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Latest posts
- Their hands can see: Sparsh
- Peepli live: long live the media!
- Subarnarekha, Ritwick Ghatak's ode to Life
- Chhalia, Nutan's contribution to the Indo-pakistani peace process
- Mera Naam Joker: too big? Too much?
- Kanchanjungha, the moment of revelation
- Dhobi ghat, looking for a new centre
- Yeh raate, yeh mausam
- Ram teri Ganga maili, RK's last opus
- Abhijan, a remarkable moral fable
About me
I'm a French lover of Indian cinema, but I'm also interested in literature, science, art, and reflection in general. This blog will reflect these tastes more or less!
Bolly blogs I visit
- Greta's Memsaabstory
- Madhulika's Dustedoff
- Bollyviewer's Old is gold
- Sharmi's old films and me
- Bollywooddeewana
- Carla's blog Filmigeek
- Beth loves Bollywood
- A2line's Bollyblog
- Amodini's movie reviews
- Anu's conversations over chai
- Daddy's girl's Dharmendra praise blog
- The fabulous Pitu
- Harvey's blog
- Satyam's blog
- Shweta's Apni EA Company
- Julie and Jenny's Diablog
- Post-punk CC
- Nida's Bitten by Bollywood
- Sanni's So they dance
- Stephen 's Bollywood banter
- Blissful Nirvana
- Maria's Filmiholic
- Philip Lutgendorf 's fil-ums
- Darshit's dunkdaft
- Ajnabi's Paisa Vasool - or not
- Shell's Bollyworld
- The BollywoodFan
- Alan's Bellevue to Bollywood
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Categories
- letstalkaboutbollywood (47)
- film reviews (93)
- practical info (1)
- Book reviews (18)
- miscellaneous (3)
- Trip to India (8)
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My name is Khan, or: what can blunt truth achieve?
(09/07/2010
publié dans : film reviews
)
We shall overcome... Karan Johar’s My name is Khan (2010), starring Shahrukh Khan and Kajol – her great comeback since Fanaa (U me aur ham being not much more than a Devgan promotional), is a ... -
Yaadon ki baaraat: classics can also be bland
(01/07/2010
publié dans : film reviews
)
Oh my God, why are you saying all that! Yaadon ki baaraat (Nadir Hussain, 1973) is a classic tale of revenge, where the good but separated boys who have been witnesses of their parents’ murder ... -
The city with a beating heart: Delhi 6
(26/06/2010
publié dans : film reviews
)
A soft breeze wafts the chimney tops on the morning terraces; night clouds trail away in the East. Bustle and rumours from the city all around; calls and shouts close and far, muffled car honks, ... -
Dulhan ek raat ki: is tragedy more beautiful than comedy?
(20/06/2010
publié dans : film reviews
)
What do you prefer? A happy ending where the two lovers unite after having defeated the villains or convinced their parents? Or the sad one where love cannot exist because the tragic and beautiful ... -
The Householder: does "spiritual India" mean anything?
(01/06/2010
publié dans : film reviews
)
What is the typical Western question? Perhaps this one: “Do you believe in God?” The West has a long history of belief, but also of doubt. And people from the West have long since gone East, most ... -
The reluctant fundamentalist
(27/05/2010
publié dans : Book reviews
)
The reluctant fundamentalist is a strange and powerful little book. It’s clearly got some autobiographical elements in it, and because of that has manage to net some darting fishes of life that ... -
Om Shanti Omy Gawd!
(21/05/2010
publié dans : film reviews
)
I decided I would follow Astia’s remark, expressed in a recent commentary on Love aaj kal, which suggested I should review some more recent BW issues than Nutan and Bimal Roy. So as I’m of an ... -
Those movies that shaped my beginnings and which I never reviewed
(08/05/2010
publié dans : letstalkaboutbollywood
)
This is going to be ABSOLUTE INDULGENCE. Veer-Zaara. Ah, lieutenant Veer, Zaara… and miss Saamiya! I think this is the movie I watched most, perhaps 4 times… Not a lot compared to some, but for ... -
Nayak (1966), the distant star
(29/04/2010
publié dans : film reviews
)
1966: The same year that she was shooting Anupama, Sharmila Tagore played in Satyajit Ray’s Nayak (The hero). Her character is quite different of course, but not without certain similarities: in ... -
Anupama, where the dream-fairies slumber
(12/04/2010
publié dans : film reviews
)
Anupama, by Hrishikesh Mukherjee, centres around the character of Uma (Sharmila Tagore), a shy and silent girl, sole daughter of a cruel father (Tarun Bose) who lost this beloved wife when she ... -
Love aaj kal, a vindication of the past?
