User:Adwitlal/sandbox

A story of a gullible man with the intentions of serving his community is thrown into the dark world of murder and extortion by manipulative political groups. He gets shot, survives and is arrested in the end only to question himself, DOES KILLING HELP...

SETTING :
As the premise suggests, this story on 8 universal reasons to kill takes place in Birgunj, Nepal.

Birgunj is a region of sharp contrasts, where humble village abodes and lavish residences mark the difference between rich and poor at first glance.

Birgunj is a major business hub in Nepal, bordering India.

ABOUT BHAJU PATEL :
Bhaju comes from a minority family with neither education nor stable finances for generations. In his younger days, Bhaju preferred to take on small jobs to help his family financially rather than go to school, and is seen from a young age to be a very action-oriented person.

He mentions growing up amid memories of violence from armed bandits, who regularly looted his village. He takes a stand in his teenage years when his family’s land and house are about to be taken away by rich landowners in his village through a scheme involving fraudulent documents.

He remembers feeling bitter and angry about the injustices the powerful impose upon the powerless.

Bhaju starts out his journey when he joins the uprising by the revolutionary army in order to arm himself and get his land back. He is led to believe that it’s not just about fighting for his land, but thousands of others like him who are suffering from injustice from the rich and the powerful.

Bhaju sees the need to serve a bigger cause and allows himself to be led into the revolution. He undergoes training to become an armed militant and a proficient explosives expert. Disappointed over time with the lack of ethics he witnesses in his commanding officers, Bhaju leaves the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) and returns home, where he joins another revolutionary group more to his liking, as he would now be directly serving his community of minorities, his own people.

Bhaju encounters the same old ethical dilemmas concerning his superiors also in the new revolutionary party, but carries on for the money to support his family, and also to fulfill his new-found commitment to rooting out evil from society.

Years later, utterly disappointed with revolutionary leaders not fulfilling their promises, and realizing how many lives he has taken, he stops killing, and, in the present, is serving his community doing social work for oppressed minorities.

PRODUCER’S STATEMENT:
8 Reasons to Kill is not a story of Good versus Evil, it is a story about the complexity of right and wrong and human reactions in extreme circumstances. Cross-culture, cross-border reasons in order to survive in a world where flawed societies fail to deliver stability and security to their citizens.

We do not wish to portray the main character as a hero nor a villain, that decision should be left to the audience to decide.

On the one hand, the main character of this film is someone who was capable of committing countless murders. On the other hand, he believed that by committing these murders, he would be saving lives and defending the rights of the oppressed.

The aim of 8 Reasons to Kill is to present the personal evolution of our protagonist as he experienced it, through oppression and murders. Going on a non-fictional, yet mesmerizing journey with a real-life mercenary while relating to him will create cognitive dissonance within the audience.

This dissonance has the potential to produce a deeper understanding in the viewer about who we may become when torn away from our comfortable existence and cultural surroundings.

PATRONS
8 Reasons to Kill is a HOTEI Productions production in collaboration with Good Times Nepal and Sano Paila

The film is done in two different timelines:
Bhaju Patel’s Memories: The past, which is shown with dramatized scenes on top of interview footage where Bhaju explains the events from his past in detail. Bhaju Patel in present time: One whole day of Bhaju’s present situation, which is shown in a documentary style.

Presentation style of Bhaju Patel’s Memories :
Slow smooth camera movement Cinematic Minimalist compositions 85% closeups, extreme closeups 5% blur vignette (sharp in the center) Color graded slightly in sepia with grey highlights As reference: dark, almost Neo-noir Minimalistic, sharp, detail-oriented soundscape, no dialogue

Presentation style of Bhaju Patel in present time:
Shot on a shoulder rig, documentary-style Less than 50% closeup shots, no extreme closeups Shots are long; we follow Bhaju’s life Shots always contain daylight Contains dialogue Color grading emphasizes orange and green, more vibrance The soundscape is alive. More ambiance. Cityscape, village, nature

The 8 reasons to kill Act list:
The movie is divided into 8 reasons for Bhaju Patel’s to kill, these reasons in the movie are shown to be universally relatable, but while it doesn’t necessarily force sympathy with Bhaju, it certainly helps in understanding where is he coming from '''FEAR INJUSTICE DISLOYALTY REVENGE SURVIVAL MONEY OTHERNESS REDEMPTION '''

ACT 1 FEAR (0-15min)
PRESENT: At Baju’s village. Bhaju enters his house and gives a hug to his son. His wife enters the room from the kitchen. Bhaju and his wife look at each other, Bhaju’s wife gives a relieved smile to her husband, Bhaju looks at her. Fade with the scene.

PAST: Bhaju has been traumatized by the fear of violent robberies since childhood. When he was 16, rich landowners tried to take away Bhaju’s ancestral land. Bhaju joins a Maoist group to get the land back. At the age of 17, he kills the leader of the robbers who had been bothering his village.

