Ishqiya is better than most films the Hindi film industry makes, even if its pleasures weren’t the ones I was expecting. I went into the film looking for a taut, erotically charged thriller about a femme fatale manipulating two saps over a pot of gold, film noir in a bhaiyya-setting as it were. [...]
Archive for Qalandar
I promise somewhat irregular posts on (in no particular order) Indian politics, cinema, and anything else that catches my fancy... Why "Qalandar"? So-called "liminal" religious traditions are a particular interest of mine, and "qalandar" is the sort of untranslatable, ambiguous, yet enormously evocative word that for me touches upon and articulates the experience of the sub-continent's "little" traditions in a particularly memorable way...not to mention the fact that in popular lingo the word has more than a merely religious/spiritual connotation, and can mean a bunch of other things, including a smart alec, wannabe, what-have-you...
I recently saw Nadodigal, and after all the hype, was quite disappointed. The film is quite well-made in terms of ambience, but uneasily straddles the line between old-school masala and “new” tamil cinema — and ends up with neither the energy and enthusiasm of the former, nor the rawness and “street cred” of the [...]
[One of my favorite Hindi films -- Qalandar]
Midway through 3 Idiots, there’s a sequence where the ultra-irritating Chatur, the epitome of the learn-by-rote student that principal Viru Sahastrabuddhe (Boman Irani) delights in producing at the Imperial College of Engineering (“ICE”), has to deliver a speech at a college function, before the student body and its chief guest, an education minister. Chatur [...]
LINK
Horror Show
The film industry has changed, pitching its wares to an ever-narrower (and wealthier) group of people, excluding entire demographics and social groups that, until quite recently, constituted a staple of the Bollywood audience
UMAIR AHMED MUHAJIR
I haven’t seen Kurbaan yet. I certainly will, and it might well be a pretty good film too. [...]
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“What is easier said than done is to get all of you at one time in one room for two hours. My entirely personal belief is that the biggest challenge in front of us is not to get the politicians to see sense and do what we recommend. The biggest challenge is: Can we stay [...]
September 18, 2009
A Sick Man Embracing a City’s Life, Just as His Own Is Threatened
By STEPHEN HOLDEN
In “Paris,” Cédric Klapisch’s sumptuous Gallic comedy, the camera, whether surveying the landmarks from on high or peering out of an apartment window at the passing parade, becomes a surrogate for a first-time visitor to the City of Light. [...]
[A good, detailed interview -- Qalandar]
TEXT LINK
VIDEOS..
[Image courtesy the Goodearths blog.]
One of my great pleasures is exploring a master’s minor work — often it is only in the latter, especially when one has attained canonical status, that some vestiges of the whimsical remain. Strictly speaking, this is only partly true of Satyajit Ray’s work (he actually seemed to get more [...]
The passage of time does strange things, but not even Marcel Proust could have dreamed it would have this effect. I’ve spent most of the last two decades disliking Salman Khan. I mean, really disliking him, and everything about him: from his wannabe vibe, his faux-Bambi eyes, his breathless dialog-delivery, his weird English [...]
Last Halloween, a five-year-old girl showed up at my doorstep wearing a tube top, miniskirt, platform shoes and eye shadow. The outfit projected a rather tawdry sexuality. “I’m a Bratz!” the tot piped up proudly, a look-alike doll clutched in her chubby fist. I had a dizzying flashback to an image of a child prostitute [...]
Marathi cinema saw its most glorious days in the 60s and 70s, with some great films like Shyamchi Ayi and Tukaram being made. Some of these are difficult to procure on You Tube, so I’m offering a small glimpse of what this regional cinema entails starting with the 70s.
The Seventies
The 70s saw a profusion of [...]
The first sequence gets you. It’s aboard a train — as so many of the best action sequences are — and Bobby Deol, his hands bound, is being escorted to an unidentified gangster, along with a young woman supplied from Varanasi for the gangster’s pleasure. Her bright-red shalwar qameez simply underscores her nervousness; [...]
Outright fun, not to mention silliness, has long been a casualty of A.R. Rahman’s recent Hindi oeuvre. Unlike in Tamil, Rahman simply hasn’t done very many soundtracks for “ordinary” Hindi films of late. That is, the typical Rahman Hindi album this decade has been a Swades or a Jodha-Akbar, or a Delhi-6 — [...]
EXCERPT: “Naan Kadavul (“I Am God”) is the logical terminus of Bala’s concerns, which include a concern with the history of the Tamil masala hero persona (there can be little doubt Bala has cinematic history on the brain; the descent of a godlike star into the masses’ midst is a fleeting motif in Pithamagan, in [...]
Rahat Kazmi’s Dekh Bhai Dekh (apparently re-named Dekh Re Dekh at some point; my DVD carried the older name) is a refreshing little film: it hearkens to the cinema of old, albeit in the streamlined garb of the contemporary “little” film. Refreshing because this look backward isn’t by way of ironic distance or homage, [...]
[Thanks to GF for pointing me to this trailer. It's a good trailer — the opening shots impart a touch of Hephaestus to Kamal working in his subterranean lair…couldn’t help but smile at that English accent, that is vintage Kamal ha ha ha. Lal as expected underplays the role relative to Kher — there’s [...]
Art is a subjective thing for sure - but someone claiming a mediocre piece of art (music in this case) ...
From music to cricket- I remember telling Rikky that on consistency Pathan junior is a much better batsmen ...
BO is a different matter.Music is a personal and subjective thing.There is no such thing like "good" and "bad".
When you ...
Some of the SD burman songs are rumored to be composed by RD. Couple of weeks back some one confirmed ...