A Crude Awakening - The Oil Crash

 Absorbing documentary about Oil - its history, its development through the ages, its role in the society, including Oil as War, Oil as Politics, oil developing the world, so much of petro products being consumed by people all over the world. It talks of the oil fields that were there in Baku, Texas, Venezuala - all finished, all ghost towns over there. Oil as war tool when Saddan Hussain invaded Kuwait but even otherwise almost all wars have been about oil. US goes into war with Iraq over the so called weapons of mass destruction when it was all about securing oil assets and securing oil contracts for George Bush's Republican friends. The conflict in Darfur in South Sudan was all about oil discoveries with the military using force to clear families staying there.  There are some lovely live footages including one of a smiling Adolf Hitler (which is rare, indeed). Baku produced all that oil that was used by the German army. The film gives a realistic picture of the forthcoming shortage of oil in the world, with the world running out of oil reserves. Alternate sources of energy like wind power, solar, bio diesel, are all too puny in quantity and too much expensive to be affordable. Same applies to electric energy one expert says that even if you hybridised all the automobile vehicles in the world today, still we will be requiring as much oil as we are consuming today. Oil is virtually ruling the world which is why we see so much influence in the middle east. Then there are problems with OPEC and the production in Saudi Arabia is not growing that much to be of comfort to the world.  Very feeble or practically nil attempt being made to enforce democracy in the middle east - reason - oil. Very rich documentary with lots of expert voices, lots of live footages and material. Well made documentary. 

Available on youtube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=odCZpBPfFQk

Picture taken from internet, not with a view to violating copyright. 

 

Mahanagar

Classic Satyajit Ray movie "Mahanagar" made in 1963 in black and white once again a woman centric movie by the master, after "Kanchenjunga" which was made in 1962 also a woman oriented movie. Quite a genius to make a woman centric movie in the 60s, advanced thinking for the ages. This one is a beautiful film with traces of psychological drama in it, but Ray brilliantly picks it up towards the end. Brilliant performance by Madhabi Mukherjee in the main role of Arati the demure wife of Subrata Mazumdar, the banker who is just making by with his salary with old parents to take care of plus his kid and a sister as well. They live in a old ramshackle house with no fans and no cooking gas. His father is a retired teacher and likes to play the crossword in order to win some prize money. Then they decide that Arati can work to supplement the income of the family. She applies and secures a job as well and becomes quite a star performer in her company. Then all hell breaks loose because it is a patriarchal family system, how can a women go out and work, a silent war rages on between the elderly in laws and the woman. But pangs of jealousy and guilt start hurting the husband, this is where Anil Chatterjee as the husband has performed a bravura role. The wife starts earning more, starts wearing lipstick, sun glasses, appoints maid for the house, meets other gentleman in a cafe, all of which troubles the husband. The husband also loses his job because of a run in his bank. There is one shot in the movie, when Arati is eating and leaves the plate on the floor and asks her husband to do something in a subtly higher voice.  The transformation of Arati as demure, house bound, insecure woman to a confident, courageous, bold woman is quite brilliant and subtle and Madhabi has done her part quite brilliantly in that. At this juncture, Ray takes the script down to show the decay in the husband and when i think he would go for the complete melt down of the husband, but that does not happen. There is one instance in the end, when the husband says to the wife "if you succumb what will happen to us". Ray has controlled the pace in the movie quite brilliantly. The final shot is fitting in that he pans over a city with tall buildings, the only time, the movie refers to its title "Mahanagar" meaning big city.  Beautifully made movie which has the master's stamp all over it. 

Picture taken from the internet and not with an intention to violate the copyright. 

 

Roshni

Nice sweet documentary on a Himachal girl who lives in a village in Himachal Pradesh and aspires to travel to a big city like Mumbai once. The documentary shows life in the villages are self sufficient with their own produce and own water. They live a contented life, with the TV being possibly the only link to the other world. In between the documentary shows a Sanskrit teacher talking about the values etc. which i thought was a bit out of context. Then there was a lengthy interview with Dr. Vandana Shiva, the renowned environmental activist about food being corrupted with western thoughts coming in with genetic engineering distorting the natural food system. The visuals are quite good and does inspire to leave the city life and go back to the villages. After all, if there is wifi available in the villages, then no problem in working from the villages and occasionally travelling to the city for business or negotiations. With the covid situation, even the business discussions are being carried out online with anybody sitting anywhere in the world. 

