New Indian Cinema
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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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SHIVAMMA (Dir. Jaishankar Aryar, 2022, India)
Directed by newcomer Jaishankar Aryar, Shivamma is a Kannada village tale in which a naive middle-aged woman, Shivamma (Sharanamma Chetti), becomes seduced with a get-rich-quick scheme that involves flogging a dubious energy drink with perilous side effects. I’m not sure to what extent Aryar’s intentions were to pitch this as a darkly comical critique of Continue reading
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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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LEILA (Dir. Deepa Mehta, 2019, India)
Forays into SF are limited in both Indian cinema and the land of television. Any kind of dystopia usually intrigues, bringing with it the propensity for imagining different types of political scenarios, which are often grounded in our world. Adapted from the novel by Prayaag Akbar, Leila, a six part dystopian mini-series, commissioned by Netflix, Continue reading
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GAMAK GHAR (Dir. Achal Mishra, 2019, India)
Director Achal Mishra’s impressive debut film is a semi-formalist work, resorting to a succession of absorbing vignettes and framed as tableau in which the historical spatial and temporal configurations of an ancestral family house acts as more than just a pivot, fashioning a sense of the ephemeral and conjuring a steady yet absorbing rhythm. Choosing Continue reading
Movie Mahal 