My interview with the celebrated filmmaker centers on his recently released film “Rupsa Nodir Banke” (Quiet flows the River Rupsa). 2017 Ekushey Padak (the second highest civilian award given to a citizen of Bangladesh) winner Tanvir Mokammel needs no glowing introduction. He is a well-known filmmaker, director and published author of our time. He won Bangladesh National Film Awards a total ten[Read More…]
Epic movie that resurrected Charlie Chaplin and immortalised the Joker who made the world laugh while weeping within Today we commemorate the 50th anniversary of the release of the epic classic of Raj Kapoor,’, ‘Mera Naam Joker. ‘Arguably it was the most defining or touching film ever directed or enacted by the legendary Raj Kapoor.Raj Kapoor enacts the character of[Read More…]
Raj Kapoor arguably is the most defining character in the history of Bollywood who took the Indian film industry to another spectrum. It was Raj who enabled the film world to reach the broad masses and identify with them. He donned the Charlie Chaplinesque form, classically transplanting or grafting it to Indian conditions. As a director and actor he revealed[Read More…]
In less than a few weeks since the celebrated Argentine filmmaker Fernando Ezequiel Solanas—a legendary figure in Latin American cinema—died of coronavirus in Paris, another internationally admired filmmaker, Kim Ki-Duk, fell prey to the rage of the pandemic in Latvia. The South Korean ‘new wave’ fame Kim was reported to have arrived in the Baltic state a few weeks ago[Read More…]
Erich Fromm, the renowned German-Jewish social psychologist who was forced to flee his homeland in the early 1930s as the Nazis came to power, offered a disturbing insight later in life on the relationship between society and the individual. In the mid-1950s, his book The Sane Society suggested that insanity referred not simply to the failure by specific individuals to[Read More…]
Food stories have always attracted me, be they about the everyday available homely food, meat barbeque by a group of friends en route an adventurous camping or exquisite high-class dining. I believe each of these stories has its own share of bitter-sweet plots and characters. Motivated by my love for food and themes around it, I decided to write about[Read More…]
In the history of Indian societies ‘marriage’ as an institution has garnered a special place and has been ubiquitous in all sections and classes of the society. Within this finding a groom is a very seasoned activity. Mira Nair’s newest web series ‘A suitable boy’ is an adaptation of a novel by the same name authored by Vikram Seth in[Read More…]
My feeling that a poet, who called cinema a sycophant of literature would have approved Aravindan, a director who explored the medium’s possibilities, lends courage to me. This is uncannily similar to the feeling that Tagore, for a moment was stunned by what Wilfred Owen’s mother had revealed to him. I’m sure Tagore would have dumped the NBT calendar. It[Read More…]
During recent Durga Puja celebrations, RTV drama special titled Shada Megher Mon (A silver lining in the cloud), revisited the widowhood of a young woman in the context of Bangladesh since independence. Though some of the key components of the television are changing, it is still perceived as a social medium. Television always plays a social function as viewing of[Read More…]
The idea of ‘return’ holds different meanings for different people caught in different circumstances. Calcutta-based Supriyo Sen’s Abar Ashibo Phirey (Way Back Home, Bangla with English sub-titles, video, colour, 120 mins, 2002) is a wrenching and liberating journey into the heart and soul of an elderly Bengali couple – the director’s parents – as they go back in time, space[Read More…]
In 2014, Joshy Joseph directed a long documentary called A Poet, A City & A Footballer which won him the Special Jury Prize at the national awards. The film is about juxtapositions, like night and day, abundant life and impending death, energy amidst decay, and silence that shouts to be heard. The film is a meditation on death, but it[Read More…]
The Symphony No 5 was inside Beethovan’s brain, when he first conceived it. A group of musicians invoke that experience, aurally, from the atmosphere every time they meet to perform. And a sound, non-existent before, suddenly acquires tones of flesh and blood. The cinema, like music, is an art of time, film makers have said. Rabindranath Tagore called it an[Read More…]
