film reviews

There isn’t much of a story in Satyajit Ray's Pratidwandi (the Adversary, 1970): because of social and economic disruption in Bengal, young Siddharta (Dhritiman Chatterjee) and his family (mother, uncle, sister and younger brother) find it hard to cope...

Umrao Jaan (Muzzafar Ali, 1981) belongs to the genre of tragedies which describe the destiny of a doomed character in a beautifully told narrative such as will bring out the pity and sorrow necessary for spectators to be cleansed of their own sins. And...

I think I can safely say that Satyajit Ray all his life tried to fight for individual rights and a critical outlook on traditions. If you have in mind the film Ganashatru (An enemy of the people) , where a Western-looking scientist struggles against the...

One cloud-capped day, somewhere along the bank of a Bengali river where waterfowl chirp their little bedeep, bedeep, a young woman clad in white walks out of the canopy of some century-old oaks that spread their gigantic branches all the way to the river...

(Could this be this what happened to the great RK???) For Raj Kapoor the director, Bobby appeared in 1973 between Mera naam joker (1972) and Satyam shivam sundaram (1978) and so I was rather interested to have a look at it in order to bridge that gap....

Rishte Naate (family relationships) is a 1965 Gopalakrishnan movie, with Raj Kumar, Nutan, Nazir Hussain, Jamuna and Ameeta as main actors. It does seem like I’m exhausting my reserves of Nutan movies, because while this film has more than a few qualities,...

Reading about Mr. & Mrs 55, Guru Dutt’s 1955 sparkling romantic comedy on the net, in order to prepare this review, has been very pleasant; this devil of a director has produced some insightful commentaries from many of my blogging friends, along with...

The Brave New World of Naya Daur (New Era, BR Chopra 1957) opens with a striking quote by Mahatma Gandhi: So from the start we know that the film is going to be about the biological (bios = life) relationship between men and the Earth, and that this bond...

This 1954 film by M. Sadiq has qualities I wasn’t expecting. With movies that no one is reviewing or speaking about, you are faced with the unnerving problem of wondering whether you aren’t giving value to a work of art out of an idiosyncratic feeling...

After having watched Kapurush (see previous instalment), I was strongly urged to see Mahapurush, Satyajit Ray’s twin production in the tandem that came out in 1965. The theme of the manipulative bigot is a famous one in French culture (see for example...

Do you have an hour to spare? 74 minutes to be precise? WATCH THIS NOW . And then come back to read. « This » is Satyajit Ray’s little marvel called Kapurush (1965, The Coward), a marvel of economy and inspiration. The story begins at night (it ends also...

My first impression upon viewing Raj Kapoor’s mythical Satyam shivam sundaram, an impression shared by many other bloggers, is that the Showman had purely and simply been manipulated by his lecherous pulsions, and had also manipulated us spectators! Gone...

I have only recently been made aware of the interest of movies by and with Aparna Sen, having seen Baksha Badal recently (check Sharmi’s take on it), and so here’s a look at a pleasantly intimate story, shot by the Bengali director in 2000. The film’s...

Contrary to what many people think, love isn’t a simple passion. First many things, such as the family, the social situation, the history of the two lovers, etc. combine to create the particular context of the relationship, but also in itself love challenges...

After I saw Ganashatru, which Satyajit Ray shot in 1989 (see Ray’s website ), I noticed that it was based on Henrik Ibsen’s play An Enemy of the People , and some good soul has uploaded on YouTube Arthur Miller’s adaptation of Ibsen’s play , so I watched...

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