Okay documentary, but goes a little wayward in the middle. This was on Amazon Prime Video.

Picture taken from the internet and used for representational purposes only not with an intention to violating copyright. 

Persona

Ingmar Bergman's Persona (1966) remains one of the most enigmatic, unsettling, and endlessly discussed works in the history of cinema. Written and directed by the Swedish master himself, and graced by two extraordinary performances from Liv Ullmann and Bibi Andersson, the film is less a conventional narrative than a psychological excavation of the human psyche.

The film opens with a startling montage of seemingly disconnected and often disturbing images—fragments of reality, dreams, memory, and symbolism colliding in a manner that immediately signals to the viewer that this will not be an ordinary cinematic experience. Bergman dispenses with traditional storytelling conventions and instead invites us into a realm where meaning is elusive and certainty impossible.

Liv Ullmann portrays Elisabeth Vogler, a celebrated stage actress who, during a theatrical performance, suddenly falls silent. Not merely speechless but seemingly unwilling to speak, she withdraws from verbal communication altogether. Admitted to a hospital after what appears to be a nervous breakdown, Elisabeth is examined by a doctor who concludes that she is physically and mentally sound. Her silence, therefore, is not the product of illness but perhaps of a deeper existential crisis.

To care for her, the young nurse Alma, played with remarkable depth and vulnerability by Bibi Andersson, is assigned as her companion. The doctor subsequently arranges for Elisabeth to recuperate at her secluded seaside cottage, with Alma attending to her full-time. It is here, amid the isolation of the windswept coast, that the film unfolds into one of cinema's most fascinating psychological duels.

Alma, initially cheerful, talkative, and eager to please, gradually begins to confide in Elisabeth. She speaks of her hopes, disappointments, desires, relationships, and intimate secrets. Her admiration for the famous actress slowly transforms into emotional dependence. Yet throughout these confessions Elisabeth remains silent, observing, listening, absorbing. She utters virtually not a single word during the entire film.

What follows is a remarkable exploration of identity itself. As the days pass, the psychological boundaries separating the two women begin to dissolve. Their personalities intermingle, overlap, and eventually seem to superimpose themselves upon one another. Bergman masterfully blurs the distinction between caretaker and patient, observer and observed, speaker and listener. At times one is left wondering whether Alma and Elisabeth are truly separate individuals or merely different facets of the same consciousness.

One of the film's most powerful passages occurs when Alma confronts Elisabeth and articulates the emotional truths she believes lie buried beneath the actress's silence. She speaks of Elisabeth's troubled relationship with motherhood, her inability to love her son as society expected her to, and the crushing guilt that has accompanied this failure. In doing so, Alma appears to become both accuser and analyst, exposing the wounds that Elisabeth herself refuses to acknowledge.

Persona is a brilliant film, but it is by no means an easy one. It creeps under the skin and lingers there. The atmosphere is suffused with unease, and one cannot help but feel a growing sense of claustrophobia on Alma's behalf. After all, imagine being in the constant company of someone who listens intently to your every word yet never responds. Initially comforting, such silence would eventually become unnerving, then oppressive, and perhaps even terrifying. Bergman understands this psychological dynamic with uncanny precision.

Over the decades, the film has generated an astonishing range of interpretations. Some critics have discerned lesbian undertones in the relationship between the two women, while others have viewed the narrative through the lenses of psychoanalysis, existential philosophy, identity fragmentation, or artistic self-reflection. The genius of Persona lies in its refusal to offer definitive answers. Every viewer encounters a different film and emerges with a different understanding.

Nearly six decades after its release, Persona remains a cinematic riddle—haunting, intellectually provocative, and emotionally disquieting. It is a film that may frustrate as much as it fascinates, but it is impossible to dismiss. Bergman compels us to confront the masks we wear, the identities we construct, and the silences that often reveal more than words ever could.

Image is taken from internet for representational purposes only and not with an intention of violating copyright. 

