The “Puzzle”, some of the dialogues

Nothing.. Just a bunch of dialogues from the movie Puzzle.

Courtesy: Sony Pictures Classics

“You’re so much more comfortable when you’re solving puzzles, aren’t you? Why?”
“You ask a lot of questions..”
“Yeah.. that’s how you get to know someone”
“But I don’t ask you any questions..”
“Go ahead!”
“I can’t think of a question right now..”
“That’s my point. You’re uncomfortable around me..”
“Well.. I don’t know you, but it’s not just that.. I’m not comfortable generally, because I.. Normally my mind is.. I don’t know..”
“Because normally your mind moves so fast, you don’t really know where it is going. There is nowhere for you to express your mind. No one to express it to.. It makes you nervous.. So you focus on menial tasks.. Puzzles are menial task for you so you can focus. The results are aesthetically pleasing, and you like it..”

Courtesy: Sony Pictures Classics

“Do you know what it’s like to spend all day, not doing what you’re good at?”
“So what would you rather do? What are you good at?”
“I don’t think I’m good at anything.. I want to cook mom..”
“What?”
“I watched you cook my whole life.. I watch cooking shows when no one’s home. I think I’d be happy doing what you do, not what dad does..”
“But I don’t do anything..”
“Are you f***ing kidding me? Mom, you do a million things, and you’re good at all of them..!”

Courtesy: Sony Pictures Classics

“..And I never wanted kids anyway”
“Why not?”
“Frankly, I don’t like kids”
“How can you say that? You were a kid yourself once!”
“Right. And I hated it.. Not everyone’s supposed to have kids you know.. And not for only selfish reasons. Sometimes it’s for the kid’s sake. In this town, kids are an ornament, a fashion statement, an accessory, a check box.. Honestly, I never felt the need. Does that make me weird?”
–Ziggy’s phone call–
“Was that your son?”
“Yes. My oldest ‘accessory’.. And no, it doesn’t make you weird. Just different. Different from everybody I’ve ever met..”

Courtesy: Sony Pictures Classics

“Why are we wasting our time doing puzzles? It’s a childish hobby for bored people..”
“You know that’s not true.”
“Tell me you are not a bored rich guy.. Tell me I am not a childish housewife”
“No that’s not what we are..”
“You have much more important things to do. You are a man of ideas, why do you do this stupid puzzles?”
“It’s a way to control the chaos–“
“That’s ridiculous”
“Come on Mata you are missing the point.. Life is messy, it doesn’t make any God damn sense.. Sorry to break the news to you, life is just random.. Everything is just, random, my success, you here now; there is nothing we can do to control anything. But when you complete a puzzle, when you finish it, you know that you have made all the right choices. No matter how many wrong pieces you tried to fit into wrong places; at the very end, everything makes one perfect picture. What other pursuits can give you that kind of perfection? Faith? Ambition? Wealth…? Love…? No. Not even love can do that, Mata. Not completely..”

The Ultimate Question of Existence

Recently, I watched the newly released movie in theater-Jurassic Park: The fallen kingdom. Overall, it was a good movie, technically and otherwise. The usual plot of any Jurassic Park/world movie is almost the same, someone gets greedy and wants to use genetic technology and the dinosaurs for some purpose. For example, John Hammond wanted to create something very amazing with his money and influence so he built the theme park to astonish the world by having living dinosaurs in it, the next part has his son bringing out the T-rex for selling it to a park, the third part deals with adrenaline junkie kids to visit the island for adventure. Then there is ‘Jurassic world’ series, where the park is rebuilt and we see two parties- 1] park’s founding body who thinks that dinosaurs are just another toy to show in the amusement park & 2] The military who wants to create dinosaur species to hunt given target. In the end, everyone learns his lesson in the end in his own way.

