அரசியல் பேசும் அயல் சினிமா

I love watching a lot of movies from my childhood, but have never been a follower of documentary films until I read the book "Arasiyal Pesum Ayal Cinema."

As far as I know, this book is one of it’s kind!!!. The author - E.P. Chinthan introduces us 16 different World Political documentary films in this book. But what makes it so special is that he explains and analyzes the historical reasons and political aspects around each film, rather than discussing about those films itself. This naturally builds-up an eager to every reader to know more about the issue; as well a fervent to watch the movies.

We all love mobile phones, and the smarter they become we love and buy them more too. But, are we ever aware of the dark side of these cell phones? Did we know that our demand for phones has been fueling finance to a civil war, which has killed more than 5.4 million people in the Democratic Republic of Congo? !!!. An episode of this book presents a hard-hitting documentary “Blood in the Mobile (2010)” that exposes the illegal mining in Congo and how the leading mobile phone manufacturers are craving for them.

Chocolate has always been a favorite to almost everyone of us. But behind it’s wonderful taste, there is also a darker side that can make anyone to feel bad about!. An episode on a documentary "The Dark side of Chocolate (2010)" investigates the stories about child labor during the production and harvesting of cocoa beans, mainly in Ivory Coast.

Many children are slaves in these Coco farms throughout their life, without any education, money not even proper food. I was shocked to realize that this issue has been going on for many years and not any worthy actions taken till now. Thanks to the money power of Big Chocolate companies and our addiction towards them :(

Another episode extradicts an inspiring story, “The Coconut Revolution (2001)”. It’s a story of Bougainville Island people’s incredible victory over the Western Colonial power. This episode explores the hardships of Bougainville against the Papua New Guinea army and its mining plans to exploit their natural resources. The story also shows the Bougainvillean’s courage and creativity to fight it back successfully. It was amazing to know, how they managed to use coconuts to power their own villages, make medicines for all sorts of ailments, and even to fuel for vehicles. I never realized the many uses the coconut could offer!!!

The above ones are just off the top of my head, but each episode tells us a deep, impactful history of a country. Issues discussed in each episode is so dense and heavy, But the author explains it in simple terms, yet giving deep insider on how global economics is manipulated to keep the money flowing into the pockets of the wealthy elite of the world.

Personally, I find this book very valuable for not just giving me some world exposure; but it also has prompted me to think, to reframe my default view on social issues, to realize and stop whether I'm also indirectly propagating the same injustices.... ?

I am extremely happy that I get a chance to read this brilliant book; I can’t imagine how much efforts/ground work Chinthan would have put to analyze and script into essays!

A must read if you're interested in world politics and history.

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Pon Paulraj