The Old Man and the Sea

Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea is one of those rare literary works whose apparent simplicity conceals an extraordinary depth of meaning. It was this slender yet profoundly moving novella that played a significant role in securing Hemingway the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1954. On the surface, it is merely the story of an old Cuban fisherman and his struggle with a giant fish. Yet beneath that deceptively uncomplicated narrative lies a timeless meditation on endurance, dignity, loneliness, pride, and the indomitable resilience of the human spirit.

The protagonist, Santiago, is an ageing fisherman who has fallen upon hard times. In the eyes of his fellow fishermen, he has become salao—the worst form of unlucky—having gone eighty-four consecutive days without catching a single fish. His only devoted companion is a young boy, Manolin, who admires and loves him deeply. The boy has learned the craft of fishing under Santiago's tutelage and remains fiercely loyal to him, but parental pragmatism intervenes; his family insists that he work on a more successful boat, leaving the old man to confront his misfortunes alone.

On the eighty-fifth day, Santiago resolves to challenge fate itself. He sails farther into the Gulf Stream than he has ever ventured before, driven by a stubborn faith that fortune must eventually favour perseverance. There, he hooks an enormous marlin, a fish of such magnificent size and strength that it transforms what should have been a catch into an epic contest of wills.

For two days and two nights, the marlin tows Santiago's tiny skiff across the vast ocean. The old man suffers agonising exhaustion, his hands cut and bleeding from the fishing line, his body wracked with pain and fatigue. Yet he refuses to surrender. What makes this struggle remarkable is that Santiago never regards the fish as a mere quarry. Instead, he develops an almost reverential respect for it. He speaks to it as one might address a worthy adversary, admiring its nobility, courage, and endurance. In many ways, the marlin becomes his equal—another solitary creature locked in a struggle for survival and honour.

By the third day, the great fish itself begins to weaken. It circles closer and closer to the skiff, and Santiago finally seizes his moment, driving his harpoon into the marlin and ending the contest. Yet victory arrives burdened with irony. The fish is so colossal that there is no possibility of hauling it aboard. Alone and exhausted, Santiago lashes it alongside the boat and begins the long journey home.

It is here that Hemingway delivers the novel's most devastating turn. The marlin's blood attracts sharks, which descend upon the prize with relentless ferocity. What follows is another battle, no less heroic than the first. Santiago kills shark after shark in a desperate attempt to defend the fish he has fought so nobly to win. He loses his harpoon, then his knife, and is forced to improvise weapons from whatever remains at hand. Throughout these moments, he repeatedly draws inspiration from his idol, the legendary baseball player Joe DiMaggio, whom he reveres not merely for his sporting prowess but because DiMaggio's father was also a fisherman. Santiago imagines the baseball star enduring pain with stoic determination and seeks to emulate that same spirit in his own struggle.

The sharks, however, are inexorable. One by one they strip away the marlin's flesh. Santiago may kill five or more of them, but the battle is ultimately unwinnable. As he fights, he continually laments the absence of Manolin, repeatedly wishing the boy were there to help him, to share the burden, and perhaps simply to provide companionship in the face of overwhelming adversity.

When Santiago finally returns to shore, he possesses little more than the marlin's head, tail, and immense skeleton. In material terms, he has lost everything. The magnificent catch that should have redeemed his reputation has been reduced to bones.

Yet Hemingway's genius lies in demonstrating that Santiago's apparent defeat is, in fact, a profound moral victory. The old man has been physically exhausted, materially deprived, and seemingly defeated by forces beyond his control. But he has not been conquered. He has matched himself against a worthy opponent, conducted himself with honour, and refused to yield even when the outcome became inevitable.

The novella is richly metaphorical and invites multiple interpretations. One may view Santiago as Everyman, struggling against the inexorable challenges of life itself. Equally, one may see the marlin as a symbol of nobility and courage, making the conflict less a battle between hunter and prey than a tragic contest between two magnificent beings. The sharks, meanwhile, can be interpreted as the destructive forces of fate, time, circumstance, or even society itself, devouring the fruits of human effort.

