New Indian Cinema
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MUKKABAAZ / THE BRAWLER (Dir. Anurag Kashyap, 2017, India) – Fist of Fury [spoilers ahead]
Mukkabaaz ends with very little of the catharsis you would expect from a boxing biopic. But Kashyap’s latest venture uses the sports film trappings as a way of navigating the politics of caste against the backdrop of an unconventional Hindi romance. This one zips along, partaking a breathless, infectious energy and enjoys circumventing audience expectations Continue reading
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MACHINES (Dir. Rahul Jain, 2016, India/Germany/Finland)
The worker as machine is not a new phenomenon. It goes as far back as the industrial revolution. But I have to admit though. I thought this documentary was going to be about the singularity of the physical, industrial and technological symbolism of machines. It still is in some respects. But Rahul Jain trains his Continue reading
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REVELATIONS (Dir. Vijay Jayapal, 2016, India)
Revelations is about the inadequacies and vulnerabilities of relationships. Writer and director Vijay Jayapal crafts four memorable characters and appreciatively gives them time to grow. In doing so the director also draws on common archetypes – the housewife, the husband, a mysterious stranger, the youthful novice – connecting with a recognisable cultural code but inverting Continue reading
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PINK (Dir. Aniruddha Roy Chowdhury, 2016, India) – Gestural Cinema
Stylistically and structurally Pink is a fairly parochial work. Where it resonates is in the ideological mode of address, polemicizing contemporaneous gender politics in which the norms of gender behaviour are regulated by a regressive culture of misogyny, corruption and privilege. Amitabh Bachchan has often functioned as a mediating figure and certainly in this respect Continue reading
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MOH MAYA MONEY / In Greed We Trust (Dir. Munish Bhardwaj, India, 2016) – Delhi Noir
In the traditional film noir universe the destruction of the male protagonist is manifested in a downward spiral of paranoia, guilt and death. And it becomes a virtual impossibility to attain redemption. No matter what one does to rectify an earlier regret usually leads to certain calamity from which there is no return. Thematically, a Continue reading
Movie Mahal 