Children of Men [dir. Alfonso Cuaron]

I realize I'm rather late to the appreciation party for Children of Men (CoM), the Alfonso Cuaron film that was released and generated a fair buzz in 2006. There were two reasons for this: I'd read and loved PD James' source novel. When I read that the shy middle-aged academic protagonist of the story had been transformed into some kind of action hero played by Clive Owen, I was dismayed. Secondly, Clive Owen himself. I'd only seen the man in Shoot 'Em Up, a film I didn't care for at all, in which his constantly sullen presence irritated me greatly. Even though I had bagged the Arrow Video blu-ray of CoM in 2021 during one of their site sales, it took me all this while to actually sit down to watch it.

Once willing to see the film as one that takes the bones of PDJ's story but does its own thing, I found CoM quite engaging. Clive Owen is Theo Faron, a depressed alcoholic British bureaucrat in a world with a bleak future. Human females have become sterile, so there are no new children. The last born human beings are treated like royalty and it is a national tragedy when one of them is killed by an angry fan for refusing an autograph. The Britain shown here is a totalitarian regime, a cross between George Orwell's 1984 and Pink Floyd's Animals (referenced with a floating pig balloon straight from the album cover). But it is apparently still better off than other countries in the world, and therefore constantly besieged by refugees of all races, who are rounded up and sent off to camps. The memory of James' novel is very hazy now, but I think the focus on the plight of refugees is of a significantly greater concern in the film (likely an offshoot of Cuaron himself being an immigrant to the US?).

When we first meet Theo, he steps out of a coffee shop where people are glued to TV reports of the murder of a celebrity youth, only for a bomb to go off inside moments later. This act is attributed to a militant group called the Fishes. They are led by Theo's former wife Julian (Julianne Moore), who contacts Theo to arrange transit papers for a woman. Theo later discovers that the woman is a pregnant refugee Kee (Clare-Hope Ashitey), who Julian wants to escort to The Human Project, a secret organization working to reverse the infertility phenomenon.

Early on in this mission, Julian is killed in an attack, an audacious scene brilliantly orchestrated by Cuaron and DoP Emmanuel Lubezki. Theo helps to take Kee to the Fishes' hideout in the country, but there he realizes that instead of ferrying her to The Human Project, they plan to hold Kee hostage and use her baby as a prize to negotiate with the government. He gathers Kee and escapes, with the Fishes in hot pursuit. Theo must now protect Kee from both the militants and government forces, and escort her to her destination.

CoM is an action film, but like few others you have seen. After the initial setup in London, a good part of the film is set in the bleak, muddy English countryside, and later in a refugee camp set amidst disused partially broken down buildings. The visuals have a drained out quality to them, similar to Michael Radford's celebrated adaptation of 1984. The script is not afraid to have quiet, off-beat moments, like when Theo hangs out with his pot-smoking hippie friend Jasper (Michael Caine), a former political cartoonist with a catatonic wife. Theo is not your typical action hero, either. After the coffee shop bombing at the film's start he is thoroughly shaken. Later in the several skirmishes, he's no suave and fearless brawler, but a vulnerable man, whose best weapon is his determination to do what he thinks is right. While Julianne Moore's part is a short one, she makes a major impact and you can imagine how the spirit of Julian guides Theo in his actions further on. Michael Caine relishes the rare opportunity to do a laid-back, irreverent character (Apparently John Lennon was the inspiration for his approach).

The contribution of DoP Lubezki cannot be appreciated enough. Several of the film's key sequences are shot as long, seemingly unbroken takes, with the camera taking on the role of a mobile observer, following our characters as they make their way through intense conflict zones. The production design team's creation of a near-future dystopian Britain is also immersive.

It is remarkable that Cuaron and his team convinced Universal Studios to pump $76 million into a British dystopian adventure with a not necessarily happy ending, and no major Hollywood stars apart from Moore, who is offed very early in the film. Sadly, they were not rewarded in terms of box-office success. Still, it is a film that continues to be relevant and deserves to be revisited multiple times.