Laal Juto (Red Shoes, Bangla, 23 minutes, 35 mm, colour), adapted from a short story by the iconic Bengali writer, artist and intellectual Kamal Kumar Majumdar, is about 15-year-old Nitish who goes to a shoe shop to buy shoes for himself. What Nitish had not bargained for is a self-discovery leading to a change in his feelings towards Gouri, his[Read More…]
This essay is dedicated to the example of Father Stan Swamy, S. J. Briefly and simply put, Liberation Theology is a school of thinking which proclaims that methods of direct action are at times necessary for the material and spiritual liberation of the poor and powerless; that prayer and persuasion have to be occasionally accompanied by frontal assault to produce[Read More…]
From the life and times of the State executioner, Nata Mullick (which was the subject of an earlier documentary, One Day From A Hangman’s Life), the Calcutta-based Films Division filmmaker, Joshy Joseph, transported us to the life and times of a young Manipuri named Tom Sharma, by means of Making The Face, a shorter film but which nonetheless took a[Read More…]
“I planned Thampu as a documentary feature. It was shot in Thirunnavaya on the banks of the Bharathapuzha. I came to this village with ten to fifteen circus artistes who had already left their circus company. We did not have a script and we shot the incidents as they happened. What we did on the first day was to call[Read More…]
Sairat(2016) was a huge commercial success that is still being much talked about. But, whichever way you look at it, Sairat is a far cry from Nagraj Manjule’s debut film, Fandry, which deservedly enjoyed much critical support. Sairat is tailor-made to seduce the younger generation of viewers, meaning roughly those in the age-bracket of 15 to 30. The film’s mounting[Read More…]
If you’re wondering what the hell is going on right now – the “Why is the world turning to shit?” thought – you may find Netflix’s new documentary The Social Dilemma a good starting point for clarifying your thinking. I say “starting point” because, as we shall see, the film suffers from two major limitations: one in its analysis and[Read More…]
“Ritwik Ghatak’s stint as Vice-Principal of FTII left something of him in his students. A John Abraham would never have happened were it not for the tutelage of Ghatak. John did what he did because Ghatak validated his angst. Similar was the case with his other protégés, but besides these few men, the legacy of Ghatak seems to have terminated.[Read More…]
Endurance of pain is an idea directly drawn from Christianity. However, in the Indian context, historically, endurance of pain is regarded as un-knowledge, avidya (in Sanskrit an antonym of knowledge, but not ignorance) and nonexistent. It is just not there, here, or anywhere. When the “I, myself” does not exist, who is left to endure pain? This is how the[Read More…]
Mysore Shrinivas Sathyu, who turned ninety on July 6 this year, is an important figure in the annals of New Indian Cinema by virtue of just one film- Garam Hawa (Hot Winds, 1974), a scathing dissection of the diseased mentalities that caused the Partition of the country (read, Partition of Bengal and Punjab). Garam Hawa achieves its purpose by portraying[Read More…]
Cinematic aesthetic in a public space is defined by the sensibilities of such a space. Dictating these sensibilities becomes the privilege of a dominant hegemonic group. Consequently, it panders to clichés and tropes that simultaneously borrow from and lend to a collective imagination – strengthening it with each rendition. Eventually, repeat renditions become the unchallenged mainstay of a popular narrative,[Read More…]
The simplest form of a question, addressed by indefinite horde communities from hitherto. The reply always varied spatially and temporally. ‘A FILM BY’, a hackneyed yet modish way to address a cinema by the film makers, is a lesser film maker ideology, suggests Nasruddin Shah, a prominent mainstream actor of the era. A complete filmmaker, Charlie Chaplin, never used[Read More…]
Human beings distinguish themselves from other animal species by, inter alia, their ability to communicate elaborately through multiple languages. Over time, the spoken languages have also been transformed into written languages, bringing a visuality and cognition to the language which also made possible recording of history and creation of literature, essentially extending the reach and precision of language over time,[Read More…]
