“Blemished Light” and velociraptors and the scathing takedown of inflexible patriarchy

Film colossus

Blemished Light is like a velociraptor.

“Come again?”

Remember Jurassic Park?  Dr. Grant tells this kid that velociraptor’s are smart, that they hunt in packs.  One raptor will distract the prey from the front, but the attack doesn’t come from the front:  it comes from the raptors that had been hidden on the sides.

We see this in the film No Country For Old Men.  The distraction is the plot involving Josh Brolin and Javier Bardem.  Brolin has found drug money and is running away with it. Bardem is hunting him down.  All of this while the poor, old sheriff, Tommy Lee Jones, tries to figure out what’s going on and protect Brolin.  While the movie opened with Jones we barely see him during the main portion, focusing almost entirely on Brolin and Bardem.  When the Brolin and Bardem plot concludes, you think the movie would be over.  But, instead, we go back to focusing on Tommy Lee Jones in the wake of the case.  After several conversations with various people, we get this sad, reflective conclusion, where the now-retired Jones tells his wife about two dreams he had.

The end of No Country often leaves people confused.  “Why so much attention on Tommy Lee Jones?”  But the entire purpose of the movie is in the title of the movie:  no country for old men.  The film is about generational push.  About how you go from your prime to slowing down to being old and unable to impact the world around you in the way you once could.  The entire movie is actually about Tommy Lee Jones and his inability to keep up with Brolin and Bardem.  The attention and focus on Brolin and Bardem plays into this concept, as Jones is unable to even hold the attention of the movie.  Ouch.

Blemished Light operates in a similar fashion.  It has two main plots, with a focus on two characters.  First is Mohammed Husain, a Muslim fundamentalist arriving in NYC to kidnap a popular, fundamentalist-damning, non-violence advocating Muslim Scholar.  The second is Leela Singh, an Indian girl whose father is very traditional and is forcing her to marry a man she doesn’t want to marry–she is actually gay and runs away with her lover.

Ostensibly, we think the movie is about Mohammed and Leela.  They have wants and they are taking action.  Will they succeed?  Will they fail?  What will they learn?  Most of the screen time belongs to them.

But the film is not really about them.  Similar to Brolin and Bardem in No Country, Mohammed’s and Leela’s plots act as a set-up for the film’s true main characters.

Who?  The Muslim Scholar, Fareed Rahmani, and Leela’s traditionalist father, Devraj.  It’s through these characters that Blemished Light arrives at its commentary on the world.

Fareed and Devraj show us how inflexible patriarchy, based on an unflinching belief, is a terrifically shitty way of doing things.  Regardless of intention.

Fareed’s staunch refusal of violent action, no matter what the cost might be, is something many might see as “noble”.  But this “noble” action leads to as much tragedy and trauma as Devraj’s brutal enforcement of traditional values over progressive values.  In both situations, a father’s beliefs puts his child in a soul-shattering moment of crisis.  And I mean CRISIS.  There is no “good” outcome.  The saddest part is that both crises were entirely avoidable.

And that’s why Blemished Light is one of the most bitter and acrid movies I have ever watched.  It begins partially cloudy, grows overcast, then erupts with hail and fire-birthing lightning.  Each father a tornado, powerful and powerfully stupid, that wrecks everything.

Yes, you would be absolutely right to argue that non-violent action IS noble–it was effective during the Civil Rights Movement.  And that protecting traditions in the face of an ever-fluxing society IS also noble, especially as cultures begin to homogenize.  But Blemished Light takes those noble ideas and makes an argument for why such theories are flawed when they are applied in rigid ways.  We can extrapolate from this and look at the film as a logical assault on any institution that is governed by static thoughts and non-evolving beliefs.  Im-press-ive.  Kudos to writers Raj Amit Kumar and Damon J. Taylor.

Dr. Martin Luther King once said, “The aftermath of nonviolence is the creation of the beloved community, while the aftermath of violence is tragic bitterness.”  Watch Blemished Light and then see how easy it is to agree with that statement.

Written by Chris Lambert

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