A few words on Arrow Video's blu-ray, originally released in 2018:

Arrow's transfer, based on an HD master supplied by Universal Studios, gives a strong presentation of the film, which should at least equal Universal's own disc from 2009. The deliberate decision to have a gritty documentary feel with drained out color has a major impact on how the film looks, but there appear to be no encode related anomalies, and grain pattern is tight. The 5.1 lossless DTS-HDMA sound is not as bombastic as some other tentpole films, but several action sequences, like the assault on the car and the escape run through the refugee camp under attack deliver sufficient bass oomph and surround action. Extras on the disc include an audio commentary, meaty video appreciations by noted film writers Philip Kemp and Kat Ellinger, and likely all the extras from the Universal blu (which include a half hour analysis of the film and several featurettes with the cast and crew). My 2021 copy of this 2018 didn't have the first pressing booklet (expected). The reversible cover has original poster art on the other side.

Kuttavum Shikshayum [dir. Rajeev Ravi] - Theeran Adhigaram Ondru [dir. H. Vinoth]

"There is nothing new under the sun. It has all been done before", says Sherlock Holmes in his debut adventure A Study in Scarlet, when recommending his Scotland Yard colleagues to brush up on their knowledge of crime history. A similar sense of déjà vu struck me when I heard about Rajeev Ravi's 2022 Malayalam film Kuttavum Shikshayum (KS) aka Crime and Punishment. In the story a task force of policemen from Kerala in Southern India travel far to the North of the country to solve a case of burglary by itinerant criminals. The film is based on a true-life robbery that occurred in Kasargod district in Kerala, and going by this 2018 article describing the incident, a fairly faithful take on the reported facts.

The déjà vu came from my recollection of a 2017 Tamil film Theeran Adhigaram Ondru (roughly, Theeran is Law), in which a team of cops from Tamil Nadu (TN) in the South heads to a remote village in Rajasthan (in North India) to capture the gang behind a series of violent burglaries down South. I initially thought that perhaps both films were inspired by the same incident, but soon learned that the Tamil film (by H. Vinoth) was a cinematic take on a different real-life crime spree, which occurred over a period from 1995-2005: the gang, functioning as transport workers driving goods lorries across the country, would break into affluent households along the highway, killing residents and fleeing beyond state borders with their loot, leaving the local police flummoxed. After a painstaking investigation to figure out their modus operandi, this was eventually countered by the TN state police with Operation Bawaria.

What is interesting is the different approach of the makers. Theeran... is certainly the more ostentatious, with a clear focus on being a action-packed star vehicle. Even as part of a team investigating the case lead actor Karthi's character of Theeran is given the haloed treatment. A significant chunk of the film's runtime is squandered on a cloying romance track and there is even an 'item' song in the criminals' lair. The brutal and murderous crimes associated with the Bawaria gang allowed Theeran to take a sensationalistic approach in depicting them, even using stylized animation to make palatable the bloody history of those dacoits. They are imbued with animal shades, imitating the actions of a wolf pack on the hunt. The hero undergoes emotional violence when his beloved wife is savagely assailed by the gang; this adds a deeply personal revenge motive for his subsequent actions. The police team's attempt to capture the dacoits (captained by a ferocious Abhimanyu Singh) lead to an explosive night-time shootout that goes all out on the thrills.

Theeran Adhigaram Ondru is currently streaming in India on Prime and Hotstar.

In contrast, KS is tamped down to a fault, almost. Asif Ali as the inspector heading the investigation is the nominal lead, but he is not significantly marked out from the rest of the ensemble cast. In burdening the audience with the minutiae of the investigation - like the extended portion where they are tracking mobile phone locations - Ravi seems to be not only interested in conveying details of procedure, but also the soul grinding nature of the policeman's job. Hardcore fans of CSI style narratives may find this preoccupation with the mundane thrilling; others might feel that the film steps a little over the line between expressing the tedium of the characters' lives and transferring some of it to the audience. The criminals here are not like Theeran's heinous demons. Poverty and false promises from local politicians have driven the villagers to robbery and smuggling, the local law authorities state as matter-of-fact. They stand together as a defense against outsiders including the law - The film's most memorable scene at least for me was where Asif Ali's team walks through the maze of village lanes at mid-day to find it deserted of all the men; when they turn back the women form a posse and drive them out. But at the same time, they are not vicious cop killers.