The latest sequel talks about one more problem-the volcano on Isla Numblar getting more and more active, and having the potential to burn the island completely which would cause the elimination of all the dinosaur species from earth (once again). This starts a conflict, whether to let mother nature rule (let the dinosaurs die) or to meddle in her business (and save them by displacing them to a new island). Immediately there are two groups, those who want to save the dinosaurs and those who don’t want to take any additional actions. There is a third hidden group of the opportunists, who deceive the first group to track the dinosaurs on the island and capture them for experimentation and military purposes.

The lone diplodocus on Isla Numblar

There is one incident in the movie where, from the island, military men rescue as many dinosaur species as possible and take them on their military ship. The time is critical and the volcano is on the peak of destruction. Everyone reaches on board and suddenly they all hear an excruciating sound, the sad cries of a giant Diplodocus (sort of), who was left behind, standing alone on the deck. As if she was calling them to come back for her, or saying her goodbyes, no one would know. No one could do anything. They didn’t return for her, maybe because she was just a harmless herbivore, who took too much space, and couldn’t be a killer. In seconds the lava erupted and poor dinosaur, who was once the crown jewel of the park and the epic magnanimous creature of the planet, was embraced by the flames. This triggers something in the viewers, that they can describe with no locution.

The senate witnesses a debate between first two groups-whether or not to save isla numblar’s dinosaurs from volcanic eruption? Tough question, because it starts its own list of questions-Who has more right to live than others? Who is the better one? Who has the right to decide that someone is better than others? Who gets the authority to decide everyone’s net worth? Is there any measure, any unit to describe that? How many units is good and how many is bad? What is good and what is bad?

This reminded me of another movie, ‘The Oxford Murders’. In that, the protagonist-Martin, a university student, unravels the mystery of his landlady’s murder, while being fooled by his idol-Arthur Seldom-who is actually, trying to cover the murderer because of some guilt from past. Seldom makes Martin believe that a serial killer is challenging them by giving them a mathematical problem. But his puzzles are used as a cover by a desperate father of a seven year old girl in need of a lung transplant and he murders next few (who are already on the verge of dying). He plans to blow up the school-bus of neurodivergent kids and use one of their lungs for his daughter’s transplant. He dies in the ordeal, but the curious thing is, why did he think it’s appropriate to take lives of those kids? Because their consciousness was developed in a different way from that of ours? Does it make them insignificant? The French graphic novel Le Transperceneige (on which the movie Snowpiercer is based) shows the struggle-to live on the same footage, in the ice age caused by a failed global warming experiment, done by humans of course-between the high and low classes of humans-not caring about the whereabouts of other elements of the planet’s biological sector. It, therefore, indirectly shows the narcissistic human nature-how little we care about others, may they be other humans or creatures.

There are many movies and fiction shows that show similar line of existential crisis. It’s funny how the production houses for such movies (which are mostly Hollywood, Marvel or Warner Bros, etc.) keep their own countries at the center of the decision making body in the movie and still make money on an international level. Even in kid’s cartoon, Doraemon shows Japanese earth’s representative in outer space, the Potterverse mentions the magical population from only Europe. This is of course obvious, everyone favors their own troupe. We naturally feel safe in a familiar environment with people we know. This natural instinct-a characteristic feature representing our animalistic lineage-is interpreted by human population as a license to berate the unfamiliar.

In his book Sapiens-A brief history of mankind, Yuval Noah Harari has given account of the socio-psycho-biological evolution of mankind. There were more than six species under the category of ‘Humans’ (under the genus Homo) one of which are us, Homo sapiens. In his attempt to ‘answer what made the others decline making us the only human species’, he describes the evolution of cognitive function of Homo sapiens –  which is nothing but an extremely ableist narrative that gives a free pass to all the above cases of “selectivism”.

We are supposed to be cooperating with everyone of us, every single element in the world is important and deserves basic dignity, and therefore, the right to consent. We are no one to make decisions for others. If everyone understands this, it’d be easier for us to decide what to do with the dinosaurs in Isla Numblar.