What elevates The Old Man and the Sea from a simple fishing tale into a literary masterpiece is Hemingway's ability to extract profound philosophical truths from the most ordinary of circumstances. Santiago's struggle becomes a testament to perseverance in the face of adversity, to dignity amid suffering, and to the belief that true greatness resides not in victory alone but in the courage to continue fighting when defeat seems certain.

As Santiago himself declares in one of the most memorable lines in modern literature: "A man can be destroyed but not defeated." In that single sentence lies the enduring essence of Hemingway's masterpiece—and perhaps of the human condition itself.

 

Bacurau

Few contemporary films possess the delirious audacity, political ferocity and genre-defying imagination of Bacurau, the remarkable Brazilian film directed by Kleber Mendonça Filho and Juliano Dornelles. At first glance, it appears to be a modest rural drama unfolding in the arid backlands of Brazil, but what gradually emerges is something infinitely stranger, darker and more exhilarating: a dystopian western, a political allegory, a siege thriller and an unapologetic manifesto of resistance rolled into one hypnotic cinematic experience.

The story unfolds in the fictional village of Bacurau, situated in the remote region of Serra Verde, a place seemingly forgotten by modern civilization and abandoned by the political establishment. The narrative begins with the death of the village matriarch, Carmelita, who passes away at the age of ninety-four. Her funeral becomes an occasion for collective mourning, summoning villagers from every corner, including her granddaughter Teresa, played with quiet intensity by Bárbara Colen, who returns from abroad to pay her respects. These opening sequences possess an almost documentary-like intimacy, introducing us to a deeply interconnected community sustained not by governmental benevolence, but by solidarity, memory and resilience.

Yet beneath this atmosphere of rustic melancholy, an unmistakable unease begins to simmer.

The local politician of Serra Verde, the deeply opportunistic Tony Jr., arrives in the village bearing hollow gestures of concern, only to be greeted with icy disdain by the residents. Their hostility is entirely justified. Tony Jr. has effectively weaponized survival itself by damming the village’s water supply, reducing Bacurau to dependence upon an unreliable tanker for its most basic necessity. In one of the film’s most scathing political undercurrents, governance is portrayed not as public service but as cynical extortion.

Soon, however, the disturbances assume a far more sinister dimension.

Cell phone signals abruptly disappear. Electricity collapses. The water tanker is riddled with bullets. Strange drones hover ominously over the settlement like predatory mechanical vultures. Horses wander inexplicably into the village streets. Villagers begin vanishing, and bodies accumulate with terrifying suddenness. The inhabitants of Bacurau remain bewildered, unable initially to comprehend the invisible machinery of violence closing around them. The film masterfully sustains this atmosphere of paranoia and dread, gradually transforming from rural realism into something resembling a feverish science-fiction nightmare.

What makes Bacurau so compelling is its refusal to obey conventional genre boundaries. The directors orchestrate the tonal shifts with astonishing confidence, moving seamlessly from political satire to horror, from surrealism to explosive action. The suspense lingers until the very end, not through cheap gimmickry, but through the steady revelation of a horrifying truth: Bacurau itself has become the target of a grotesque game orchestrated by outsiders who regard the villagers as disposable lives.

Faced with annihilation, the villagers are forced to summon the assistance of Lunga, portrayed magnetically by Silvero Pereira. A feared outlaw and gangster estranged from the community, Lunga emerges as one of the film’s most unforgettable figures — part revolutionary, part folk hero, part avenging phantom. His uneasy alliance with the villagers injects the narrative with tremendous dramatic energy, culminating in a climactic confrontation that explodes with unmistakable Quentin Tarantino-esque ferocity. The final shootout is savage, cathartic and brilliantly staged, transforming the film into a blood-soaked ballad of collective resistance.

Yet despite its stylized violence, Bacurau never descends into empty spectacle. The screenplay remains remarkably disciplined, ensuring that nearly every character serves a meaningful narrative purpose. The villagers are not reduced to stereotypes or faceless victims; they are rendered with warmth, eccentricity and humanity. Their communal spirit becomes the emotional core of the film, elevating the story beyond mere thriller mechanics into something politically and emotionally resonant.