On paper, KS's dedication to being a true-to-reality crime procedural sounds great, but what it jettisons in terms of drama is not sufficiently made up for in the treatment (film writer Aswathy Gopalakrishnan, whose reviews I respect a good deal is more enthusiastic). The characters are sketchy one-note cliches - Asif Ali has a guilt complex over shooting dead a student rioter, Alencier Lopez is the benevolent sub-inspector on the verge of retirement doling out parental advice, Sunny Wayne the cocky constable who predictably commits a blunder at a critical point in the film. The villagers harboring the criminals have almost no personality. Apart from the aforementioned scene of them being driven out by the women, there is little tension built in the execution, and I did not feel sufficiently attached to the main cast members to worry about the success of their mission. KS remains eminently watchable, just not memorable.

Kuttavum Shikshayum is currently streaming in India on Netflix.

Dancing on the Grave [Patrick Graham]

People of a particular generation based in Bengaluru city (in Southern India) will remember the sensational case of Shakereh Khaleeli, on which this new mini-series is based. Showrunner Patrick Graham, who had previously helmed OTT horror series like Ghoul and Betaal, takes a documentary approach, interspersing contemporary and archival interviews with re-enactments. I'm not usually one for potentially sordid true crime TV series content, but since Dancing on the Grave was only 4 half hour episodes long, it seemed like a decent diversion before starting on something else.

Shakereh Khaleeli (nee Namazie) came of an affluent and prestigious family linked to the Diwan of Mysore. She was married to Akbar Khaleeli, a high-ranking Indian diplomat and bore him 4 daughters. Wherever she accompanied her husband on his tours of diplomatic duty, Shakereh was known as a brilliant socialite, beautiful, witty and sophisticated. But during the late 70's Akbar went alone to Iran as India's Ambassador, it being around the time of the Iranian revolution. It was during this period she met Murli Manohar Mishra aka Swami Shraddhanand (SS). A godman-cum-fixer type, SS inveigled himself into the Khaleeli household by way of helping Shakereh with her business affairs. They set up a construction business in Bengaluru. During this period Shakereh divorced her husband and in 1986, less than a year after, got married to SS. The move led to Shakereh's estrangement from her family and former circle, who were aghast at the idea of this glamorous, sophisticated woman from a high family giving herself to a short stocky plebian who in their minds had undoubtedly snared her with an eye on her property.

Just a few years later, Shakereh seemed to have disappeared. Her daughter Sabah Khaleeli was at the time an in-demand model for ads and fashion shows - I remember being wowed as a kid by a glam cover pic of her in Femina (I am ashamed to say I only remembered the pic, and not the article it was part of). When Sabah, who had rekindled communication with her mum, found a sudden silence at Shakereh's end, she repeatedly enquired with SS, but found that he was fobbing her off with evasive answers about Shakereh being on extended holiday. In the meanwhile, he continued a lavish lifestyle in the Bengaluru home. Sabah went to the police and filed a missing persons complaint. The initial investigation was lackadaisical, frustrating her. Then things then began to slowly move. Almost 3 years after the report of her disappearance, Shakereh's body was uncovered as a skeleton buried in her own backyard and SS was arrested for her murder. He was convicted of the same, and sentenced to be harbored in jail till the end of his life, a term he is still serving.

Apart from covering the investigation, mainly by interviews with the investigating team and the legal authorities that worked the case, as well as journalists, the series does some superficial psycho-analyzing about how a smart social diva like Shakereh could have fallen prey to this ugly conman with dubious charm. Was she that lonely or desperate during Akbar's tenure in Iran? Did SS with his guidance of her business affairs, convince her that he could help her have a greater self-identity than being a diplomat's wife? There is talk about how SS claimed divine powers to grant her a male child, and how it later led to quarrels between them.

