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Top articles
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Mother India, the mother of Indian movies
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 say that ever since I’ve been writing this blog (more than...
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Sahib bibi aur ghulam, an Initiation to Desire
While I was reading about Satyajit Ray’s Charulata (1964), and thinking of Pakeezah (1972), critics mentioned Abrar Alvi's (or Guru Dutt’s - he apparently was almost as much behind the camera) Sahib Bibi aur Ghulam (1962) as a paradigmatic sort of film....
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Awaara (1951): the world's most popular movie?!
“Oh World, I am a wanderer in your puzzle!” So sings Awaara, Raj the vagabond, as he leaves the prison, and winds his way through village streets and benevolent humanity, his newly found freedom and his good nature hiding the deep wounds of a wrecked...
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Awara's dream sequence: a metaphor of life
Hi everyone… Here’s that detailed observation of the dream-sequence in Raj Kapoor’s Awara which I had promised you! I’m in fact quite pleased I had set that aside, because there is so much in it, and even more than what my Western perspective can divine,...
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Ankur: Shyam Benegal's + Shabana Azmi's manifesto
Here’s another beginner – after Aag – Shyam Benegal ’s first long feature film shot in 1973, after he had finally got enough appraisal for his work shooting advertisements (apparently more than 900 !) and documentaries. Ankur means “seedling”: some people...
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Ek chotisi love story: love and desire
« This is one of the worst Bollywood films ever made. It tells the sickening story of a 15 year old boy who loves a 26 year old women. Its weird, cos the boy is just so annoying and looks stupid. He spends long hours just spying on her with his telescope....
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Jagte raho, Raj Kapoor's nightmare
To inattentive spectators this 1956 film starring Raj Kapoor will probably seem a little naïve and perhaps shoddy, for it has enough imperfections to justify a less than perfect opinion about it. Some inconsistencies here, some lengthy bits there, a humour...
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Deewar: Cain and Abel revisited?
I would like to start this review by quoting what IMdB user nmainkar has said here. It’s so well said that I can’t parallel it: Deewaar is, in one word, taut. From start to end, the movie is unrelentingly tense, tight, somber and serious but the seriousness...
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Facing the mirror: Chameli
After having watched the film, I asked myself what it had been trying to do... It's a filmed play about these two people - modern-India businessman Rahul Bose and eternal India prostitute Kareena Kapoor - which explores their confrontation: and the immediate...
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Is Bollywood opium for the masses? ("Dharavi")
For those who are keen on a socially-oriented cinema, Dharavi, city of dreams, by Sudhir Mishra, gives a great insight in the life of those "Backward class" workers who fend it off in the Mumbai slum. It focuses on Rajkaran, a taxi-driver who decides...
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The nature of love (Andaz)
Well, my foray into Bollywood oldies opens up with a bang ! This 1949 classic “love triangle” film which supposedly deals with the clash between traditional India and its Westernisation, errs, says IMdB sd268 in a perceptive commentary, because it equates...
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DDLJ: reason or folly?
Like many of you, I have noticed this film has broken the record of length (600 weeks) in that cinema hall in Mumbai (link) , and I had already been alerted some time ago by its 500 weeks’ record, so I too felt the urge to give my point of view. What’s...
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Khamoshi: Unutterable music
I've seen Khamoshi: a musical. Watching it has been like a revelation. Everything it says, everything it hints at, everything it suggests, because it cannot be said, I have avidly drunk as one drinks from a familiar well, knowing that the effect is exactly...
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Leave 'em kids alone: Main hoon na & Koi mil gaya
I regret to say - I do have a limit in what I like about Bollywood. It recently took the shape of two rather sickening shows, Main hoon na by Farah Khan, and Koi mil gaya, by Rakesh Roshan (of the Krrish fame). I’m half sorry and perplexed to have to...
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This blog...
Hi everyone, I've been a Bollywood fan for some time now, so I thought I would like to share my pleasure with you guys out there who also enjoy Bollywood films and songs. I don't know exactly what I'll do, but one idea will probably be to exchange around...
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Anari (1959), naive hero in a naive movie
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 is clearly inspired by SD Narang’s Dilli ka thug , which...
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Memories of rain
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 young Bengali woman’s stream of consciousness and we never...
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Distant thunder, or how Ray recreates the World
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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Dilli ka thug: a gallery of masks
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 charm. A messy God seems to have been presiding over this movie,...
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Paying guest (1957) and a celebration of Nutan's perfection
Paying guest by Subodh Mukherji (1957) is not completely worth its two and a half hours of watching: it’s just another 2 nd class romantic comedy with elements of drama and thriller. It incorporates all the elements of a standard family show: good-looking...
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The Stranger (Agantuk), Satyajit Ray's experiment on humanity
The Stranger (1991) is an atomic experiment. Satyajit Ray imagines what might happen when a normal urban family of three (the target) is bombarded with a high-energy free electron in the shape of a long lost uncle who enters their lives from outer space,...
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Madhuri Dixit: Bollywood's cannibalism
I am thrilled to say a few words about Madhuri Dixit. And not only because we are in an expectant Madhuri-comes-back period, with Aaja Nachle in the wings. Ever since I saw her in Devdas, where she outshines Ash Rai (well, a few more words on this later),...
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Paromitar ek din: can women stay the forces of lunacy?
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...
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Another day in Paradise?
“Don’t hand out money to beggars in crowded places. You will be swarmed. In fact, authorities advise that you don’t give money to anyone asking for a handout. If you want to give, by all means do so — India has many, many worthwhile charitable organizations....
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Roja: how can we love and live apart?
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, his realism, his careful balance of private and public...