The initial reel of veteran Aki Kaurismäki’s The Other Side of Hope leaves us confused on the film’s genre. Famous for his rich oeuvre of clever, humorous plots, his latest film begins with a spate of silence that incidentally conveys quite a lot. Only to be halted by a live acoustic performance […]
Read Time : 6 Minutes
“Barrage”… A rhythmic, objective take on parenting and estrangement!
Teenager Alba (Themis Pauwels) lies to her friend Agatha that her estranged mother is a singer in a band and wouldn’t disclose to the world about her being a parent. Although there exists a barrier between the mother and daughter, Alba is grown enough to assign the former this imaginary […]
Read Time : 9 Minutes
Meera & Viridiana | Through the prism of religion and faith…
It doesn’t occur to me often when I watch films from two different geographies and they weirdly connect over a common crux. The unusual happened as I explored Luis Buñuel’s iconic Spanish classic Viridiana (1961) and Gulzar’s Hindi feature film Meera (1979). The former is about a novice nun’s tryst with the disruptive […]
Read Time : 8 Minutes
“Autumn Sonata”… A devastating portrait of failed motherhood!
This Ingmar Bergman classic is a doeful recipe on papers. If one is told a three-liner synopsis, you would think twice on how the story will pan out. Bergman welcomes us into the film with one of the most sublime beginnings one could have ever asked for. There’s our lead protagonist […]
Read Time : 3 Minutes
“Logan” bids Wolverine a resounding good-bye!
Marvel’s swansong to X-men series often forgets it’s a superhero film – which is exactly what makes director James Mangold’s Logan a fine piece of cinema. With voluminous amount of hoopla on how fitting a closure will Marvel’s most accurate (arguable!) comic book embodiment gets, we tend to be a […]
Read Time : 5 Minutes
“It’s Only The End of The World”… A flawed yet deeply involving family drama!
Xavier Dolan’s family drama It’s Only the End of the World is a case of curious writing. One might accuse him of rather flaky, convenient narrative pattern, and rightfully so. At the same time, the film is so confident in its skin that you nearly buy everything you’re served. Also […]
Read Time : 4 Minutes
“Toni Erdmann”… Original, funny and equally heartbreaking!
With a title that resembles a swanky fashion label, Toni Erdmann is anything but modish. An intricate, culturally rooted father-daughter tale, the film is high on pathos with an omnipotent shadow of loneliness looming large. For a film that runs for an excruciating 160 minutes, our ‘wait’ for the plot […]
Read Time : 4 Minutes
“Manchester by the Sea”… Tearjerker of the year!
Death. It is often as hard for the witnesses. The sudden void, the unforeseen change in plans that it thrusts upon. Dealing with a series of deaths and their associated agony, there is something awfully unnerving about the way writer-director Kenneth Lonergan crafts his third feature Manchester by The Sea. Akin to top Oscar […]
Read Time : 6 Minutes
“La La Land”… A love letter to vintage Hollywood musicals!
We know the jazz musician in Damien Chazelle. Staging the lead man in his latest La La Land as one, the filmmaker’s passion for the genre stands unparalleled – even as we draw comparisons to the zealous leads themselves. In Chazelle’s writing, we see determination to bring back Hollywood’s golden era, […]
Read Time : 3 Minutes
“American Honey”… An unseen kaleidoscope on North American counterculture!
A road film through the United States of America that pretty much sums up its under-explored counterculture. Centred around a group of edgy hippies on a magazine subscription sale, the film attempts to project their aspirations, adventures, sentiments and veiled dreams. The road trip ain’t one through those plush states […]