(07/04/2010
publié dans : film reviews
)
For once I thought I’d jump back to the present and enjoy a little contemporary Bollywood. So I pored in my box of unwatched movies and saw Love aaj kal (Imtiaz Ali, 2009) with the alluring eyes ... -
Distant thunder, or how Ray recreates the World
(21/03/2010
publié dans : film reviews
)
Ashani Sanket, shot by Satyajit Ray in 1973 is again one of those movies people lift to the skies, but for which you have to wonder why what they find so important or interesting in it is so vague ... -
Family Matters
(16/03/2010
publié dans : Book reviews
)
T here are two « mysteries » in Rohinton Mistry’s 2002 novel Family Matters. One concerns the character of Nariman Vakeel, the 79 year old Professor suffering from Parkinson and osteoporosis, who ... -
Provoked, a battle for battered women's freedom
(07/02/2010
publié dans : film reviews
)
Strange that it was Jagmohan Mundhra (of the fame of Sexual Malice and other cheap erotic thrillers) who was fortunate enough to have been able to shoot this story, the true story of a battered ... -
Paying guest (1957) and a celebration of Nutan's perfection
(14/01/2010
publié dans : film reviews
)
Paying guest by Subodh Mukherji (1957) is not completely worth its two and a half hours of watching: it’s just another 2nd class romantic comedy with elements of drama and thriller. It ... -
The white tiger
(02/01/2010
publié dans : Book reviews
)
The white tiger is a rare genetic variation of the normally ochre-skinned feline that is both feared and respected as the king of animals in Asia. But it’s also a 2008 novel by Aravind Adiga which ... -
Shatranj ke Khilari, ode to a lost kingdom
(28/12/2009
publié dans : film reviews
)
("Make way for Queen Victoria!") Shatranj ke Khilari (1977, The chess players) shows how close Satyajit Ray has come to Shakespearian inspiration. In this story of two gentlemen of Lucknow we have ... -
Saudagar (1973): marriage is a business, alas!
(23/12/2009
publié dans : film reviews
)
I was first informed of Saudagar (« the trader » 1973), by Sudhendu Roy, through Carla and given my unruly interest for Nutan, and my unabated appreciation of Big B, I decided that I couldn’t wait ... -
Sagina: a freedom beyond politics
(07/12/2009
publié dans : film reviews
)
Sagina (1974), a hindi remake of the bengali Sagina Mahato, shot by the same director (Tapan Sinha) four years before, is a reflexion on work exploitation, oppression and revolution. The story is ... -
Bazaar (1982), or how to buy women
(01/12/2009
publié dans : film reviews
)
Sagar Sarhadi has only directed one movie, and otherwise is known for having worked as Yash Chopra’s screenplay writer. This movie, Bazaar, (1982) supposedly belongs to “New Indian Cinema”, and it ... -
Sujata, an untouchable Nutan
(21/11/2009
publié dans : film reviews
)
In Sujata (The well-born, 1959), Bimal Roy has made the untouchable touching, adorable an object of disgust, and visible a pit of darkness. I’m not saying that he has made THE unique Dalit movie ... -
Anari (1959), naive hero in a naive movie
(11/11/2009
publié dans : film reviews
)
Anari (1959), by Hrishikesh Mukherjee, in spite of its numerous defects, represents a compromise between the quality cinema strain started by Raj Kapoor, and its commercial exploitation. The movie ... -
Taare zameen par, Aamir's Khan view of childhood
(07/11/2009
publié dans : film reviews
)
Taare zameen par (2007) was Aamir Khan’s début movie as director; and for a “beginner’s” movie, it’s a rather good one. Does this sound rather bland? Yes, I admit, from the point of view of ... -
The vendor of sweets
(18/10/2009
publié dans : Book reviews
)
R.K. Narayan’s short novel The vendor of sweets (1967) is the story of a wise man, called Jagan, who lives in the narayanian town of Malgudi and prospers by selling quality sweetmeats appreciated ... -
Kabhie Kabhie, clumsy classic
(14/10/2009
publié dans : film reviews
)
Yash Chopra’s “Kabhie kabhie” (1976) was for me like a distant reference, a movie many people had seen and loved back in the exotic seventies, and so, I knew I would have to see it one day. And ... -
Brick Lane
(19/09/2009
publié dans : film reviews
)
I happened to watch Brick Lane (2007, by Sarah Gavron) recently, a movie based on the acclaimed book by Monica Ali. It’s a well-made, well balanced film about emigration and multiculturalism, to ... -
Memories of rain
(24/08/2009
publié dans : Book reviews
)
Memories of rain, by Sunetra Gupta (1993) is a dark jewel of a book, a sombre and dense memorial stone made of darkness and yearning, frustration and anger. We are inside a sort of cenotaph: a ... -
Why should watching older films make more recent ones seem less interesting?
