spare the movie, spoil the child?
i wish there was an option on tv that gives you a preview of all the channels on a single screen. how else would i know what i’m missing … there could be an excellent movie on HBO while i’m watching my favourite re-run of f.r.i.e.n.d.s (that’s right, they just play re-runs now) or a cartoon filler elsewhere.
i was channel-surfing again after haqueeqat and i landed on star movies. they were playing ardh-satya, or the half-truth. it was a movie i had wanted to see many years ago, but my parents did not let me watch it because they felt it was too violent for my system.
the movie was about this honest and quiet policeman who got into the police because his tyrant father forced him to — and then found oppression everywhere. unable to hold on to his idealistic principles for too long, he turns murderer and kills two people. the first victim is an innocent thief that he vents his frustration on, and the second is a corrupt underworld don who offers to ‘buy’ him in exchange of his job, and life. the irony here is that our policeman goes to the don for help in the first place because he sees no way out of his guilt and shame.
read a better review here.
just a few weeks ago, i encountered an irate policeman who no one, not even my father wanted to mess with, and wondered why we make beasts out of them.
i guess the half-truth attempted to give us a fair idea.
this brings me to another issue…
i realised that there was not much violence depicted in the movie. enough perhaps, to shake my ideals of “truth” in the age of blatant corruption. so, my question is:
are parents justified in not allowing their children to watch such movies?
by letting children grow in pseudo-concepts of satyamev jayate (truth alone triumphs), aren’t they shielding their face away from the real truth?
ps: here’s a confession that might help you look at this question in a different light — to this date, i cannot sit through a violent or noisy movie without squirming in my seat nervously, biting my nails or going white with fear.
my parents, as would anyone’s, meant well. but should i be grateful, or should i be sorry?