But, what means could they use? Any means that will serve the larger goal!

While the film is not preachy or indulging in male bashing, it does make a point quite powerfully. Rima Kallingal as Tessa steals the show in the film. 

- Melwyn Pinto SJ

Peaceful Warrior: Making journey itself the destination!

Well, one has heard of setting a goal, a destination and striving or journeying towards that goal and destination relentlessly. But can journey itself be a destination? Can one enjoy the present moment instead of trying hard to make the best of it to achieve something in the future?

“The journey is what brings us happiness, not the destination!” This is the lesson Dan Millman learns the hard way in the film Peaceful Warrior. And he learns this through an illusory character whom he calls Soc (Socretes). 

Director: Victor Salva

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Dan is a gymnast who wants to achieve greatness in his life. He wants to be a great gymnast. But destiny has other ideas for him, as his plans are shattered due to a series of accidents. And then he meets this character, or he imagines he meets; who teaches him some hard lessons. He teaches Dan that what is important is to enjoy each moment and not to worry about what fruit it would bring. He teaches him that life will be wasted if one only thinks about the destination and forgets the journey. Dan learns that even journey itself can be one’s destination. It is only this way that one can make the most of life.

The film directed by Victor Salva and based on the novel Way of the Peaceful Warrior by Dan Millman is an inspirational sports film that teaches a different lesson from what the world would usually teach. At the end of the film we see Dan just giving himself totally to the given moment on the still rings of the gymnasium weaving an incredible poetry of movements raising the eyebrows of one and all. Of course, the audience by now knows the secret which is not revealed to the judges and the live audience.

Indeed Peaceful Warriour is an inspiring tale to all those who only think of results and goals, forgetting, thus, to relish the given moment.  What matters most is that one lives entirely in the present moment. 

- Melwyn Pinto SJ

Cairo 678: Fighting sexual harassment

Egypt has a fairly good film culture. The country, though Muslim, is not as orthodox and fundamentalist as certain other theocratic countries. In the last few years, the film fraternity in Egypt has been releasing quality films.

Cairo 678 is one such Egyptian film in Arabic language that came in 2010. Supposedly based on real life incidents, it revolves around a feminine theme: self defence against sexual harassment. How should a woman react when she becomes the victim of derision, eve-teasing and groping in public places? Why should a woman be exploited and ridiculed in such fashion just because she is a woman? And how is a woman supposed to respond when the entire society is governed by principles and norms prescribed by men to suit their own agenda? The solution that the women in this film find is self defence of a unique kind: they pork needles to the vital parts of those who grope them in the crowded buses.

Director: Mohammed Diab

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The plot has several twists and turns, giving the film quite a surprising narrative of three women from three different walks of life. One of them is a stage comedian, who has to face a near death situation of eve teasing and road rage of a hooligan. The three-some come together to devise their own methods to fight sexual harassment. While you sympathise with these women who resort to unusual means to protect themselves, you also wonder if such means are effective in the long run. Further, you may also be confronted with the question as to should not society bow its head in shame for driving women to such helplessness.

Director Mohammed Diab has, no doubt, raked up a healthy debate through a powerful film. It is not preachy, neither is it mellowed in conveying the one important message: a male-dominated society cannot think it can play around with the assumed weakness of women. The fact that this message comes from a film directed by a male director adds to the seriousness of the subject. 

- Melwyn Pinto SJ