The Days Of Our Lives

Today my academic commitments for my semester ended. No more acads till January now. To celebrate, I watched a Japanese movie called Cassern. I had heard somewhere that it was similar to Sin City with the same kind of comic-feel to it. So I was only too excited to watch it.

The movie was about a breed of re-animated (almost human) beings called Neo-Sapiens who emerge as a result of a cloning experiment gone horribly wrong. Being considered freaks and hunted for no apparent cause, they declare war on humanity and construct a massive army of robots to do so. Then comes this super-hero called Cassern, a former soldier brought back to life, who gets his superpowers as a result of his reincarnation. Ofcourse, like any other superhero he tries his best to save the world.

Being a Japanese movie, it was filled with fantastic 'anime like' action which made the action scenes from the Matrix trilogy seem as if they were filmed in slow motion. And the movie was pure art. It was breathtakingly beautiful. Each frame of the movie was a piece of art - infact each frame could have come straight off a panel of a comic, as was the case with Sin City. But probably this is where Sin City ended and Cassern began.

As it turned out Cassern was much, much more than your average run-of-the-mill superhero movies. Most of those are aimed towards teenagers anyway. The ending is always the same - superhero defeats the supervillian in the end. Plus he gets the girl. Plus the world is saved. Blah Blah. Cassern was, fortunately, aimed at a more mature audience, making it probably one of the very few such movies to incorporate a strong complex storyline.

Towards the ending, the movie took a completely unexpected turn. The villians weren't really the villians anymore. The good guys weren't exactly good. The superhero wasn't really fighting a 'good' battle. It was superb. Pure storytelling - at its very best. The superb ending got me thinking on some accounts. Mainly 3 things - war, love and purpose.
The movie presented a gory picture of war - unlike usual one-sided war movies. I was left wondering about certain issues - Who are the good guys in a war? Who are the bad guys? Who gets to win a war? Who decides? If you're fighting a war for your country but don't really believe you are doing the right thing, where do you stand; are you a traitor?


On love - What is the extent to which you can love someone without hurting those around you? Can love really transcend all boundaries? What is love anyway?


And finally on purpose - What is our purpose here on Earth? I mean, there must be a purpose for which we were sent down here, right? Are we really serving it? And that all-time favourite unanswered question - What is the meaning of life?

Come to think of it, I was taken for an unexpected ride by Cassern. I wasn't quite expecting what was thrown at me by the movie. But whatever was thrown, hit me quite hard. I doubt any of these questions has a definite answer or even one which makes sense. Or perhaps these questions weren't meant to be answered at all.

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