Let's talk about Bollywood!

Bonjour a tous, Je n'arrive pas a envoyer de message depuis ma messagerie Orange sur la becane de ce cybercafe... Alors en desespoir de cause, je mets un post ici: que ceux qui le lisent veuillent bien avertir les parents de Frederique, notamment! Donc:...

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This isn't going to be a review of David Lean's famous movie , and my English-speaking readers will have to put up with a bit of French, because this blog is temporarily going to be used as a travelblog for my upcoming trip to India, starting this Friday!...

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My quest into Bollywood classical beauties makes me stumble on great stuff sometimes. Sometimes not: for example, I recently watched Ram aur Shyam and found it a letdown: the famed “best film that cannot be made again” (according to one IMDb user) was...

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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 movie about truth and violence, like Fanaa in fact, with which...

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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 will reunite and pursue revenge on the murderers. It’s a not...

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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, and the familiar smell of the city. You’re in Delhi. Oh,...

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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 story doesn’t permit it? DDLJ or Devdas? KKHH or Fanaa?...

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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 notably to India, to find the answer to that question....

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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 jump and flash and look up from their prison wondering what...

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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 obliging nature, I dutifully pored again in that cardboard...

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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 me, yes! This is for me the “foundation movie”. Why did...

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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 both movies, she plays a sensitive, quiet and very feminine...

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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 gave birth to this daughter. He blamed her for the death...

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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 of Deepika Padukone smiling at me with their healthy skin...

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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 and general. Just saying things like “a scathing indictment...

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