Indian Cinema
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STUDYING INDIAN CINEMA (Auteur, 2015)
My first book on Indian Cinema is finally here! I’ve been banging on about this book for ages, and a lot of the work that is in the book is derived from the writings on my first film blog which I set up in 2007 titled ‘Ellipsis: The Accents of Cinema’. Covering 14 chapters, the book Continue reading
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UGLY (Anurag Kashyap, 2013, India)
Director Anurag Kashyap really knows how to cast his films, finding actors (rather than working with stars) with the right level of anxiety in their faces, inculcating a strange volatility in the audience. Ugly could almost be a companion piece to Peddlers, a film produced by Kashyap and which is stuck in distribution hell with Continue reading
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ANKUSH: A Weapon to Control (N. Chandra, 1986, India)
Ankush (Control) was an unexpected commercial success on its release and launched the careers of both director N. Chandra and Nana Patekar. Ankush, released in 1986, appeared when the angry young man films had all but ended. N. Chandra, most famous for launching Madhuri Dixit in Tezaab (Acid, 1988), wrote and directed Ankush as his Continue reading
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HARUD / AUTUMN (2010, dir. Aamir Bashir, India)
Harud is singular in many ways when it comes to the representations of Kashmir in the sphere of Indian cinema. It does the impossible. It tells the story of Kashmir by simply telling the story of a family. Harud communicates elemental ideas about human relations thereby transcending the way political biases have in the past, Continue reading
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KOMAL GANDHAR aka E-Flat / Soft Note on a Sharp Scale (1961, Dir. Ritwik Ghatak)
Komal Gandhar is the film Ghatak made after Meghe Dhaka Tara (The Cloud Capped Star, 1960) in what was the most unremitting productive phase in his career. It is also an ignored work. This stems from the film’s inclusion in Ghatak’s partition/exile trilogy and in which much of the critical dialogue has balanced on Meghe Continue reading
Movie Mahal 