Adoor Gopalakrishnan is, unfortunately, ‘at it’ again. Kerala’s best-known filmmaker was recently at his favourite pastime of hitting a contemporary below the belt; trying to belittle someone with whom he started out on his filmmaking journey almost half a century ago. Honestly, I have noted with a mixture of disappointment and disgust, Adoor’s venomous remarks against K.P. Kumaran, as made[Read More…]
Some time ago, another edition of International Women’s Day was observed with the right amount of feistiness. Among other things, women-related films were screened and discussed in some places in this or that city. Two early documentaries by Mira Nair could perhaps have been profitably included in such programmes. Unfortunately, her documentary films have been little seen and less discussed.[Read More…]
The overwhelming triumph of the film is its portrayal of same-sex love. It is arguably India’s first serious film about bisexuality. Muhammad Razi’s Velutha Rathrikal (White Nights) is one of the most exciting debuts in recent times among independent film-makers in South India. From the looks of it, the film seems unpromising. Yet another adaptation of Fyodor Dostoevsky’s story ‘White Nights’ (there have[Read More…]
A hundred years ago, a silent film called Bilet Pherat (England-Returned) was made. That pioneering work placed its maker by the side of such greats of early Indian cinema as Dadasaheb Phalke and Hiralal Sen. The example and exploits of Dhirendranath Gangopadhyay, or DG, as he was popularly known, were been recalled on many occasions by Mrinal Sen or Dinen[Read More…]
As a protagonist of Telangana state, it was a kind of a dream movie for me. There are many reasons for it. One of the first reasons was the “local accent” of the movie. I was never comfortable with the Andhra accent that smacked of “internal colonialism” in the Telugu movies both in accent and content. It reflects the urge[Read More…]
Review of “A Poet, a City and a Footballer” “Men, music, light, landscape, color and motion brought into one integral whole by a single piercing emotion, by a single theme and idea – this is the aim of modern cinematography.” Sergei Mikhailovich Eisenstein (1898-1948)[1] Introduction A/ Musical foreword The movie begins with a song of Rabindranath Tagore, a song interpreted[Read More…]
With Chaitanya Tamhane’s second film, The Disciple, headed to the Venice International Film Festival in September, it may be worthwhile recalling, Court, his first film that bagged the National Award for Best Feature Film in 2015. As we live through the COVID moment witnessing the targetting of students, teachers, and poets, Court’s damning testimony of caste oppression and its tribute[Read More…]
Every time I returned to Mumbai, I looked forward to reading the pocket-cartoons of RK Laxman. Though everything changes around him, the common man, with his studied silence witnessing twists and turns, had looked the same for decades, in the pocket cartoon of THE TIMES OF INDIA front page. It gave me a sense of permanence. Every time I made[Read More…]
It is difficult not to miss the irony in the timing of Mrinal Sen’s passing on, roughly coinciding as it did with the fiftieth anniversary of perhaps his best-known film, BhuvanShome. It is generally agreed that it is with this film that the seminal movement called ‘New Indian Cinema’ began. The movement was an ideological/political body of work that questioned[Read More…]
Sivakasi is a curse, a blight, an abomination that India could do without. Here, workers, especially children, are routinely killed or scarred for life in fires and explosions while making crackers and bombs to feed the fireworks industry. A devastation in Sivakasi, 700 kilometres from Chennai, on September 5, 2012, claimed 54 lives. Between January 2011 and September 2012, there[Read More…]
Ethical media practices have constantly engaged with creating more space for under-privileged, and under-represented voices. With the advent of the pandemic, social distancing, and the necessary isolation of quarantines and containment zones, representing and communicating the common man’s woes and perspective has become a daunting, but doubly urgent,task. This is especially exacerbated when those in power take advantage of the[Read More…]
W.H. Auden, the British poet, once wrote that many lives have been lived without love, but none without water – or words to that effect. Auden couldn’t possibly have written about the utter necessity of water without thinking of the billions and trillions of farming families who contributed since time immemorial to the making of human cultures and civilizations. If[Read More…]