Visually, the film is striking throughout. The barren landscapes of the Brazilian sertão are captured with haunting beauty, while the eerie use of drones, silence and sudden eruptions of violence creates an atmosphere of perpetual unease. There is an almost mythic quality to the storytelling, as though the village itself exists outside ordinary geography — a forgotten outpost resisting erasure from history itself.

It is hardly surprising that Bacurau received the Jury Prize at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival. The accolade was richly deserved. This is not merely a film designed to entertain; it is cinema functioning simultaneously as political commentary, social critique and visceral genre experimentation. Bold, unpredictable and profoundly unsettling, Bacurau stands as one of the most original and intellectually provocative films of modern world cinema — a work that lingers in the mind long after its final gunshot has faded into silence.

Bela Bela What keeps mankind alive

Few documentaries about political imprisonment possess the haunting stillness, moral gravity and emotional intelligence of Bela Bela – What Keeps Mankind Alive. Directed by Marjoleine Boonstra, this remarkable 2001 Dutch documentary resists the conventions of the political exposé. There are no sensational revelations, no manipulative crescendos of outrage, no relentless barrage of archival horror. Instead, the film unfolds with extraordinary restraint as a meditative inquiry into memory, suffering and the fragile psychological architectures through which human beings preserve their humanity under tyranny.

The documentary follows four poets who endured incarceration under repressive regimes and now speak, with astonishing composure, about torture, intimidation, isolation and the quiet mechanisms through which they resisted spiritual annihilation. The poets featured are Nizatmedin Achmetov from Kazakhstan, Maria Elena Cruz Varela from Cuba, Irina Ratushinskaya from Russia and Mircea Dinescu from Romania. Listening to them, one is compelled to confront an old historical paradox: why do authoritarian regimes fear poets with such disproportionate intensity? Dictatorships may tolerate mediocrity, but they instinctively distrust imagination, for poetry preserves precisely that inner freedom which totalitarian systems seek to extinguish.

Among the testimonies, Irina Ratushinskaya’s recollections are especially unforgettable. She speaks of prisoners deliberately smiling at one another as an act of emotional solidarity in conditions designed to manufacture despair. When confinement stripped them even of personal space, they adopted the curious discipline of conversing in the elaborate politeness of nineteenth-century language, restoring through courtesy a sense of dignity that prison sought to erase. Such moments illuminate the documentary’s deepest insight: resistance is not always theatrical. Sometimes it survives in manners, in memory, in fragments of language and in the stubborn refusal to surrender one’s inner self.

Poetry occupies the moral centre of the film. It is not presented as ornamentation or literary embellishment, but as a mode of survival itself. The poems become quiet acts of defiance against systems determined to reduce individuals to obedient silence. Boonstra repeatedly suggests that political repression does not merely seek control over bodies; it aspires to colonise consciousness. Against this assault, imagination becomes sanctuary.

What gives Bela Bela – What Keeps Mankind Alive its singular power is its profound humanism. Many documentaries about political brutality rely understandably upon indignation and spectacle. Boonstra chooses instead the more difficult path of attentiveness: to pauses, silences, half-finished recollections and the lingering afterlife of trauma. The film understands that suffering often speaks softly. Its survivors do not declaim their anguish; they carry it within their gestures, their hesitations and the weary cadence of remembrance.

The documentary’s contemplative rhythm may frustrate viewers expecting conventional narrative momentum. Yet its very quietness becomes its strength. The film refuses melodrama because it recognises that the deepest wounds rarely announce themselves with theatrical force. They endure instead as invisible sediment within consciousness, shaping how one remembers, speaks and inhabits the world long after imprisonment has formally ended.

By the conclusion, the documentary leaves behind not catharsis but a lingering melancholy. Freedom, it suggests, does not erase suffering; survival itself becomes a complicated inheritance. Yet amidst the scars left by oppression, something essential remains undefeated. The regimes imprisoned bodies, but could not entirely extinguish imagination, memory or moral selfhood.

Quiet, austere and profoundly moving, Bela Bela – What Keeps Mankind Alive emerges not merely as a documentary about political imprisonment, but as a deeply philosophical reflection on resilience and the mysterious capacity of art to safeguard human consciousness against the machinery of dehumanisation. It is an intellectually rich and emotionally devastating work that lingers in the mind long after the screen falls dark.