Indian CInema
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Swayamvaram / One’s Own Choice (Dir. Adoor Gopalakrishnan, 1972, Malayalam)
Adoor Gopalakrishnan’s debut feature Swayamvaram (1972) is a stark melodrama that marked the beginning of the Malayalam New Wave, an adjunct of India’s Parallel Cinema movement. The film opens with an extraordinary six-minute, dialogue-free sequence aboard a moving bus in Kerala. Shot in a verité style, the camera roves among passengers before settling on the protagonist, Viswam Continue reading
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Bollywood Flashback 2# – The cut-price aesthetics of Hum / We (Dir. Mukul Anand, 1991, India)
Hum is outrageous, outlandish but also borderline brilliant in the hyper-stylised aesthetics of Mukul Anand who really knew how to frame a shot. Set on the docks of a crime infested Bombay ruled over by Danny’s ‘Bhaktawar’, the industrial-slum-proletariat milieu with overexposed lighting, audacious dolly shots and quasi-documentary inserts makes for a bravura genre spectacle. Continue reading
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AB DILLI DUR NAHIN (Dir. Amar Kumar, 1957, India) – A Nehruvian Dream Through a Child’s Eyes
* * * Raj Kapoor’s 1950 production, Ab Dilli Dur Nahin, carries an unmistakable Nehruvian focus that, while sometimes feeling contrived, is salvaged by Master Romi (Mohammed Salim), one of India’s first child actors. Romi, first made a name himself in the K. A. Abbas Munna in 1954, apparently the first mainstream songless Indian film. Continue reading
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PALTADACHO MUNIS / The Man Beyond the Bridge (Dir. Laxmikant Shetgaonkar, 2009, India) – Severing the now
* * * Released in 2009, director Laxmikant Shetgaonkar’s Paltadacho Munis could arguably be situated as part of a post-Parallel Cinema cycle of films, a sort of hangover from the mid to late 90s era, since it is a work that explores caste, gender and religion in a rural milieu with a brilliantly sharp eye Continue reading
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TRIAL BY FIRE (Dir. Prashant Nair, Randeep Jha, Avani Deshpande, 2023, India) – Fight the Power
* * * * Prashant Nair, Randeep Jha & Avani Deshpande’s Trial by Fire is a vacuum of rage; the rage of two parents who lost their children due to criminal negligence in one of the deadliest fires in India. This is by far the best Netflix Indian TV series to date and is light Continue reading
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