Which Hood are you wearing?
This isn’t really a movie review. This is just some appreciation for Noel Clarke. And at a pretty young age, he’s written two pretty impressive scripts and turned them into movies.
When Kidulthood released in 2006, the reviews were quite mixed. But it didn’t fall short of critical acclaim. In my opinion, it showed a very true picture of life as an adolescent, specifically in the UK. The life, along with all the pressure that comes with growing up, is exhibited in a brutal but very real way. It clearly shows how some make the right choice and some go the wrong,easier and more attractive way. Some, on the other hand, do just what the person next to them is doing. Its a pandora’s box of trouble involving the most common problems you’ll come across today. There is teenage pregnancy, drug abuse, gang wars, murder, and even suicide. All woven together to jolt you awake and look at life a little more clearly. And one things for sure, you will hate Sam, the character played by Noel himself, by the end of the movie.
Adulthood hit theaters in 2008, but what went against it was that there were a lot of expectations. You could tell that they weighed the director down. But I found it to be a good film, well made as a continuation of the previous film. It shows that adulthood is no easier and there are problems here as well. It shows Sam’s journey, after stepping into adulthood, hated by his friends, given up on by his family and the worst part, straight out of jail. You can say it has a happy ending but by the end of the movie, Sam would have moved a few notches up in your book.
What I liked most is that no matter who or what kind of person you are, you will be able to associate yourself to the characters in this two part movie.
The Opposite of Left
What is right? It never had a clear definition. Today, it is as obscure as it ever was. There is nothing that you can say or do which will be right, even from your own point of view, unless in a definite time frame. The wind of change has erased the very concept of right, and in the process, wrong as well.
There was a time when two people would argue about who was right. Two ideas would battle it out in the ring called righteousness. Today, it is possible for this fight to take place in a person’s own brain. With a result extremely difficult to come by. What seems right today, you may end up regretting a day later. We have all learnt the hard way.
If you live in a place called India, this effect will be even more profound. A man takes to the street and kills on contracts. Because he needs to feed a family of six including a chronically ill child. He never went to school, friends came and went by and family was just a concept. For a man with a cleft lip and a severe speech disorder, the three years of employment he had as a car washer in a small Indian town was more than he had ever hoped for. But still, resorting to taking a life in the endeavor to give somebody a life is most certainly wrong. Or is it, you wonder? Although this is as hypothetical a situation you may imagine, in the world’s largest democracy, sorrow and despair is never hard to find.
No, I don’t hate my country but I have begun to question the very ideals we claim to live by. We don’t have a leader and nor do we have a leader in sight who could do what’s right. Annas and Babas may seem better than what we have right now but power can corrupt the brightest of minds. I am, like the hundred crore others, am seeing the light at the end of the tunnel as a flickering candle. But I also know I see the glass as half empty.
Which takes me back to the first question. Will there ever be a clear distinction between what is right and what is not? I don’t think so. But still, I wonder..
