Tokyo Story

Beautiful, compassionate, poignant story about aged parents visiting their children in Tokyo but the children being indifferent to them and at times hostile as well. Yasuhiro Ozu's beautiful movie Tokyo Story made in 1953 in black and white and a cult classic all these years. 

The retired aged couple who live in a distant village have two sons and two daughters and one son who had died so his widow survives him. One son lives in Osaka and others in Tokyo. One daughter lives with them only in their village where she is a school teacher in a school. In Tokyo they all have very busy lives struggling to make a living. Taking even half day off from work becomes impossible at times. Then they have grandchildren as well. So they are visiting the children after many years and look forward to it. Initially the children welcome them but later they become indifferent which the aged couple are quick to spot and realise it. Their daughter in law however is quite warm and friendly with them. After a short visit the aged couple return back to their home but the mother falls while in the train and has to deboard at Osaka where they visit their other son. Later on they come back to their village and the mother again falls ill. Its a beautifully made moving film and very subtle messages of love and affection. There is a beautiful dialogue in the movie which is "you can only love your parents while they are alive, and you cannot carry your respect to them to their grave". The Japanese is a beautiful lilting language, very pleasing to hear and the pronunciation is very clear. It is a timeless classic from the Japanese director. The Japanese say Arigato or thank you numerous times. All the characters have played good roles, so its difficult to single out anybody.  Cheiko Higashiyama as the mother has played a stellar role in the movie. 

Sambizanga

Sambizanga, an Angolan film (1972) directed by Sarah Maldoror. Set in Angola during the colonial rule by Portugese, the film depicts a construction worker Domingos Xavier being arrested by the police on suspicions of being a political activist. He has a wife and an infant kid. His wife Maria sets out to find her husband going from one prison to another. Domingos meanwhile is taken as a political prisoner and kept in a prison in a suburb of Luanda called Sambizanga where he is tortured to reveal the names of his co-conspirators. But he refuses till the end. Story somewhat like out Bhagat Singh during the freedom struggle of independence. 

Sarah has used mostly amateur actors in the film. Some of the scenes especially the torture scenes are realistic. Language used is mostly Angolan or a local dialect though i suspect even Portugese is used in the film. Both Domingos Olivera (Domingos Xavier) and Elisa Andrade (Maria) have done a creditable role. There is a realism to the film. Sarah Moldorer was an assistant to Gillo Pontocorvo who made the acclaimed "Battle of Algiers" another political film in 1966. 

 

Andrei Rublev

Andrei Tarkovsky's iconic cult film Andrei Rublev on the life of Russia'a greatest painter of Christian icons and frescoes in the 14th to early 15th century. The painter Andrei Rublev lived sometime between 1360 and 1430. In the film Andrei Rublev (played by Anatoly Solonitsyn to a great performance) is not shown actually painting anything and none of his art is shown until the actual Rublev paintings at the very end of the movie. Tarkovsky tells the story in parts moving from one episode to another. Christainity and Christain paintings were apparently not liked by the Russian princes of that era who frequently came and ransacked the churches, destroyed the paintings and the town and killed people and raped women. Then there were the Tartars who had Mongoloid features different from the Russians and they were also enemies of Christianity or did not understand them much. Pretty much there is lot of violence in the movie but not of the Tarantino kind. Tarkovsky has a different canvas. His shots of horses moving across the plateaus were magnificent. When the Russian princes ransack a church in which Andrei Rublev is hiding along with many others and many are then killed, Rublev manages to kill one Russian who is attempting to take a women upstairs apparently to rape her. Then Rublev goes silent to atone for his sin of having killed somebody. 

This movie is something of a cult classic among movie connoisseurs and Andrei Tarkovsky is also a kind of a cult movie director. This movie was made in 1966 at the height of the cold war when Russia was USSR and Leonid Brezhnev was the President. As with all iconoclastic movies, this also faced the wrath of the Russian censors for many years. 

    

consumer disputes redressal commission

The Ministry of Consumer Affairs has notified the Consumer Protection (Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission) Rules, 2020 on 15th July, 2020.

