User:Stbillexpense/RAKTHAM

{{Infobox film
 * name          = Raktham
 * director      = Rajesh Touchriver
 * producer      = Sunitha Krishnan
 * writer        = Rajesh Touchriver
 * starring      = Benerjee Sanju Sivaram Madhushalini
 * music         = Songs: Vivek V K
 * cinematography = J.D. Ramathullassi
 * editing       = Zashi Qmer
 * studio        = Sun Touch Productions

Raktham (English: The Blood) An ensemble of political revolutionaries is in the final moments of triggering a mine to assassinate a central minister. But to take a life without justification is murder – and so, these assassins rationalize their actions in order to ensure they are not left morally bankrupt after the deed is done. Therein, the individual internal conflicts of the humane assassins come to fore, and things fall apart, even though they seem to achieve their goal.

Naresh, the blood thirsty revolutionary who had to helplessly watch his entire contingent being murdered by the army and carried away like dead animals, confronts Anand, whose poems celebrate joie de vivre, even when he is tasked with the responsibility of pulling the trigger. They clash over what makes a revolution: is it justifiable to sacrifice innocent lives for acts they didn’t commit? Making peace between them is the leader of the pack – the battle scarred father figure, Shankar Anna. Absorbing all this chaos like a tree hugging a storm, and yet motivating Anand as a guiding light to his end, is Maya, the love of his life. Add to the mix Deepa, the young impulsive insurgent, and there weaves together a debate about the limits of violence and the justified balance between means and ends of political action.

But even when the just assassins seek to execute only a token of despotism within India’s complex caste-class melting pot and thereby mark their dissent, they would still be killing a human being who has his own dreams, rights and perspectives. Killing is a terrible task, and once having done so you find yourself having crossed an immoral point of no return. Conscience proves to be a terrible thing for an armed revolutionary: in order to wash oneself of the guilt of the terrible deed, one must value the idealism that he/she fights above his/her own life. Even the sacrificial offer for forgiveness for split blood looms like a threat then, disrupting the righteous terrorist’s quest for immortality and meaning.

To a world which wonders why it still hurts despite doing away with morality, Raktham (The Blood) highlights inescapable moral issues associated with murder and terrorism, even for an existentialist. The film explores the idea of rightful violence and the conflict between the ideology of non violence and right to kill people who inflict violence. When the hate which weighs down certain people into intolerable suffering exists elsewhere as a comfortable system, those who are unable to get rid of their own hearts even in the most contemptible of efforts, solicit respect and empathy. That lends rationale to narrate this ensemble’s justified revolt, their difficult brotherhood, and the immeasurable efforts they make to put themselves in tune with murder.

Raktham (The Blood) is inspired by the French philosopher and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Albert Camus’ 1949 play ‘Les Justes’, which traced its characters from actual assassins who lived and confronted these demons, as documented by Boris Savinkov in his ‘Memoirs of a Terrorist’ (1931). Each day’s political assassination worldwide is a reminder that an honest dialogue on violence is urgent and necessary, especially in India where nine of its states have an active parallel government run by armed revolutionaries. While letting Camus lend voice to their struggles, the movie also dissects his philosophy of the absurd, raising rebuttals pertaining to the heart and belongingness.