Film conversations: Oggy and the Cockroaches: The Movie

Okay, enough of the serious stuff that I have been writing on in the last few posts.  Let's talk about our animated heroes and their antics.

My daughter, who is well informed about these issues, thanks to her hours of dedicated TV gazing, informed me that the Oggy film was being premiered on TV (here in India)!  Apparently the film, originally called Oggy et les Cafards, Le Film, was released in 2013.  Having discovered the joys of watching Oggy and his friends over the years, I decided to join my daughter, as Oggy, Jack, Bob and the cockroaches took us through four short stories in their movie début.  

The first story is set in the pre-historic days, when Oggy and the roaches evolved through single celled organisms.  The battle between good and evil; between black and white - although sometimes it is just between grey and grey - begins very early, even when our heroes are in a single celled state!  Oggy's uncle, the fireman, orders Oggy to go to the volcano to fetch a pail of... well, fire.

Jack goes along with him, and so do the roaches, just to trouble him and steal his fire.  However, they end up falling inside the volcano, and find that there is another world there.  The hostile region is ruled by that troubled dog, Bob.  His henchmen try to capture the cat brothers to eat them, but they are helped by Olivia, who also teaches them to make fire by rubbing stones.  It is a happy ending when the fire bearing brothers make it back to their domain with Olivia.

The second story is about Oggy trying to rescue the princess Olivia from a castle where she is held captive by the roaches.  But, our blue French feline is a bit of a sissy this time!  He is into embroidery, much to the utter disdain of his father, the king, who wants him to be a brave warrior!  Nevertheless, helped by the animals who are with Olivia - just as they were with Cinderella and Snow White - and his brother, Jack, Oggy manages to rescue the princess.

We move ahead by several eras now.  The third tale is set in London, where the queen is celebrating the birth of a new century.  Jack, this time is Sherlock Holmes, and Oggy, Dr Watson!  Olivia, the troubled damsel, visits them at Baker Street (shouldn't that be Meow Street?), and asks them to retrieve the missing key and bomb.  Once again, the roaches are the culprits, and after much fighting inside the Big Ben, the feline detectives prevail.  But they cannot stop the clock from falling on the queen, who strangely selects the spot directly below the Big Ben for her party!  She should have known better!

In the final story, we are in the future.  This means it is Star Wars time, and Bob, who has an ambition of world domination, deploys the roaches to wreak havoc.  Our French jedi draw out their neon laser swords, while Oggy goes for the... what else, the laser roach swatter!  

Once again, like the TV series, our viewing experience is enhanced by the Indian treatment given to the French goings on.  The voices of Shah Rukh Khan, Sunny Deol, Nana Patekar, Prem Chopra and Shakti Kapoor further animate the characters!  The hilarious dumb ass looks of the characters, superb animation by the French creators, and the inspired Hindi film voice makeovers work like magic together.

It is great fun to watch and listen to Oggy's 'nahin chodoonga...!', Jack's 'Oi Oggy, mere bhai...', the voice over's 'achcha hai...', or, my favourite, Bob's 'thakk thikk...'.

Highly enjoyable movie.  Go for it with the full family.

Thakk thikk... sorry, just felt like saying that again!




Reference:
Oggy and the Cockroaches: The Movie, Director: Olivier Jean-Marie, Xilam & France 3 Cinema 2013

Image sources:
http://ex.inquirer.net/files/2013/09/oggy_moviet.jpg

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/GS_pwSJ8bk0/maxresdefault.jpg

https://scontent.fblr2-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/10391051_789945794399317_6156312725361660463_n.jpg?_nc_cat=104&_nc_sid=6e5ad9&_nc_ohc=HM_oLHXnPZ8AX-MR7iW&_nc_ht=scontent.fblr2-1.fna&oh=531b9de7f3363c780990e25d3128b008&oe=5F28B8AD
http://img4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20130608083453/oggyandthecockroaches/images/0/0c/390955_505362629518433_605672566_n.jpg
htts://i2.wp.com/www.cgmeetup.net/home/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/OGGY-and-The-COCKROACHES-Movie-5.jpg?resize=960%2C519

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Nirbhaya documentary: Why are we so full of 'bhaya'?

Mountains out of molehills.  We are very good at creating them.  

The whole Nirbhaya documentary issue has snowballed into something that should never have taken up valuable Parliament time.  All thanks to a few in the echelons of power who knees jerk violently at the slightest of taps.  

For everything which is remotely controversial, the one-stop solution seems to be to BAN it!  Brush it under the carpet and act as though everything is hunky-dory until the media finds something juicer to cry itself hoarse on.

The fact that it would have been a lot more mature to constitute a committee with interested parties and stakeholders to view the documentary and report on it, is of course, totally lost in the midst of impulsive decisions and a mutual mudslinging frenzy.

If at all the government should be investigating anything, it is if the director of the film - who had agreed to the clause that the film was to be used for 'social' purpose only - made it commercially available to BBC.  If so, didn't those who gave the permission in the first place know that the film might be aired publicly in the future?  

