Omar Ahmed
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JORAM (Dir. Devashish Makhija, 2023, India) – Bury the Tribal
* * * * Joram has the acute radical socio-political sensibilities of Parallel Cinema films that were often made as a rejoinder to systemic structures that were unyielding and oppressive. Filmmaker Devashish Makhija’s latest feature Joram blends genre with politics, adopting the concept of the chase expressly the ‘man on the run’ from the law Continue reading
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KILLER SOUP (Dir. Abhishek Chaubey, 2023, India)
* * * Abhishek Chaubey has remained brilliantly consistent and his last film Sonchiriya (2019), a dacoit Western with an ensemble cast, was an exceptional genre work that was under appreciated on its release. In many ways, Killer Soup instinctively revisits the multi narrative format of Chaubey’s Udta Punjab (2016) and makes for a devilishly Continue reading
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FALLEN LEAVES (Dir. Aki Kaurismäki, 2023, Finland) – Chaplinesque
* * * * Kaurismäki’s latest dead pan socially conscious love story, and a return to the proletariat, is one of his most topical but perhaps his best work to date. Almost impossible for anyone to aspire to the innocence of Chaplin in such times of gut-wrenching cynicism but Fallen Leaves does just that, crafting Continue reading
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THE DELINQUENTS (Dir. Rodrigo Moreno, 2023, Argentina) – Time Out
* * * I wonder if the logic behind Rodrigo Moreno’s The Delinquents emerged from the anti-work movement, a post Covid phenomenon that saw many quit their jobs because they didn’t want to continue working in a torturous capitalist system geared towards monotony, compliance and exploitation. In the doubling equation Moreno poses the question; what Continue reading
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MASTER & COMMANDER: FAR SIDE OF THE WORLD (Dir. Peter Weir, 2003, US)
* * * * Peter Weir is both a skilled craftsman and great storyteller. Now retired, Weir’s last film was back in 2010. His body of work is water tight and encompasses films made in Australia expressly the classic Picnic at Hanging Rock, and later in the US when he made the leap to Hollywood Continue reading
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