Film Review: Sohail Khan’s ‘Freaky Ali’
By Nadira Khan
Though the film is based on the American sport comedy, Happy Gilmore, the melodramatic tamasha between the rich and poor reaches a level of idiocy and becomes a source of laughter.
Melody in film: The Hindi film song as a cultural product (Part III)
By Roshni Sengupta
The turn of the millennium made the filmic landscape more varied, more experimental and definitely more stimulating. As the discursive space became increasingly narrow with competing religious fundamentalisms dotting the political mindscape, the Hindi film song would turn into an offshoot of the main narrative, often being presented at the end of the film as the credits rolled.
Melody in film: The Hindi film song as a cultural product (Part II)
By Roshni Sengupta
Although a number of films had been produced in the 1960s in colour, the 1970s could be described as the first decade of the colour medium in Hindi cinema. Accompanying the dawn of colour, however, was an embryonic sense of general despondency in politics – the Nehruvian era had come to an end and with it the raucous positivity and enthusiasm for nation-building.
Melody in film: The Hindi film song as a cultural product (Part I)
By Roshni Sengupta
The Hindi film song has continuously been the launch vehicle for the film as such, particularly so for the historical genre. Consider the heartbreakingly beautiful “Jo Wada Kiya” (Taj Mahal, 1963) or the extraordinary “Jab Pyar Kiya Toh Darna Kya” (Mughal-e-Azam, 1960).
Downton Abbey: A Journey of Womanhood
By Srirupa Dhar
Women are no longer relegated to the household. Both rich and poor women, to the shock of many upper class conservatives, are starting to go out into the world and deciding their own futures.
Indian Television has regressed
By Kouser Fathima
The makers of these serials forget that Humlog and Buniyad both entertained and enlightened the audience. Those were not mere shows but experiences which viewers could relate to and remember for years.
Hindi Cinema and Feminism
By Neha Basnet
These ‘feminist women’ encourage and spread ideas that women can be liberated and will be considered equal only if they participate in every sphere of life that men have been part of.
A Chapter in World Cinema: Essence of Nature in Three Anime of Isao Takahata
By Rituparna Borah
As an appreciator and critic of world cinema, I hope we’ll get more Isao Takahatas in future. As of now, there is only one.
Shyam Benegal’s ‘Manthan’: Verghese Kurien and the Social Churning
By Mosarrap H. Khan
If Kurien led an economic revolution through the setting up of milk co-operatives, Benegal’s film captures the embedded social revolution that transformed the consciousness of its members as well.
A Chapter in World Cinema: Ebbing Innocence in Theo Angelopoulos’ ‘Landscape in the Mist’
By Rituparna Borah
The director, Theo Angelopoulos, almost certainly aims to illustrate through the movie how humanity, disillusioned, aspires to go back to where it began: to its roots.
A Chapter in World Cinema: The never-ending search for ‘home’ in Wong Kar-Wai’s movies
By Rituparna Borah
Ever so subtly, with a diligent play of colours, facial expressions and moving monologues, Kar-Wai brings home the anguish of homelessness with acute finesse, thereby kindling unwonted emotions even in those of us, who wallow in the feeling of having a home.
A Chapter in World Cinema: Enchanting Disenchantment in Eran Kolirin’s ‘The Band’s Visit’
By Rituparna Borah
As we watch Kolirin’s movie, Max Weber’s despairing ‘iron cage’ goes into a tailspin from the pages of his manuscripts and we suddenly find it in The Band’s Visit: we revolve in a circle of conflicted feelings.
Cafe Dissensus Everyday 