Hell is not God’s idea, I believe. I also believe that John Abraham and God had an erratic relationship with each other. But then, why the hell didn’t John invest in full the coins that God had entrusted him so dearly ? I first met John when I was a fresh graduate and a culture -vulture apprentice at Kochi. One[Read More…]
Fifty two years ago, on 20th August, Russian tanks moved into Prague to suppress what has passed into history as the ‘Spring of 1968’ when artists, intellectuals, public personalities and reforms-minded politicians joined hands in an attempt to secure freedom of expression. Among the sufferers was the great long-distance runner, Emil Zatopek, who was dismissed from his senior position[Read More…]
Indian Matchmaking, Netflix’s recent show on arranged marriages in elite families, has spawned countless memes and conspiracy theories. It has also put the spotlight on reality shows and how they spin a particular narrative at the cost of others. The show seems to be tailor-made for a western audience and portrays arranged marriages in a positive way while underplaying issues[Read More…]
(This essay is in commemoration of the birth centenary this year of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, Bangladesh’s Father of the Nation; and the fiftieth anniversary of the making of Zahir Raihan’s Stop Genocide, with which the history of short filmmaking in Bangladesh begins.) A road accident on August 19, 2011, robbed Bangladesh of its most exceptional filmmaker, and this writer[Read More…]
K. P. Kumaran made his first film, Athithi (b/w, 35 mm., 112 mins.) in 1974. I was able to catch up with it in 2017, thanks to a retrospective devoted to the veteran director at the 22nd edition of the International Film Festival of Kerala. Athithi is a tense family drama that unfolds, for the most part, within the ghostly[Read More…]
Netflix’s recently released web television series ‘Indian Matchmaking’ is whistleblowing a lot to the West. In its trailer, the real-life elite matchmaker Sima Taparia herself list some well-known facts about the Indian marriages: In India, the marriages, they are between two families. So the parents guide their children, and that is the work of a matchmaker. Matchmaking has become a[Read More…]
The first edition of what began as the Bombay International Film Festival for Documentary & Short Films (there was no mention of animation in the naming then) was held between March 1 and 7, 1990. I had no place to stay in Bombay, yet the will to attend the festival was strong. One evening, over a cup of tea at[Read More…]
In ‘La Strada’ and ‘Nights of Cabiria’, Fellini’s boundless formal and narrative energy is married to his profound humanism A still from ‘La Strada’ (1954) To most cinephiles, Federico Fellini’s reputation rests on his triple masterpieces from the 1960s and early 1970s– La Dolce Vita (1960), 8 ½(1963) and Amarcord (1973). Each of these later films is a[Read More…]
“Beyond the geographic and cultural identity that defines the Caribbean, is the more complex question of a Caribbean cinema aesthetic which has captured the imagination of some writers and critics. The search for the essence of Caribbean cinema has included theories of Créolité, diversity and Negritude from Martinique and Guadeloupe; Negrismo from Cuba; Indigenisme from Haiti; and Pan-Africanism from the[Read More…]
In ways more than one, Quarter Number 4/11, a documentary about demolitions and displacements and resultant miseries to a defenseless but defiant working class family, is reminiscent of Anand Patwardhan’s epic Hamara Shahar, made a quarter century earlier. “Quarter Number 4/11 is a ground-zero perspective of urban real estate development, narrated through the plight of ex-factory worker Shambhu Prasad Singh,[Read More…]
Egyptian actor Omar Sharif poses for a photograph in 2009. Photo: Reuters. He passed away on July 10, 2015 Egyptian born debonair actor Omar Sharif’s passing on July 10th marks the end of an era. After hearing the sad news, I immediately sent a text to my best friend Maryam (a diehard fan of Omar Sharif). She immediately texted me[Read More…]
Yilmaz Güney’s phenomenal many-sided genius made him a force to reckon with when he came to direction after a long stint as Turkey’s most popular film hero. But in the post-Second World War history of the Turkish State and society, Güney occupies a higher place than just that of a trail-blazing film personality. His strong sympathies for the inhabitants of[Read More…]
