Tsukigami or The Haunted Samurai

I knew that I could count on some fun with a Japanese film whose title was The Haunted Samurai. Three years ago, when I was totally under the thrall of Western Media and had no access to anything but Hollywood or Bollywood or other Indian cinematic offerings, my expectations from Japanese film-making would have been sex and gore of the most perverted genre.

But visiting Malaysia opened to me the gates of an amazing audio visual perception of diverse cultures: I have since viewed films from Thailand, Korea, Japan, China, The Philippines, and even lately, one Greek film!

And although I have digested some violent Japanese films ( Boiling Point, for example), my basic journey of initiation into Nipponese cinema took the path of The Twilight Samurai, Train Man, Udon and so many others, to lead me to an entirely new perception of the Japanese psyche as delicate, tender, and value based. And this is what made me buy and view this incredible film.

Director Furuhata Yasuo and cinematographer Kimura Daisaku cast the cute young Tsumabuki Satoshi in the lead role for this wacky period film version of a novel by Asada Jiro "Tsukigami".

Bessho Hikoshiro is a struggling to survive in the caste system of the Bakumatsu era. Separated from his rich wife and son, he now lives with his good for nothing elder brother and wife. A noodle seller tells him that one of his friends, Enomoto, rose in life after praying at a shrine in Mukojima.

One night, a drunken Hikoshiro tumbles down off the road near a small neglected shrine and thinks he has found the one in Mukojima. He offers a prayer ...

Which is answered but alas! Not in quite the way he imagined as one after the other the God of Poverty Iseya, the God of Disease Kuzuryu, and the 1200-year-old God of Death , come to plague him.

The film shows us how he deals with and outwits them. It took me totally by surprise with its enchanting way of tackling the theme. The Rap style music is very foot tapping and way in which the titles roll at the end is delightful.

Death as the Grim Reaper we can live with but who can resist the form it takes in this film?

Arabikatha-a 2007 Indian Malayalam film

Few are the Malayalam films that I have seen and of those little remains that is memorable.

However, I have my cousin-in-laws to thank for sending over a bunch of films from Kerala.

These girls have given me such an amazing pile of movies that I literally wept buckets and am now a confirmed fan of Malayalam cinema.

Arabikatha tops my list for the moment.

Kerala is a very "Communist" State in India. And Indian Communism is very peculiar to India-an eccentric mix of art and literature, of Don Quixotish idealism. Most of the Indian Communists come from high caste families, are not too well off preferring to live off slogans and strikes than to do an honest days work to feed self or family.

Cuba Mukundan is just one such specimen. All he knows is party politics and that too only that of his little town. He is a simple man much loved by all who are acquainted with him. All?

Alas no. He has made his share of enemies in the course of his "protests". And a small bunch of people plot to throw a spoke in his works.

When his father is accused of embezzling money, it is up to him to go out into the real world to pay off the debt. And where do Malayalees go to earn some extra bucks?

Mukundan finds himself adrift in Dubai. Jobs elude. Crooked hearts abound.

Yet the timeless spirit of Indian brotherhood surges to the rescue and strangers with compassionate hearts shelter him.

The tale is entertaining and told with gentleness.

I highly recommend this to anyone who wants to explore films from Kerala.

MENTAL DISORDERS AND YOU

When my son was a little boy, he was fond of books about insects and animals. These were mostly illustrated and informative. The little fellow called them "Knowledge Books". This almost-encyclopedia on Mental Health falls into this category and is both extensively and imaginatively illustrated as well as pretty exhaustively informative.

As wife to a filmmaker who focused on Science, I was prone to having numerous books on various subjects being inflicted on me. Drs. Arun and Mary Rukadikar's learned tome, thus, reminds me of one particular manual on health:

Where There Is No Doctor

This book was designed to be a

"health care manual for health workers, clinicians, and others involved in primary health care delivery and health promotion programs around the world."

It had a lot of hand drawn pictures too. However, this effort of David Werner, Carol Thuman, Jane Maxwell, while equally bulky, will find it hard to compete with the thoroughness of the treatment given the Mental Health manual by its assiduous authors.

As Jacob K John's thorough review puts it

"this book is aimed at patients and relatives, but should find itself on the shelf of any mental health professional, particularly the young ones who are fresh out of training and bristling with a theoretical construct of practice."

I also agree with him that

"it will indeed be a tribute to the authors if they (the authors) allow the book to be translated into different languages to benefit many more people."

Let us look at it this way. A psychiatrist is sadly a rare luxury for most around the world. In remote rural settings it is the GP who has to deal with a range of health issues in none of which he may be a specialist. One can easily see how this manual would provide yeoman assistance when a village GP in the developing world, for example, is confronted with psychiatric issues which may not warrant the expense to the patient or patient's family of a trip to the big city.

Sadly, although the urban milieu should ideally be composed of an informed population, media has never done psychiatry adequate justice and even today a depressed person's friends and family expect the patient to just "snap out of it". A visit to a psychiatrist is all too often equated with stop over at a spa. The easy availability of Drs. Arun and Mary Rukadikar's user's guide to mental problems would help literate people in distress or their families to process and pinpoint the problem and seek the right treatment.

It would also guide those under active treatment or their families and thus demystify the psychiatric process. Knowledge sets you free and living in this advanced age it is a shame that so many still do not have the luxury of making informed decisions from sheer lack of such a manual where it concerns mental disorders.

Its sole drawback might be its size and comprehensiveness in this user friendly day and age where people

a. do not read as much as they should for lack of time

b. prefer things to be short (the book is heavy to hold or carry around)

and

c. sweet (the tone is rather severe at times and we have all become rather used to TLC)

That said, all it now needs to fill the tragic vacuum in terms of mental health information for the layman is to find its way to a bookshelf in every book store around the world.

An illustrated and easy guide to mental disorders for the mentally ill and their families

Arun Rukadikar, Mary Ponnaiya Rukadikar
Publisher: Miraj Psychiatric Centre, Dr. Gaikwuad Road, Miraj - 416410, Maharashtra, India
E-mail: mirajpsychiatriccentre@yahoo.co.in
Pages: 472 pp; Price: Rs. 420