ACT 2 INJUSTICE (15-25min)
PAST : Bhaju is persuaded by the Maoist group to fight for others like him. His land will come after that. Bhaju goes to war against the national army. However, he soon has a problem with the ethics of revolutionary army commanders and decides to quit. He goes back home to start a small business to make a living.

PRESENT: Bhaju gets a call to solve a dispute in his village center. He mentions how very often villagers ask him for help when it comes to resolving disputes, filing a police report, or going to court.

PAST: Bhaju is harassed by police in his shop because they know he was a Maoist rebel. Bhaju has to close his shop now. He can’t take injustice anymore and joins a new uprising brewing in his own city and starts to kill people again.

ACT 3 DISLOYALTY (25min-35min)
PRESENT: Bhaju is having a cup of tea at his village marketplace. The tea shop and its environs look rugged and poor. He starts talking about poverty and how he feels so helpless sometimes. He really would like to make a difference in his community. Somebody calls him, and he leaves for a meeting with his friend from the NGO he works for.

PAST : Bhaju is climbing the ranks in the new revolutionary party because he is so good at his job of extorting money from businessmen, making bombs, and killing people considered enemies, or to have shown disloyalty to the cause. However, he again perceives a lack of ethics in his superiors and starts disobeying orders from his commanders, who feel Baju is betraying them and send a group of assassins after him. Bhaju escapes with a single bullet lodged in his back.

ACT 4 REVENGE (35min to 45min)
PAST : For three months, Bhaju looks for doctors to remove the bullet out of his body. An anonymous politician helps him in exchange for his bomb making services. After his treatment is completed, Bhaju takes his revenge by killing the guy who shot and wounded him.

PRESENT: He is doing charity work in a village by talking sense to local village hooligans who were caught fighting drunk. He is talking straight to the camera about the guilt over accidentally having killed innocent people. He broods on such moments. But he’s happy to be alive now and make things right. He continues with his walk to the charity meeting.

ACT 5 SURVIVAL (45min to 55min)
PAST: Bhaju runs out of money after paying for his medical care. To survive, he has to extort money from businessmen and ignite bombs to collect money. Still weak from the surgery, he feels he is stuck in a life he doesn’t want.

PRESENT: Charity work; Baju is filing a police report for the benefit of a villager’s court case.

ACT 6 MONEY (55min to 65min)
PRESENT: Bhaju sees a happy, simple family in the market, stops to watch them, then keeps walking towards an empty plaza from where he can see the whole city. A colleague from the NGO comes to speak to him about the court case of a man who comes from another village. The man turns out to be the cousin of someone Baju victimized in the past. Baju wants to come clean and decides that he needs to meet the family to whom he has done wrong.

PAST : Bhaju feels he hasn’t made enough money for his family. They depend on him to make ends meet. For the sake of his family, he starts selling his services as a professional killer, letting people know he is back.

ACT 7 OTHERNESS (65min to 75min)
PAST : Bhaju’s location is tipped off and the police catch him. He is brutally tortured for several days. Shaken by the torture, Bhaju is however relieved to find out he is not to be executed but sent to prison to await trial. A fight breaks out in prison between opposing factions of the revolution; 15 people are fighting with knives. Bhaju does not participate, he is hiding, watching the rumble from a corner. What he sees is two groups hating on each other. Bhaju feels that there is no idealism there, just fear of otherness, pure hate towards people who belong to another group.

THE PRESENT: He is on his way to meet the family. Bhaju says, “It seemed completely pointless, like a bunch of guys who just hated each other, there were no principles there in that prison riot at the time. Now I need to face the fact that I led young guys to death into such a hate-filled revolution, I have to meet that family.”

ACT 8 REDEMPTION (75min to 90min)
PAST : Bhaju gets out of prison after 5 years. He avoided a longer conviction due to a lack of evidence. Now he has no socially accepted skills for making enough money for his family. He meets a social worker. The social worker accepts Bhaju despite his past and gives him a job at his NGO. Suddenly, Bhaju is offered good money to kill somebody: $20,000. He considers accepting the offer and giving the bulk of the money to the NGO. He wants to feel good by giving away his fee. But the social worker begs him not to take the hit job, remindinging Bhaju the would-be victim surely has a family. Half convinced Bhaju meets with the family of one of his comrades who died in the war. When he sees the wife and kids of his dead friend, and how miserable they were, he is convinced not to take the $20,000 job and understands his past deeds cannot be redeemed by committing yet one more murder.

PRESENT: Bhaju is talking to the family of a man he killed. There will surely be a confrontation. Close-up pictures of the face. He will meet the family and they are to have an actual conversation. (We will hear what they have to say.)

THE ENDING SCENE
Final interview with Bhaju: “I could have let go of the robber, I was just like him. Today, I have improved myself… He could have improved himself in the same way I did. I should have given him a chance. I should not have killed him.”

References:
https://8reasonstokill.com/ https://www.henrikmaki.com/8-reasons-to-kill