I am not a polyglot. I am unbeknownst to Urdu-my mother’s language for I am the unfortunate generation who learnt English as well as Urdu sonnets but without Urdu in its script and is one who can hardly scramble through Urdu in its Persian form, just by virtue of tying its tit-bits conforming ever to their orthographic details. But, I[Read More…]
The explosion of the #MeToo movement, the burgeoning discussion around sexual predators and the vulnerability of victims of sexual assault makes it even more pertinent to carefully and minutely examine the vocabulary of sexual assault in popular culture. Rape narratives that pervade literature, newspapers, popular culture, law, activism etc, help “organize, understand, and even arguably produce the social world” (Sara[Read More…]
It has been said of Anand Patwardhan, who turned 70 on February 18 this year, that he is ‘a kind of phenomenon in that he has all along faced official apathy, disapproval and, at times, censorship and open discrimination’. Perhaps, this is the way it should be for any creative artist wanting to grapple with political abuses, social injustices and[Read More…]
In 1963, Satyajit Ray directed Mahanagar, commonly considered to be his first ‘Calcutta film’. True, there is a little of the ‘Big City’ in Apur Sansar (1959). Equally true, Parash Pathar (1958) is about an elderly Calcutta clerk who comes into a sudden fortune, only to lose it in no time. But Parash Pathar is a fantasy film, can perhaps[Read More…]
In 1989 an incident happened in the prosperous suburbs of North Tehran that inspired the making of a movie. The movie took exactly 40 days to shoot, edit and then release and had no functioning script. It may be the most amazing movie you will ever see, (if you have not seen it already) and could be the best 97[Read More…]
Axone (‘akhuni’- a fermented soy bean dish), which revolves around the quirky premise of misadventures with cooking a ‘smelly’ and ‘tasty’ delicacy and has an unusual cast, majority of being the residents of northeastern states hold promises to a niche audience. ‘Northeasterners’ or people belonging to the northeastern region of India rejoiced to finally see a film that did not[Read More…]
They say “the art of art, the glory of expression, and the sunshine of the light of letters, is simplicity.” And indeed, there is something mystic about simplicity. And watching “Walking Over Water” was a similar kind of experience for me. It was earthy and fresh. A child always gets stuck in between the never ending quarrel of parents. This[Read More…]
“We became Harijan (Mahatma Gandhi used to address Dalits as people of God, Harijan) or bahujan (many people) but we never became the people, “says the activist. And so the Dalits remain marginalized in our Bharat & never mainstream. The film Article 15 by director Anubhav Sinha is overflowing with such innumerable dialogues which are right on spot .And there are many scenes, which are symbolic[Read More…]
Special note: Don’t read about any of the films mentioned here prior to watching them. This “review” won’t spoil anything. “I remember loving The Promise over twenty years ago.” — Annapurna Tosca Sriramarcel “The Son is my favorite work of theirs.” — Rachel Olivia O’Connor When we first meet Jenny Davin (Adèle Haenel) of the Dardennes brothers’ The Unknown Girl (La Fille Inconnue) — the smart, uncompromising[Read More…]
Director Stephen Frears’s Victoria and Abdul, based on the book of the same name by Shrabani Basu, draws upon the diaries of Abdul Karim (1863–1909) that were published in 2010. Karim was an Indian clerk who shared an unusual bond with Queen Victoria in the last fifteen years of her life, which shook up the royal household and British upper[Read More…]
Dangal has captured the imagination of an average middle-class Indian. Yes! It is a fantastic movie. Yes! There should be positive reviews of the movie. Obviously, both critiquing and praising. It is indeed a good movie which has a lot to say about contemporary Indian social reality. Unlike the social media proclamations of Dangal, what fascinated me is the[Read More…]
Primary job of any movie is to act as an anchor of conscience in a given society. This could be intrinsic or could be methodical. The purpose of movie or any art is to leave an impression, possibly a desirable one, on the minds of audience. Stronger the mark of impression, stronger the attachment to the movie and stronger the[Read More…]