Also, why is it that a foreign director/channel should always get full and exclusive access to the criminals?  Why do we have to wait till somebody from outside sheds light on our issues?  Are we saying that none of the umpteen television news channels in India ever thought of making a similar documentary on this or related issues?

Apparently the ban on the film has been enforced because India's image would be tarnished due to the views of a rapist.  Tourism would be affected, you see.  Well, in that case... 

• Wasn't India's image tarnished when a Japanese tourist was raped by a tour guide in Jaipur recently?
• Wasn't it tarnished when the French diplomat who abused his daughter was allowed to get away due to a manipulation of his forensic report?
• Isn't the image tarnished because a popular film actor has managed to evade justice even after 9 years of killing an endangered species of deer?
• Isn't it utterly shameful that the leader of a prominent political party of the country says that rapes occur because 'boys will be boys...they commit mistakes'?  Isn't he as culpable as the rapist?
• Aren't we left red-faced when self-created holy men who promise nirvana to their foreign clients take advantage of them?
• Why don't we also consider violating traffic rules, abusing fellow road users, spitting and urinating on roads as being detrimental to the country's image?

Why are we so insecure about what a rapist and his lawyers have to say?  Instead of analysing the contents of the film, we have allowed the whole issue to degrade into an ego battle between the government and the BBC, which has made full use of the opportunity to cock a snook at the government.

And here's the thing.  Nirbhaya's parents themselves have willingly participated in the making of the film.  And her father has said that everybody should watch the film.

So, I say let the film roll.  Learn about the rapists' and their defenders' mindset.  And then castrate them.



Image sources:

• http://i.ndtvimg.com/i/2015-03/leslee-udwin_650x400_81425409983.jpg
• http://media.indiatimes.in/media/content/2013/Sep/delhi_gang_rape_1378798591_540x540.jpg

Book conversations: Revenge of the Naked Princess

Based on his grandmother's tale related to him during his childhood, Pereira weaves a bizarre tale of religious intolerance and revenge.  It begins well with a vivid description of the raid of the tribal palace in Yehoor Hills, a remote jungle area in coastal Maharashtra.  The Portuguese, having made Goa their base of religious and political activities, are looking for fresh converts to their religion.  At the behest of their king, who wants to expand trade routes across the region, the military and religious leaders head off on a quest of finding, subduing and converting the heathen masses.  

Aiding them in this particular venture, is a recent native convert, who betrays the very kingdom and its people that had provided for his welfare in the past.  There are gory descriptions of torture - rape, body parts being dismembered, people being threatened, persecuted and killed - only to encourage them into accepting the 'religion of peace'.  While the military leader is direct in his approach of torture, the Father in charge of showing the tribal people the light, is more docile, but equally fanatical and bigoted in his mindset.  So much so, that when the dead princess of the kingdom comes back as a spirit to avenge her rape and death, he sides with the devil himself to annihilate her spirit! 

Up until the death of the princess and the brutal conversion of the tribal people, the story is engaging.  However, when the revenge bit starts, it meanders along, with the princess' spirit vacillating between seeking revenge and pardoning the perpetrators.  The revenge itself, one can't help feeling, is inadequate given the heinousness of the crime committed, and moreover, unsuccessful!  The princess is impaled on a huge spiky cactus by the Bishop and the spirit of her spirit (!) is condemned to a bottomless pit.  

The gods sitting on Cloud 1777333999 - no, its not a phone number - hug each other and vow that the princess would return to seek her revenge!  What was she doing until now?!?  Is this an attempt at keeping the options open for a sequel?  As though getting your head round things such as supplicating lions, human bodied 'spirits', sexual romps, a wheel-less flying chariot driven by lions, gods joining hands on clouds, and pagan exorcism rituals was not enough!  

If however, you are into fantasy, able to suspend disbelief, and willing to accept the workings of the writer's fervid imagination, you may well enjoy the tale.

The narrative is punctuated (or not!) by several grammatical and spelling errors.  There is generous use of the 'f-word', which makes one wonder if the sixteenth century Portuguese were aware of the word, or had an equivalent of it in their language.  There are also plenty of annoying compound phrases, such as 'subjects-of-conversion', 'one-day-humans' and 'fighting-colonel-turned-fighting-brigadier', which mar the narrative.

Having said that, the real winner in this work is the theme on which it is based.  It must have taken a lot of guts and gumption on the part of Pereira - himself a Christian - to write a story on the brutal nature of conversions in sixteenth century India.  In today's pseudo-secular environment, when every wrong doing of those not of the majority faith of the land - whether in the past or the present - is brushed under the carpet, here is a story that exposes the hypocrisy, bigotry, and fundamental nature of early Christian evangelism.  

As this issue has been overlooked for so long, it continues even today, though the means of achieving it has changed from brutal force and persecution to covert influence and temporal allurements.  Full credit to Pereira for bringing this issue out into the public domain, at the risk of inviting wrath from the upholders of proselytism and conversions. 

Image source: https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1356973638i/17193270._UY630_SR1200,630_.jpg

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