Post by Thoithoi O'Cottage on Mar 3, 2014 14:09:31 GMT 5.5
[This post is from the Facebook group Manipuri Film Festival. Reproduced here.]
13 May 2012, 04:41 PM
13 May 2012, 04:41 PM
While Lanchenbi (Maya Choudhury) does not ultimately have malevolence behind her ‘experiment’, and though she on the contrary has a huge fortune for her experiment’s prize, her actions have kicked up some legal and ethical dusts which my legal reasoning cannot easily shrug off. Hers is a very dangerous experiment that involves deaths of people, disturbs the peace of a family/families and is capable of destroying families.
A lot can happen between the cup and the lip. A lot can happen before any Lanchenbi could disclose her purpose/mission at the successful completion of the experiment. And nobody is sure the subject of the experiment, the person being experimented on will pass the test. In this case, what would be the value of the mode and kind of experiment, and the experiment itself? Langlen (Premeshori) and Yaiphaba’s (Kaiku) family has been strained almost to the breaking point—they (though foolishly or in an uneducated way) have even signed what Lanchenbi calls ‘divorce document’. (Though this scene tightens the film’s straining tension, it not only is redundant to Lanchenbi’s mission and but also removes her wisdom quotient thereby tarnishing her ultimately good heart, if not showing up her sadistic thirst. I feel this harmful scene was added with an audience consciousness, to heighten the tension.) Breaking points differ from relationship to relationship, and family to family, and a Lanchenbi test/experiment will have more disastrous results than good ones, and a choice of any candidate other than one that will succeed would make the experiment and experimenter illegal.
Even when the choice luckily falls on a candidate who will definitely succeed, even then the law looks at how the magnanimity is shown, how the gift is being given, and what it involves as a precondition for the prize. It is very risky, while it is undoubtedly clear that the whole of the world’s greatest actions, deeds that contributed to the make-up of our current civilization involved taking risks some of which could have been interpreted as illegal had the law happened to cast one eye on them.
In short, Meiri Natte Liklani has kicked up some legal and ethical dusts. This film makes a difference in the Manipuri film scene. I will deal with this film in my longer articles.
17 May 2012, 01:41 PM
Amar is survived by his lone daughter (Lanchenbi), who is the only and last member left of the family (with a huge fortune in the form of some big business establishment) that was. But with a serious medical condition of the heart she knows she will die soon, and this can happen any time. Without a male heir, she has to figure out and decide on how the fortune, business establishment and her father's philanthropic missions could be kept alive, accomplishing which is her only obligation and mission. Thus, in search of a person both competent/deserving and honest to whom she can safely entrust all the property with the strict obligation of the philanthropic mission, she takes recourse to experimenting people. But, the sort of experiment she uses and the course of actions she takes are potentially very dangerous, as I noted above. It is capable of destroying families, and even involves death (though not intentionally).
The text of the film is not so plain as I state here. While we hear of Amar’s philanthropy from indirect sources (i.e. the conversations of unidentified people representing the public at large), the film text does not provide a direct exposition of Amar Enterprises’ undertakings, and what we can gather from the textual references come with the family’s private business interests, which carries some weight that may not support (if not contradict) Lanchenbi’s experiment from only a philanthropic or altruistic viewpoint, but it certainly has another trajectory of ‘unnegligible’ significance.
In any case, philanthropism figures (directly or reportedly) at least significantly in the film. But even when we look at the experiment with a noble purpose of keeping a threatened philanthropist project, there are still legal and ethical questions we can ask such as ‘Are there no other possible experiments with lesser negative impacts?’ and ‘Does good ends justify bad means?’ besides other more complicated ones, some of which I raised as issues above.
The issue this film has (consciously or accidentally) raised is a really interesting one (though the filmmaker (with his associates) seems to tend more sympathetically toward Lanchenbi’s fulfillment). I like such films. Here I put aside the technical and aesthetical naivety/immaturity of this film.
A lot can happen between the cup and the lip. A lot can happen before any Lanchenbi could disclose her purpose/mission at the successful completion of the experiment. And nobody is sure the subject of the experiment, the person being experimented on will pass the test. In this case, what would be the value of the mode and kind of experiment, and the experiment itself? Langlen (Premeshori) and Yaiphaba’s (Kaiku) family has been strained almost to the breaking point—they (though foolishly or in an uneducated way) have even signed what Lanchenbi calls ‘divorce document’. (Though this scene tightens the film’s straining tension, it not only is redundant to Lanchenbi’s mission and but also removes her wisdom quotient thereby tarnishing her ultimately good heart, if not showing up her sadistic thirst. I feel this harmful scene was added with an audience consciousness, to heighten the tension.) Breaking points differ from relationship to relationship, and family to family, and a Lanchenbi test/experiment will have more disastrous results than good ones, and a choice of any candidate other than one that will succeed would make the experiment and experimenter illegal.
Even when the choice luckily falls on a candidate who will definitely succeed, even then the law looks at how the magnanimity is shown, how the gift is being given, and what it involves as a precondition for the prize. It is very risky, while it is undoubtedly clear that the whole of the world’s greatest actions, deeds that contributed to the make-up of our current civilization involved taking risks some of which could have been interpreted as illegal had the law happened to cast one eye on them.
In short, Meiri Natte Liklani has kicked up some legal and ethical dusts. This film makes a difference in the Manipuri film scene. I will deal with this film in my longer articles.
17 May 2012, 01:41 PM
Amar is survived by his lone daughter (Lanchenbi), who is the only and last member left of the family (with a huge fortune in the form of some big business establishment) that was. But with a serious medical condition of the heart she knows she will die soon, and this can happen any time. Without a male heir, she has to figure out and decide on how the fortune, business establishment and her father's philanthropic missions could be kept alive, accomplishing which is her only obligation and mission. Thus, in search of a person both competent/deserving and honest to whom she can safely entrust all the property with the strict obligation of the philanthropic mission, she takes recourse to experimenting people. But, the sort of experiment she uses and the course of actions she takes are potentially very dangerous, as I noted above. It is capable of destroying families, and even involves death (though not intentionally).
The text of the film is not so plain as I state here. While we hear of Amar’s philanthropy from indirect sources (i.e. the conversations of unidentified people representing the public at large), the film text does not provide a direct exposition of Amar Enterprises’ undertakings, and what we can gather from the textual references come with the family’s private business interests, which carries some weight that may not support (if not contradict) Lanchenbi’s experiment from only a philanthropic or altruistic viewpoint, but it certainly has another trajectory of ‘unnegligible’ significance.
In any case, philanthropism figures (directly or reportedly) at least significantly in the film. But even when we look at the experiment with a noble purpose of keeping a threatened philanthropist project, there are still legal and ethical questions we can ask such as ‘Are there no other possible experiments with lesser negative impacts?’ and ‘Does good ends justify bad means?’ besides other more complicated ones, some of which I raised as issues above.
The issue this film has (consciously or accidentally) raised is a really interesting one (though the filmmaker (with his associates) seems to tend more sympathetically toward Lanchenbi’s fulfillment). I like such films. Here I put aside the technical and aesthetical naivety/immaturity of this film.
