Browsing All Posts filed under »Cinema: English«

On ‘King of Peking’, now on Netflix, and its director’s decision to find his audience online

July 12, 2018

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Read the full article on Firstpost, here: https://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/on-king-of-peking-now-on-netflix-and-its-directors-decision-to-find-his-audience-outline-4722081.html A few readers asked if I could – at times – write about foreign films that are more easily available than something that plays at film festivals. One obvious solution is to look at streaming platforms, but the foreign films there are hard to find. Take Netflix. […]

In the last week of Pride month, a look at what defines gay cinema

June 25, 2018

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Read the full article on Firstpost, here: https://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/from-my-own-private-idaho-to-four-days-in-france-a-look-at-the-factors-that-define-lgbtqi-cinema-4590621.html On June 29, 1969, the New York Daily News, like many other newspapers, wrote about a “predawn police raid on a reputed Greenwich Village homosexual hangout, the second raid within a week, [which] touched off a two-hour melee yesterday as customers and villagers swarmed over the plainclothes […]

It’s not just ‘Race 3’, even the films of Renoir, Bergman, Fellini, et al have been thoroughly trashed

June 18, 2018

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Read the full article on Firstpost, here: https://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/not-just-salman-khans-race-3-films-of-renoir-bergman-felini-have-also-been-thoroughly-trashed-4534351.html The release of Race 3 has unleashed a series of savage reviews – and deservedly so. There’s always the criticism that filmmaking is such a complex effort, involving so much Hard Work, and it’s unfair to dismiss all this in a snarky summation. But when so many […]

Baradwaj Rangan, let’s talk about bias!

June 14, 2018

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Read the full article on Film Companion, here: https://www.filmcompanion.in/baradwaj-rangan-kaala-review-critics-mani-ratnam-twitter-conversations-southern-cinema-bias/ Because it’s impossible to have a proper conversation on Twitter, I imagine a chat with critics of my ‘Kaala’ review and argue why form is important and why ‘Mani Ratnam’ isn’t a bad word. There may be spoilers ahead if you haven’t seen ‘Kaala’. So you’re […]

With the release of ‘Kaala’, here’s a quick tour of political cinema from around the world

June 11, 2018

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Read the full article on Firstpost, here: https://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/with-the-release-of-kaala-heres-a-quick-tour-of-political-cinema-from-around-the-world-4505139.html The release of Pa Ranjith’s Kaala, starring Rajinikanth, has brought politics back into filmmaking. The film isn’t entirely successful, but its most incendiary passages made me wonder if there is another instance, anywhere in the world, of a famous star being used to convey the director’s ideology. […]

On mood-over-plot films like ‘The Wonders’ and female filmmakers like Alice Rohrwacher

June 4, 2018

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Read the full article on Firstpost, here: <a href=”https://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/why-mood-over-plot-films-like-the-wonders-and-female-filmmakers-like-alice-rohrwacher-stand-out-4494957.html Alice Rohrwacher won the Best Screenplay award at Cannes, this year, for Lazzaro Felice (Happy as Lazaro). Her earlier feature, Le Meraviglie (The Wonders), won the Grand Prix at Cannes, in 2014. But she seems fairly unknown outside the hard-core cinephile crowd – which is what […]

Readers Write In #41: Wild Wild Country: Rajneeshism and the limits of freedom in democracy

June 1, 2018

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Four years ago, I was on a fortnight long visit to the USA and happened to spend a couple of days in New York City.  I wish I could say I stayed in Manhattan; instead, myself and parents were put up in a hotel in Flushing.  Little did we know that Flushing was Chinese-majority and the full […]

Is the ‘golden age’ of international art-house cinema over?

May 29, 2018

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Read the full article on Firstpost, here: https://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/is-golden-age-of-international-art-house-cinema-over-dwindling-attention-span-obsession-with-box-office-numbers-to-blame-4486863.html I was watching a video on Facebook, about the arduous restoration of the Apu trilogy, and Peter Becker, President, The Criterion Collection, had this to say: “Ray is one of the essential figures in the golden age of international art-house cinema.” Is that right? Are we past […]

Readers Write In #41: A Commoner in Cannes

May 26, 2018

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I have been going to film festivals here and there over the past few years. Devouring movies in jam-packed schedules – three a day on average, eight my highest – while cramming in dark halls with droves of people, scavenging on cheap fast food, sleeping on questionable beds, and almost always falling ill after is […]

From Hitchcock to Michelangelo Antonioni to Asghar Farhadi, similar plots work in different ways

May 21, 2018

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Read the full article on Firstpost, here: https://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/from-hitchcock-to-michelangelo-antonioni-to-asghar-farhadi-how-similar-plots-work-in-different-ways-4476929.html A great film essay can really change the way you look at a movie, and I experienced this recently when I read Geoffrey Nowell-Smith’s (editor of The Oxford History of World Cinema; a co-editor of The British Film Institute, the Government and Film Culture, 1933– 2000) thoughts […]

Caught @ Cannes: Ceylan, Terry Gilliam’s ‘Don Quixote’ movie, closing ceremony notes

