Archive for the ‘Drama’ Category
Paa (2009)
A film where Vidya Balan looks good and Amitabh is not ‘Amitabh’ sounds almost too good to be true, but such a film has finally been made. Any character Amitabh has played in over three decades has veered on a spectrum between Anthony and Narayan Shankar (Mohabbatein). His character always ends up being ‘Amitabh playing a ...
Jail (2009)
“As expected, Jail is a dark, brooding and morose film on the injustices of life and how human dignity can prevail despite bleak circumstances through resilience, perseverance and hope. Like all Bhandarkar films, Jail too is a social commentary akin to a documentary on the deplorable conditions within jails and most importantly the injustices endemic ...
Love Aaj Kal (2009)
Take any romantic role Saif Ali Khan has recently stepped into (barring the brilliant Parineeta), shake it up with the turban clad, dholak baja-ing, bhangra pa-ing Punjab that Bollywood loves to stereotype and you have this movie that prances between the love stories of today and yesterday (aaj and kal, get it?). Director Imtiaz Ali ...
Dev D (2009)
Anurag Kashyap (Black Friday, No Smoking fame) is not the first filmmaker to make a movie on Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay’s famous novel Devdas. But he is certainly the only one who has literally turned the book on its head. The basic storyline is driven from original Devdas but the characters are shaped quite differently. Imagine Devdas ...
Videsh (2009)
Premiering to much critical acclaim at last year’s Toronto International Film Festival, Videsh/Heaven on Earth has been directed by Deepa Mehta, the woman at the helm of the acclaimed Fire-Earth-Water trilogy of films. It also made Bollywood headlines when Preity won an award at the Festival, and the ensuing tangles with the Indian Censor Board ...
Luck By Chance (2009)
Luck by Chance, which launches the career of Zoya Akhtar as a director, is one of the most decent films to release in a long time. 2008 has been a comedy of errors for Bollywood with one magnum opus disaster after another. The over-hyped Ghajini and star-studded Yuvvraaj being two prime examples. But if Luck ...
Nayar Daur (1957)
Akhtar Mirza (father of the directors Saeed and Aziz Mirza) wrote the story for Naya daur (‘New Era’). In a village, whose main economy depends on a sawmill, many workers face unemployment when the ruthless Kundan (Jeevan) modernises his mill with the introduction of electricity. Two drivers of tongas (horse-drawn taxis), Shankar (Dilip Kumar) and ...
Ram Aur Shyam (1967)
The theme of identical twins has been present in many cinemas (this being one of the most basic ‘tricks’ available to cinema that was not available to live performances such as plays). Common to melodramas, it is taken to extremes in Hindi cinema, with not just identical twins (Afsana [1951], Anhonee [1952], Gol maal, Hum ...
Andaz (1949)
Mehboob Khan’s Andaz opened the prestigious new Liberty cinema in Bombay. Nargis plays the role of Neeta, a modern woman who mixes freely with men, rides horses and wears western clothes. She seems to be falling in love with her father’s manager, Dilip Kumar, while we ignore all the signs that become so apparent on ...
Nikaah (1982)
Each of B. R. Chopra’s films addresses a serious topic, but they are always entertaining. Nikaah looks at the issue of Muslim divorce, arguing that to be able to get a divorce merely by uttering the three words ‘Talaq, talaq, talaq’ is not in the interests of women or even of men. To address this ...
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Wake Up Sid (2009):
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Zehr-e-Ishq (1958):
Zehr-e-Ishq is a bold experiment in finding new and better values for the Pa...