As a researcher in Film and Gender Studies, I had great expectations of the movie PINK. I must say, the positive audience and critical reception to the film is well deserved, while it also reflects on the perfect timing of its making and release, when public discourses on issues of rape and gendered violence come down heavily on the side[Read More…]
Instances of rape are quite common in India. According to National Crimes Record Bureau (NCRB), about 93 rapes take place in India every day. Two different perspectives emerge in relation to cause of rapes. There is a prevalent patriarchal view with a base in feudal mindset, which blames the victim. It argues that rapes do happen due to lack[Read More…]
Lakshman Rekha, a film by Geetika Tondon looks at how conversations in the media are played out in cases of sexual assault in India. This twenty minute short premiered in July 2016 at the inaugural session of the Film Club, Centre for Women’s Studies, University of Hyderabad, in the presence of the film maker. The film was followed by an[Read More…]
“A Bitter Lime” is a variously funny to Kafkaesque movie about a rich and young but disenchanted First World couple leaving Los Angeles for Georgetown in Third World Guyana. A beautifully filmed and poetic movie, “A Bitter Lime” touches on escapism, existential angst, North-South, Man-Nature and love. Directed by Australian Max De Bowen (Max Orter) , “A Bitter Lime” is[Read More…]
It is more often a rare experience to be a part of a ‘critical insider’ while being with a movie. Politics is also very rarely seen in the ‘foreground’ in the ‘making’ of a movie – the most widely visible practice is to place it in the ‘background.’ What politically goes in between these spaces (background and foreground) is also[Read More…]
When is usury usury? Turkish fatwa casts doubt on Erdogan’s religious soft power drive 
Camels, Angels and Needle head of Cinema 
Remembering Comrade Saketh Rajan 
The Moral Strength Of Struggle And Service 
Farming: The Real Problem May Often Be Different From Its Outward Manifestation 
The Neo-fascist Legacy of Donald Trump 
Tunnel 
Support the Struggle of the Farmers: It Is Our Struggle Too 
Biden on Biodiversity: The Silence and the Promise 
Fearing the Palestinian Narrative: Why Israel Banned ‘Jenin Jenin’ 
About Suffering: A Massacre of the Innocents in Yemen 
Why Azerbaijan is Unfit to Rule over the Armenians of Artsakh 
Antifa(scism) is the Antidote to Full-Throated American Fascism 
Democracy USA? NO!!! 
The Rubble of Empire 
A Watershed Moment for Farm Policy—For World and For India 
Type, Stereo, Stereotype 
Budhan Theatre: Art As An Expression Against Oppression 
Life after 2020: Need for a new vision on health 
Navalny in Moscow, and the Empire intones 
Condemn Land Grab & State Excesses for ‘Green Energy’ Project in Assam: Release All Arrested Farmers of ‘Mikir Bamuni’ 
Demolition of settlements in the Prime Minister’s own constituency, Varanasi is condemnable 
Khan Abdul Gaffar Khan: Muslims for Composite Indian Nationalism 
Politics of the Plate: An account of Adivasi Culinary Aesthetic in Rural Southwest Bengal 
74 Million White Supremacist, Authoritarian-Law & Order Americans Jilted 
COVID In the Stone Age Great Caution is Needed to Prevent Farming Getting Trapped in Unsustainable Systems 
The Government that Honors Dr. Martin Luther King with a National Holiday Killed Him Let the farmers lead the movement 
Women Farmer Day at Protest Sites Celebrates Important Role and Deeply Emotional Support of Women 
Understanding Hindutva Neoliberalism in India 
Bid you adieu ‘Sultan’: Remembering Sunil Kumar 
Understanding the Chinese foreign policy 
By ‘Force and Fraud’: Is This the End of the US Democracy Doctrine? 
Why Martin Luther King Day Should Matter 
In conversation with Devaki Jain Farmers in protest: Learning from the past and creating history with a real definition of nationalism 
Raskolnikov’s Dream Come True 
Mother of a Martyr 
In a secular democracy, media turns a zealous fundraiser for Ram Temple 
For nearly two decades now Countercurrents has provided millions of readers around the world with deep insights and analysis of news, events, trends that are usually ignored by mainstream media. A key quality of this unique information platform has been its eclectic and open minded choice of themes, ranging from caste, gender and communalism to issues related to ecology, rapidly[Read More…]
