New Indian Cinema
-
COURT (Dir. Chaitanya Tamhane, 2014, India)
It’s an impossibility to keep track of the numerous directorial debuts coming our way from India these days. Chaitanya Tamhane joins such ranks with his skilfully scripted docu-fiction courtroom drama unequivocally studying the Indian legal system and its many contradictions. Rather than look at many different cases, Tamhane fixes his observational gaze resolutely on Narayan Continue reading
-
THAT GIRL IN YELLOW BOOTS (Dir. Anurag Kashyap, 2010, India)
Kalki Koechlin’s rise has been somewhat meteoric and deservedly so in many respects. She is a fine actress and her 2010 collaboration with husband-director Anurag Kashyap on That Girl in Yellow Boots (the title refers to the yellow Doc Martins worn by Koechlin) suggests she will inevitable shift into filmmaking. Koechlin wrote the screenplay with Continue reading
-
SHANGHAI (Dir. Dibakar Banerjee, 2012, India) – State of a Nation
Indian filmmaker Dibakar Banerjee’s latest film Shanghai is a brave attempt at the political thriller genre. The film adapts the 1967 novel Z by Greek writer Vassilis Vassilikos, which was made into a film in 1969 by Costas Gavras, and updates the material to contemporary India. Weaving together the lives of four key characters, the Continue reading
-
ASHA JAOAR MAJHE / LABOUR OF LOVE (Dir. Aditya Vikram Sengupta, 2014, India) – Time and Space
Aditya Vikram Sengupta’s Labour of Love is an intrepid experiment, dispensing entirely with dialogue, relying on sound and images to weave a lyrical narrative about two individuals in Calcutta. Sengupta deploys a hypnotic observational style, dwelling fondly on the micro details of those in-between moments so common to neorealist cinema and particularly De Sica’s films. Continue reading
-
ISHAQZAADE / LOVE REBELS (Dir. Habib Faisal, 2012, India) – Star Crossed Lovers
Its too early to say whether or not Habib Faisal is a solid mainstream filmmaker but on the basis of the two films he has directed to date including Do Dooni Char & Ishaqzaade, he has certainly tried to take on the conventions of mainstream Indian cinema and give audiences something a little different. Ishaqzaade Continue reading
Movie Mahal 