May 20, 2018

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Read the full article on Film Companion, here: https://www.filmcompanion.in/caught-at-cannes-ceylan-terry-gilliams-don-quixote-movie-closing-ceremony-notes/ Sinan (Aydin Doğu Demirkol) — the protagonist of Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s Ahlat Agaci (The Wild Pear Tree; Turkish) — comes home after college. It’s a big thing in his smallish town. Sinan wants to be a writer, but he wants, even more, to escape these “narrow-minded people.” […]

Interview: Dhanush (from Cannes)

May 19, 2018

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In Cannes to promote The Extraordinary Journey of the Fakir, Dhanush talks about how his journey is similar to that of his character in the film — which is why he identified with Fakir more than Raanjhanaa. He talks about his learnings from the international production, about not being insecure in front of either Bollywood […]

Caught @ Cannes: Jia Zhang-Ke, Christophe Honoré, Kubrick’s ‘2001’

May 17, 2018

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Read the full article on Film Companion, here: https://www.filmcompanion.in/cannes-2018-sorry-angel-jia-zhangke-2001-a-space-odyssey/ Jacques (Pierre Deladonchamps) is a writer — which means he’s also writerly. When on a call with Arthur (Vincent LaCoste), a man he likes but can’t quite commit to, he imagines Arthur is by his side — we see them both together, the way the scene […]

Truffaut/Hitchcock, and 50 years of ‘The Bride Wore Black’ (aka the ‘Kill Bill’ of its generation)

May 14, 2018

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Read the full article on Firstpost, here: https://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/truffauthitchcock-and-50-years-of-the-bride-wore-black-aka-the-kill-bill-of-its-generation-4468333.html François Truffaut’s The Bride Wore Black, starring Jeanne Moreau, turned 50 this April. Today, the film better is known as the film Quentin Tarantino claimed not to have seen when he made his two Kill Bill movies, despite the absurd similarities in plot (a bride is widowed […]

Caught @ Cannes: Caught at Cannes: Orson Welles, Pawel Pawlikowski, an Arctic survival drama

May 13, 2018

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Read the full article on Film Companion, here: https://www.filmcompanion.in/cannes-2018-the-eyes-of-orson-welles-pawel-pawlikowski-cold-war-baradwaj-rangan/ It was a clash between Yomeddine, the Egyptian Competition entry about a man cured of leprosy, and The Eyes of Orson Welles, the latest documentary from Mark Cousins — and after a bit of conscience wrangling  (Am I avoiding potentially disturbing subject matter for something aesthetically… […]

A journalist’s view of the Cannes Film Festival and its touching commitment to cinema

May 7, 2018

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Read the full article on Firstpost, here: https://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/cannes-film-festival-2018-a-journalists-view-of-the-iconic-event-and-its-touching-commitment-to-cinema-4458703.html The Cannes Film Festival is a curious beast. There’s no doubt it’s more snobbish than, say, the Berlinale – but this aloofness is part of the attraction. The old Groucho Marx quip (later appropriated by Woody Allen in Annie Hall) comes to mind: “I don’t care to […]

Readers Write In #40: An Unquiet Place

May 6, 2018

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I recently watched ‘A Quiet Place’ at a theater. By myself. I’d noticed a few empty rows on the online booking portal. It seemed like the perfect way to watch an horror movie: all alone and in a mostly empty cinema hall. What better way to spend an idle afternoon in Chennai? I arrived fifteen […]

Cannes 2018, Netflix, Orson Welles, Nandita Das’s Manto and #MeToo

April 16, 2018

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Read the full article on Firstpost, here: https://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/cannes-film-festival-2018-netflix-orson-welles-nandita-das-manto-and-metoo-4433459.html Does the distribution model determine what cinema is? The ongoing war between Netflix and the Cannes film festival – which recently announced its line-up for the coming edition (more on that later) – has brought this question to the forefront. Cannes artistic director Thierry Frémaux said, “Any […]

Remembering Stéphane Audran’s La Femme Infidèle, and its tamer American counterpart, Unfaithful

April 9, 2018

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Read the full article on Firstpost, here: https://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/remembering-stephane-audrans-la-femme-infidele-and-its-tamer-american-counterpart-unfaithful-4423949.html There’s always a general sadness when someone from the cinema passes away, but with the French actress, Stéphane Audran, it was a little personal. The VCR era had just given way to the DVD era. Libraries with extensive foreign-film collections began to sprout in Chennai, and whenever […]

Bergman’s ‘Hour of the Wolf,’ Darren Aronofsky’s ‘mother!,’ and the myth of the ‘tortured artist’

April 2, 2018

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Read the full article on Firstpost, here: http://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/bergmans-hour-of-the-wolf-darren-aronofskys-mother-and-the-legend-of-the-tortured-artist-4414959.html In a paper titled Bereavement and Creativity, published in October 2017 in Management Science, economists Kathryn Graddy (Brandeis University) and Carl Lieberman ( Princeton University) studied the effect of a loved one’s death on the creativity of 48 artists, ranging from Edgar Degas, Claude Monet and Picasso […]

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