Shakereh's direct family (mother Gauhar Taj and daughter Sabah) are only seen in archival (90's) video footage. Some cousins and a nephew were newly interviewed for this series. In an eloquent and politely outraged manner (words like 'dastardly' roll unctuously off the nephew's tongue), they express their dismay at how one of their own was ensnared and brutally done away with by this lowly schemer, and insist that SS has only got the minimum punishment for his heinous crime. During their speeches, it repeatedly came to my mind, where were these family members when Shakereh had been reported missing. Going by Sabah's old interviews it appeared that she was running alone from pillar to post to get the police to take her complaints seriously. They had essentially abandoned her for daring to degrade their social standing with her poor choice in marriage. It is when the series moves on to show the perspective of SS himself that their current participation makes more sense.

Yes, SS is interviewed for this series, while still serving his sentence. In front of the camera, he pleads not guilty for Shakereh's death (his lawyer claims that has always been his stance). According to SS, he found Shakereh dead in her bed one morning when he carried in the tea; his crime , as he sees it, was to go into an immediate panic about how her family and the police would perceive his role in this matter. Instead of even calling in a doctor to ascertain the death, he directly proceeded to bury her body in secret. By any account this is a nonsense story. Shakereh was bundled into a specially constructed box and buried inside a deep pit dug in the yard (ostensibly for a tank). There is reference to evidence of fingernail scratches on the inside of the box, and her fingers tightly curled around the bedsheet she was buried in, indicating that she was likely alive at the time of burial, in a deeply sedated state. Even as he claims to have shared a deep bond of mutual love with Shakereh, there is no corresponding warmth in his eyes. He seems a man ready to try anything to see if it can get him a reprieve.

True, there are discrepancies in the prosecution case, which his lawyer points out. In the video captured at the time SS was led by the police to the crime site after being made to confess, he is seen to pull the keys of the house from his own pocket; they should have been part of sealed evidence when he was called in for questioning. The lawyer points out that is this a break in the chain of evidence, and suggests that the police could have easily used the keys at some previous juncture to plant sedatives in the house. Any criminal, he insists, would have discarded these sedatives in the 3 years after Shakereh's disappearance; it's a fair point. My own view is that although the police did get the right man, they knew the material evidence they had was purely circumstantial and may not be sufficient to obtain a conviction, hence 'bolstered' their case with some planted evidence.

The legal machinery may have also been under a lot of pressure by the family because Shakereh had made a will naming SS as the beneficiary. If he was not unequivocally convicted, he could make a claim for Shakereh's estate over the rest of her family. He had already made money off selling pockets of her land around the house, using the power of attorney she had bestowed on him. Still, there is the question, when so many habitual criminals with multiple murder crimes are given pardons for good behavior? Especially after more than half his life has been spent behind bars, and there is little likelihood of his posing a danger to society now, why is he being held without any hope of compassionate pardon? Surely he cannot, as a convicted criminal, hope to lay claim on the assets for which the crime was committed.

In terms of the making, I would think that the 'series' could instead have been a single 80-90 min documentary. In his groundbreaking Thin Blue Line docu-drama Errol Morris showed that re-enactments of incidents could be a powerful tool. Here, the re-enactments are extended to completely trivial and petty footage, a cheap shot at raising drama. Not the film-makers' fault, but the almost sneery nature of the relatives currently interviewed annoyed me, and I wish they had been questioned more strongly about the family's desertion of Shakereh, which led her to becoming an isolated lamb, easily hunted down by the wolf in disguise. The only place I got a genuine sense of grieving for this brutal crime was in the archival footage of Sabah and Shakereh's mother (former Femina editor Sathya Saran talks about the pain she always saw in Sabah's eyes).

Still, if you're interested in this piece of shocking true crime history, it's only a couple of hours of your time in all. Showing now in India on Amazon Prime.