Indian CInema
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AGRA (Dir. Kanu Behl, 2023, India/France)
There is a lot of sex in Agra; in the toilet (masturbatory self-relief), on the phone (sexting), on the bed. It is raw, unfiltered sex, rarely depicted in Indian cinema with such indescribable candour. Guru, a young call centre employee lives in what can only be described as a kind of sexual desolation bordering on Continue reading
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Bollywood Flashback 1# – The cut-price vigilantism of SHAHENSHAH / King of Kings (Dir. Tinnu Anand, 1988, India)
Shahenshah thrives in the darkness, a nocturnal vigilante who stalks the crime infested city streets with a vicious outrage that is manifested through acts of cathartic violence. He is a cultural composite, an uncanny bricolage that absorbs and radiates a surfeit of cultural markers including DC’s The Punisher, Michael Jackson, RoboCop, and of course self Continue reading
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Mohan Joshi Hazir Ho! (Dir. Saeed Mirza, India, 1984) – ‘So, who says there is no happiness here?’
A cursory search of the term ‘chawl’ offers a definition of ‘low quality housing’, which can’t be any further from the truth regarding the abject state of housing for the lower and underclass in India. What chawl actually equates to is poor sanitation, overcrowding, cramped living conditions and squalor. Saeed Mirza’s 1984 work Mohan Joshi Continue reading
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The contributions of B. K. Karanjia to the story of Indian Parallel Cinema
In my writings I have talked at length on the contributions of key figures like Mrinal Sen to the rupture that unfolded in the late 60s but one name that goes amiss is that of B. K. Karanjia (1920 – 2012). It is worth stating that not much has been written on Karanjia in general, Continue reading
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RK/RKAY (Dir. Rajat Kapoor, India, 2021) – Satirical Reflexivity
When we invited film director Rajat Kapoor to Manchester in 2017 as part of the first season of ‘Not Just Bollywood’, one of the things that came to light during our several conversations was his love of Federico Fellini. In many ways, RK/RKay is Rajat’s Eight and a Half (63) – a darkly comical love Continue reading
Movie Mahal 