Basically these Rules cover the procedural functions of the Commission like 

sittings of the National Commission

manner of authentication of goods for analysis and testing

fee for making complaints

electronic filing of complaints

Where compensation order has been passed and the complainants are not identifiable, then such compensation shall be credited to the Consumer Welfare Fund

procedure for filing and conducting of appeal matters before the State Commission and National Commission

procedure in respect of direct complaints to the National Commission

Since these are very procedural and technical matters pertaining to how the Commission functions, i am not going to detail of each clause and regulation. 

Copy of the notification can be found at the Ministry website which is here

consumer protection mediation

Ministry of Consumer Affairs has notified the Consumer Protection (Mediation) Rules, 2020 on 15th July, 2020.

Mediation has been provided for in section 74 of the Consumer Protection Act, 2019. There will be a Mediation Cell in each District Commission and State Commission. Each Mediation Cell shall have a panel of mediators who shall be appointed on the recommendations of a selection committee comprising of the President and member of that commission. Each mediation cell shall have support staff and administrative assistance. 

What matters cannot be referred to mediation is specified. These are

(a) the matters relating to proceedings in respect of medical negligence resulting in grievous injury or death; 

(b) matters which relate to defaults or offences for which applications for compounding of offences have been made by one or more parties; 

(c) cases involving serious and specific allegations of fraud, fabrication of documents, forgery, impersonation, coercion; 

(d) cases relating to prosecution for criminal and non-compoundable offences; 

(e) cases which involve public interest or the interest of numerous persons who are not parties before the Commission: 

Even outside these specified cases, the Commission can decide to not to refer such cases to mediation, if it appears to the Commission that any settlement is impossible to obtain in a particular case or that mediation is not the appropriate remedy considering the circumstances of the case concerned. 

In case settlement is reached at pursuant to mediation, then the parties shall be entitled to receive refund of their full application fees in respect of that complaint. 

While the mediation is in progress the parties have no power to resort to arbitral or judicial proceedings to decide the same case. 

Any settlement arrived at shall not be discharged upon the death of any of the parties. It shall be carried forward and enforced against the heirs and successors therein. 

Copy of the said notification can be found at the Ministry website i.e. at here

 

The Traveler Mosafer

Iranian movie (2017) made & written by Ali Hatef and starring him also in the lead role alongwith Maryan Vayghan as Mariam. Shot entirely in Los Angeles or neighbourhood Mariam comes to the US in search of her husband who is absconding after marrying her in Iran. Typical problem faced by South Asian girls also when the US groom vanishes after taking advantage of home grown girls. There is nothing much in the movie. They i.e. Ali who is a car driver and Mariam go on searching for that man. There are few Persian words which are common with Hindi like choi for tea, hazaar for thousand, do for two etc. Fascinating to hear the language spoken, otherwise there is nothing in the movie to recommend.

The Liberators

The Liberators by James Pattinson, is a story of a revolution gone wrong. Harvey London is famous for doing odd jobs which require much skill and daring. In one such job, he is left bloodies and penniless when he is offered a job to transport a revolutionary leader to the coast of Anagua, a fictional country in Latin America bordering the Caribbean. He is a accompanied by Pete, a tough young man. They have to face hurricane winds and rains while on the way, lose their boat, get into a dinghy which also capsizes, but miraculously survive to find themselves on the shore of Anagua but in hostile territory. There one girl Anita helps them to navigate through rough country with hunger, starvation, deprivation, fight with enemies pulling them through in a city Oxaca which unfortunately is denuded by a volcano and earthquake. The conquistadors move to another town but spies within their network wreck their supplies of arms & ammunition which was essential to their hopes of winning the war. After untold misery and fight, these three people find themselves at the gate of the revolution, when the unexpected happens. The narrative by James Pattinson is nice, it is quite fast flowing, though some words used are quite archaic. Goodreads 4/5

James Pattinson (1915-2009) was a prolific British author with more than 100 thrillers to his name.