(01/08/2009
publié dans : letstalkaboutbollywood
)
This is a rewriting of a post dated April 4, 2007. The blog output is so low these days that I am resorting to rewrites! ( in fact, I’m busy with other things...) I don’t know if you’re like me, ... -
Roja: how can we love and live apart?
(26/06/2009
publié dans : film reviews
)
Roja is an excellent little movie made by Mani Ratnam back in 1992, starring Arvind Swami and Madhoo (Raghunath); it was a real pleasure to watch another of Mani Ratnam’s works. His intelligence, ... -
Parshuramer Kuthar, motherhood and prostitution
(17/06/2009
publié dans : film reviews
)
This stunning little movie (65 minutes) made in 1989 by Nabyendu Chatterjee, who died recently (2005) tells the story of Laxmi (pronounced Loki), a Bengali village woman whose husband fell from a ... -
Nuts about Nutan!
(08/06/2009
publié dans : letstalkaboutbollywood
)
Basant (1960) is a loony movie where what you see is more important than what you understand. There is a story, sort of, (tolerably interesting in the first half but totally zany in the second!) ... -
Nishaant, the brutality of male (and female) desire
(01/06/2009
publié dans : film reviews
)
“Vishvam (Naseeruddin Shah) is one of four brothers who rule their feudal village in pre-independence India with an iron grip. They execute various criminal schemes to increase their own wealth at ... -
Is Bollywood universal?
(26/05/2009
publié dans : letstalkaboutbollywood
)
I recently heard a journalist ask the question « Is Bollywood nothing more than a cinema made for India, or is there something universal about it?” – and I thought this question deserved a little ... -
Aishwarya Rai Bachchan and Cannes bad taste
(20/05/2009
publié dans : letstalkaboutbollywood
)
For me the yearly Cannes festival is not much more than an industry's self-celebration which is probably best left unwatched, but these days, it’s difficult to miss Cannes photos and interviews ... -
Bandini, Bimal Roy's ode to purity
(18/05/2009
publié dans : film reviews
)
I remember feeling annoyed when, a few years ago, somebody to whom I was voicing my pleasure at recently discovered Bollywood movies, bluntly told me: “oh yes, but Indian movies now… you want to ... -
Jalsaghar, the music-room of a monomaniac
(04/05/2009
publié dans : film reviews
)
This 1958 film, Satyajit Ray’s fourth, might seem to us, 50 years away from it, a strange and slow vestige of a time when the cinema was sadly deprived of the wizardry we now love so much in it. ... -
Aakrosh, cry of the wounded
(09/04/2009
publié dans : film reviews
)
Aakrosh (1980) by Govind Nihalani (whose first film it was, and who had won acclaim as Shyam Benegal’s photographer) is a sparsely told parable about the foundation of justice: should men follow ... -
Dilli ka thug: a gallery of masks
(28/03/2009
publié dans : film reviews
)
Dilli ka thug (1958) might be tossed aside as a jumble of loosely connected narrative titbits that have been put together for two main purposes: Kishore Kumar’s clowning, and Nutan’s youthful ... -
The Kite Runner
(16/02/2009
publié dans : Book reviews
)
Khaled Hosseini is not an Indian writer, but an Afghan-American writer. But having read The kite runner (2003), I wanted to include my review of it here, because it’s a book about the region, and ... -
Mother India, the mother of Indian movies
(08/02/2009
publié dans : film reviews
)
Mother India…That title resonates like everything a Bollywood-lover should pine for: aren’t we all somehow in love with Bharat mata? Aren’t we all her children up to some extent? As for me, I’d ...