‘Qissa’ of Irrfan Khan
By Khalid Jawed
In Qissa, we do not find the Irrfan Khan of other films: style of dialogue delivery, facial expression, gait, reflexes, mannerism and his entire body language are pronouncedly different.
Playing the subaltern: Irrfan Khan as the migrant worker in ‘Mumbai Meri Jaan’
By Umang Kumar
Khan allows the viewer to enter the unvarnished world of the migrant worker and struggle along with him each moment – buying biscuits at the kiosk; sipping chai; doing sit ups as his coffee is drained; taking his family to the mall, dressed in a fresh, untucked bush-shirt with a kerchief under the collar; trying to participate in the new India by indulging a whim for expensive perfumes, as if to reclaim something the city and the society owe him.
‘Sraboner Dhara’: Human Relationships and Alzheimer’s
By Nishi Pulugurtha
Sraboner Dhara depicts the issues of the caregiver with great sensitivity.
Anubhav Sinha’s ‘Thappad’ is Elitist
By Nafis Haider
The particular singularization of one aspect of female life belonging to a rich and elite family cannot describe the reality of India.
Anubhav Sinha’s ‘Thappad’: A Slap and a Silence
By Mekhala Chattopadhyay
Thappad is a poem, enough to remain within your room and your mind, slowly and stealthily building a sky of its own.
‘Smile Please’: Photographs, Memories and Dementia
By Nishi Pulugurtha
Streaming online now, Smile Please is a must watch for anyone interested in the way a film deals with a medical condition and handles it wonderfully – a rarity in Indian cinema.
‘Morjim’: Faizan Kareem’s ambitious, fun-filled heist thriller set in Goa
By Murtaza Ali Khan
Morjim may not be a perfect film but it is certainly a delicious one. Among other things, it has a McGuffin that even Hitchcock would have been proud of.
Sergei Eisenstein’s lost film ‘Que Viva Mexico’: A work of true revolutionary fervor!
By Vivaan Shah
Eisenstein’s lost film Que Viva Mexico leaps from the abstract to the lyrical and eventually to the downright dramatic. There are passages of pastoral beauty and evocations of rural life that blossom into the heart like sunflowers budding from a parched soul.
‘Joker’ Review: The Rise of Joker
By Murtaza Ali Khan
It’s a pure masterstroke to cast De Niro in the role of a talk show host in the film. And despite the short screen time, De Niro’s influence can be felt all over the movie. If he doesn’t get an Oscar nomination for The Irishman then there is a great possibility that he may get it for Joker in the supporting category (of course, he can get nominated for both and that would really be something).
‘Super 30’: A Case for Hindi
By Monica Bhattacharya
Although Super 30 is ‘protest art’ in its own right combating the evils of class hierarchy, it engenders a new form of linguistic subjugation that sparks the long-standing debate on the monopoly of Hindi.
Satyajit Ray’s ‘Shatranj Ke Khiladi’: An expertly crafted cinematic gem
By Prithvijeet Sinha
As a proud Lucknowite myself, I reserve my praise for Ray’s satiric langour and eye for detail in the Awadh-bound trajectory in Shatranj Ke Khiladi (The Chess Players). The complexity in a game of chess, by turns, tests one’s mental capacity or, should I say, awareness of life’s unheeding twists of fate.
Review: Netflix Series ‘Leila’
By Murtaza Ali Khan
There is a whole world of dystopian literature available for study but perhaps Deepa Mehta didn’t want to go beyond the idea of a squalid underbelly that has been best captured by films like Salaam Bombay and Slumdog Millionaire.
Cafe Dissensus Everyday 