DEAD PEOPLE WALKING According to Wikipedia.com, a zombie is “an animated corpse resurrected by mystical means, such as witchcraft. The term is often figuratively applied to describe a hypnotised person bereft of consciousness and self-awareness, yet ambulant and able to respond to surrounding stimuli.” The latter part of this definition... Continue reading

THE GHOST HAS THE LAST LAUGH There’s something intimate and otherworldly about Rashmoni’s (Moushumi Chatterjee) wooden jewellery box. She guards it with her life and grudgingly doles out little pieces of intricate gold to new brides in the household with a bitter word thrown in to underline her disapproval. She... Continue reading

IN WITCH KONKONA RETURNS Kannan Iyer’s directorial debut, Ek Thi Daayan, co-written and co-produced by Vishal Bharadwaj, comes with a curious disclaimer––“This film is a work of fiction and doesn’t stereotype women as witches”––which is greeted with guffaws by the sparse audience. It’s a relevant concern that stereotyping women will... Continue reading

A MODERN LOVE STORY I remember Mrinal Kulkarni (formerly Mrinal Dev) from the seminal Marathi television series Swami, playing young Rama, the gentle, endearing wife of Madhavrao Peshwa while still in her teens. The image has stuck and her later film and television forays never quite matched up to that... Continue reading

LIFE, DEATH AND EVERYTHING IN BETWEEN We often describe our films as ‘melodramatic’, literally meaning a combination of melody and drama––a heightened representation of emotional states, achieving climax and offering collective catharsis to an audience. Melodrama synthesises social criticism with mythical archetypes thereby enabling the viewers (diverse sections of them,... Continue reading

SHE’S THE MAN Sai Paranjpye has been conspicuous by her absence from the hullabaloo around her 1981 cult comedy Chashme Buddoor. You can speculate on her reasons though the obvious one that comes to mind is the very idea of remaking a film that’s still so fresh, both in content... Continue reading

THE PHOENIX RISES If you’ve watched Naseeruddin Shah extensively on stage and screen it may be hard to fathom why this exceptional talent (honestly, I don’t have the vocabulary to qualify it beyond clichés) is squandering his reputation on embarrassing fare like Chaalis Chauraasi, Maximum, Sona Spa, etc. Of late,... Continue reading

THE BLIND SINGER AND THE JUST KING In the summer of 1996, as a rookie journalist, I went to Aurangabad and Latur on the campaign trail for the Lok Sabha elections. At a rally addressed by Sharad Pawar and Vilasrao Deshmukh in Latur, there was a youngish, weary-looking woman of... Continue reading

THE OTHER SIDE OF THE TRACKS Mira Nair’s debut feature film Salaam Bombay which is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year and had a limited re-release last week, begins like any other conventional film with an underdog hero. Young Krishna (Shafiq Syed with a brilliant screen presence), barely 12 years... Continue reading

ON WATCHING SAHEB BIWI AUR GANGSTER RETURNS What do audiences take home from films like Saheb Biwi Aur Gangster Returns? I, for one, came away with a headache. Tigmanshu Dhulia perhaps wanted to critique contemporary India’s fungible moralities and the absence of valour even in blue-blooded descendants of erstwhile princely... Continue reading

THE MAN WHO COULD SAY ‘NO’ Last month I sent Farooque Shaikh an impulsive message after watching his latest release Listen Amaya for the second time. It was an uncharacteristic gesture and the idea was merely to compliment his work. Most actors don’t respond to smses from strangers. He did... Continue reading

THE SONG OF REVIVAL Till Paresh Mokashi made Harishchandrachi Factory (2009), all we knew about Dadasaheb Phalke was that he directed India’s first fiction film Raja Harishchandra (1913) and there’s an award named after him. Mokashi’s vision transformed this pioneering effort into the adventures of a Chaplinesque hero obsessed with... Continue reading

THOUGHTLESS AND POINTLESS There is a human face to every tragedy––even the most violent and horrific ones. A filmmaker has the right to choose his stories and the points-of-view from which he narrates them. For instance, Ramgopal Varma may have a greater fascination for the 10 terrorists who landed in... Continue reading

A WORLD WITHOUT WOMEN Kai Po Che wouldn't be the first Hindi film to fail the Bechdel Test for Women in Movies. Spectacularly too. Nor would it be the last. Male-bonding and undying love between the boys is one of our most enduring themes. But Kai Po Che is a... Continue reading

WHEN FEEL-GOOD DOESN'T FEEL RIGHT *Spoiler Alert Despite its thoroughly entertaining exposition and great period detailing (how I’d love going back to the computer/mobile-free ‘80s with just two state-manufactured cars, HMT watches and all the inconveniences of the License Raj! But that’s misplaced idealism too…), something about Neeraj Pandey’s Special... Continue reading

THE DREAM MERCHANTS Of all the stories in this delectable collection edited by Jerry Pinto, Pritish Nandy's interview of the late Kishore Kumar in a 1985 issue of the Illustrated Weekly of India has to be the craziest. Ranging from anecdotes of his eccentric ideas for refashioning his bungalow (he... Continue reading

HUES AND REFLECTIONS If Deepti Naval wasn't an acclaimed actress, perhaps her first collection of short stories The Mad Tibetan: Stories from Then And Now, would have received more attention for its content than the book release function. A compilation of 11 pieces––a mix of fiction, autobiography and travel writing—it's... Continue reading

COME FALL IN LOVE…AGAIN AND AGAIN! I’ve always believed that Marathi cinema is miles ahead of its big brother in terms of content and performances, and displays the courage to tackle diverse subjects without shying from the truth. Often, what keeps it from attaining heights of cinematic greatness is the... Continue reading

SAATH SAATH ONCE AGAIN Millions go to the cinema to watch the likes of Salman Khan in trashy movies week after week, year on year. Some of us have waited decades to see Farooque Shaikh play the lead in a film. Just to hear the man say, "I love you"... Continue reading

ALL DRESSED UP… Three destinies tied together by a name. That’s the premise of Bejoy Nambiar’s second film, David. His first, Shaitan, had reminded me of Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Amores Perros for its lament on human civilisation and modern cities where everything has eroded––love, family, trust, religion, law but above... Continue reading

RUN FOR YOUR LIFE Just going by the number of brand partners acknowledged at the beginning of Race 2, you already know it’s a money-spinner. Apart from a showroom-full of Audi cars of different sizes, there’s a comprehensive catalogue of eyewear for everyone including Anil Kapoor. In the first edition... Continue reading

CASE OF THE COP-OUT CLIMAX Sudhir Mishra's Inkaar is a tough film to defend. Not the least because of its confused climax and an inconsistent performance by lead actress Chitrangada Singh. But it's also difficult to dismiss it on these counts alone, for there is much the screenplay packs in... Continue reading

A DENSE THRILLER There’s a thing about cinematic referencing. One can’t know for sure if young filmmakers are always conscious when they doff a hat to the classics. In the case of Nikhil Mahajan’s Pune 52, the connection is more obvious. Kids are playing in the field and hear the... Continue reading

PINK BUFFALOS AND RED HERRINGS Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro! remains a classic 30 years later because its insanity was directly proportional to Kundan Shah's anger with the system. Consistently absurd and relentlessly dark, it was funded by the state-run NFDC in what must have been a momentary lapse of judgment... Continue reading

OF THE BIRDS AND THE BEES I spent the best time of my growing life in a chawl not very different from the one shown in Ravi Jadhav’s Balak Palak. Peopled by characters that seem unnaturally innocent in hindsight––even with their quirks and squabbles and tendency to gossip––these housing projects... Continue reading