27 Down (1974) / Gişe Memuru (2010)

The childhood is short—and golden. Thereafter, life is a spiral going downwards, punctuated by love affairs that beckon the man to shake off cowardliness and paternal domination, to shake off one's own lethargy, but finally unable to be consummated. Everything—and everyone—dominates, and the man who is judged to not have grown up is smothered. Each step is violence, and the artist, the dreamer prefers to rather betake himself in the world enclosed by constant motion: that of a swaying berth in constantly shunting trains, that of a still toll booth among a swirl of traffic of license-bearing grown-ups.

While the beautifully shot, black-and-white 27 Down is a finer and heavier film dealing with the story of many if not most men, of their dealing with their fathers and this patriarchal world, Gişe Memuru (int'l title: Toll Booth) is a slightly lighter affair, with occasional brilliant bursts of humour, though winding up with same tragic consequences. The stories are the same, it is the setting that differs. One is set in a rainy Bombay, among the grime of trains and their busybodiness; the other is set in perspiringly sunlit Turkey—a bit too much sunlit when the sunflowers decide to accompany the sun—among content automobile drivers and their uncouth inquisitiveness. Behind both looms the figure of the Father, demanding more than his pound of the flesh from the obedient good-for-nothing son, whom they need to "settle" in life. The chain of familial relationship lies heavy on the sons, the protagonists: when they, in spite of their flinching selves, even catch hold of a corner of the floating cloud for themselves, the Father's death will still intervene, the expiring, ascending soul making a last-ditch successful effort to forever shatter the flimsy confidence of the young men. And the world goes on: almost brutal, not mere insensitive, to the crushed spirits. For those who may make merry, the world is ready to join in; for those who may not, each one lives with enough demons of their own to want more of the others'.

It is easy to succumb, for there is an object: satisfaction of your ego. It is difficult to fight, for the object seems absent: the world seems a ludicrous affair.