AND WHY THIS FILM MATTERS There is a sense of enormous struggle and emotional charge to Mary Kom's life that Omung Kumar's 'sort of' biopic (it begins with a disclaimer that the film draws from incidents in the boxer's life, suggesting that they've been modified/fictionalised) doesn't bear out. A reading... Continue reading

SUPER COP There's something very satisfying about Pradeep Sarkar's Mardaani. Not just that it has a female protagonist but one who is truly empowered and doesn't get compromised by the filmmaker at any point either to make her rise heroically from the ashes as in the Zakhmi Aurat-type revenge melodramas... Continue reading

CRAZY OLD FOOLS There’s a peculiar likeness between Woody Grant (Bruce Dern) of Alexander Payne’s Nebraska and Bauji (Sanjay Mishra) in Rajat Kapoor’s Ankhon Dekhi. Both are lost souls in a lost world. Woody’s much older, hence easier to dismiss as senile (with a King Lear-esque fuzziness about him). Bauji... Continue reading

ATTAGIRL! An early scene in Vikas Bahl’s Queen reminded me of a similar one in Aditya Chopra’s Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (1995). A young woman wants to take a journey by herself for the first time and asks her father if he’d let her go. In DDLJ, the London-born and... Continue reading

By Y.M.Deosthalee The UPA Government has been aggressively propagating financial inclusion. They introduced schemes such as NREGA, compelled banks to open branches in remote areas, enforced priority sector norms for credit to underprivileged etc. But has this changed the country's social fabric? Have we forgotten caste, religion, and language-based differentiation?... Continue reading

THESE WOMEN NO CRY Instead of the regulation item song, the end credits of Soumik Sen’s Gulaab Gang roll to inspiring stories of women who’ve overcome disadvantages of birth and of patriarchal oppression to find ways to fulfil themselves and help others. It’s a welcome change. Sadly, the founder of... Continue reading

This article first appeared in Time Out magazine What kind of work would an actor of Sanjeev Kumar’s enormous talent but modest looks have attracted in contemporary cinema? Surely he couldn’t have played the six-pack flaunting hero of youth-obsessed love stories or a member of the lowbrow comedy club. Today... Continue reading

ROAD TO NOWHERE This review contains spoilers Dear Papa, I am writing to you from my new home in the mountains where the air is so fresh, the water so clean, the sheep so adorable and the women in ethnic costumes with cool folk music on their lips so trendy!... Continue reading

THE REAL DIRTY PICTURE There’s something disconcerting about Ashim Ahluwalia’s Miss Lovely and it’s not just the grim environs in which his tale of C-movie lowlife is set. Locations more authentic one hasn’t seen in Hindi cinema — literally squeezing out every ounce of glamour from the city of dreams... Continue reading

LOVE IN THE TIMES OF MUSHAIRAS In Woody Allen's Blue Jasmine Cate Blanchett plays a down-and-out former heiress surviving on a staple diet of vodka, Xanax, rage and self-pity. She talks to herself and is rude to everyone in sight. But the character's vulnerability cuts deep and as you loathe... Continue reading

FLAWED YET HEART-WARMING Hindi films about the elderly are almost always focussed on suffering—uncaring children, loss of loved ones, illness and the fear of mortality etc. Such preoccupations are no doubt inevitable with advancing years but our cinema doesn’t allow characters to live, grieve or die with dignity like in... Continue reading

A PEEK INTO HISTORY India doesn’t have a particularly good record at preserving film history. Shivendra Singh Dungarpur’s insightful biography of legendary archivist P K Nair, Celluloid Man (2012) chronicles how Ardeshir Irani’s son sold the film negative of the first Hindi talkie Alam Ara (1931) as scrap. In one... Continue reading

JAB V SHANTARAM MET DADA KONDKE AT THE DESIGNER VILLAGE NAUTANKI When you walk into a Sanjay Leela Bhansali film you have to leave your inhibitions at the door. The guy expects unconditional surrender to his grandiose vision, wound up characters, over-wrought emotions, and operatic sets and costumes. You can’t... Continue reading

THE JADOO HAS LEFT THIS FRANCHISE First the good news. Krrish 3 has by far the best special effects one has seen in an Indian film; Dhoom 3 better pack enough fire-power to outdo the mind-boggling wizardry of chameleons morphing into human forms, gravity-defying spins through Mumbai's streets and a... Continue reading

A TALE OF TWO B.R.’S The poster of B.R. Ishara’s Chetna (1970) advertised the filmmaker’s intent upfront. Debutant Anil Dhawan, standing at a distance was framed between Rehana Sultan’s bare legs. The director was enticing audiences but also being cheeky about the Adult certification granted to his breakthrough film. Interestingly,... Continue reading

LIVES UP TO ITS NAME I get it. Abhinav Singh Kashyap’s Besharam has been designed to expand Ranbir Kapoor’s mass base. And in the process take a few pot-shots at the ageing movie gods he hopes to dethrone. So he’s doing just the things middle-aged boys of the 100 cr.... Continue reading

NOURISHMENT FOR STARVED SOULS Ritesh Batra's The Lunchbox opens with a crisscross of overhead wires that keep Mumbai's lifeline––its local trains––running. Tracks intersect, seemingly randomly, taking people to their familiar destinations. Everyone who's lived here long enough has experienced this life at some point, journeying on trains to work and... Continue reading

MARRY-GO-ROUND "Marriage is a wonderful institution. But who wants to live in an institution?" Groucho Marx famously declared. The characters in Maneesh Sharma's Shuddh Desi Romance might agree with this pronouncement. Barring, of course, Goyal (Rishi Kapoor) the caterer and decorator whose business is clearly in jeopardy if this line... Continue reading

LOST CAUSE If Madhur Bhandarkar scavenges on the Page 3 circuit, Prakash Jha picks his themes from the day’s headlines. Sadly, he’s content projecting the bold print (or its screaming-ranting equivalents on prime time news), never showing the slightest inclination for introspection or analysis. With four films in as many... Continue reading

ANATOMY OF A KILLING The constraints under which Indian filmmakers have to operate can be crippling. Especially when it comes to political subjects, given the state’s indifference towards providing an environment conducive for free expression and the increasingly violent pitch of dissent and prejudice. Recently the release of Kamal Hassan’s... Continue reading

*In which I revisit Smita Patil's forgotten films WHAT IS IN A NAME? I watched Ravi Tandon's Jawaab in 1985 when it first released. Not out of Smita-love but because we couldn't get tickets to Rahul Rawail's Arjun which was running to packed houses. Disappointed yet determined, my dedicated film-watcher... Continue reading

OF MISPLACED MACHISMO AND MINDLESS MISOGYNY In writer Rajat Aroraa and director Milan Luthria’s worldview women are commodities men use for distraction, gratification or merely as possessions. Even in the so-called women-oriented The Dirty Picture, Vidya Balan’s Silk proudly proclaims that she’s ‘entertainment’, employing bold dances and gestures to please... Continue reading

GET OFF THIS TRAIN BABY Random thoughts on watching Chennai Express: For a film that keeps reiterating, "Don't underestimate the common man," it does precisely that, displaying unqualified disdain for the audience's capacity to discriminate between intelligent self-referencing and lazy writing. Shah Rukh Khan claims he's 40 and Deepika Padukone... Continue reading

DOESN'T MAKE THE GRADE The neon lit signboards of Paharganj were first used in Anurag Kashyap’s to echo the protagonist's hollowness in Dev D and as markers to his progressive despair. Taking us through the squalid bars and dingy rooms occupied by painted faces it worked because it was original,... Continue reading