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Browsing All Posts filed under »Cinema: English«
As ‘Dogtooth’ turns ten, a look at Yorgos Lanthimos, who’s now an awards-season ‘Favourite’
Read the full article on Firstpost, here: https://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/as-dogtooth-turns-ten-a-look-at-the-greek-filmmaker-yorgos-lanthimos-an-awards-season-favourite-5912721.html For a while now, I’ve been meaning to write about Yorgos Lanthimos — and the time is right now, what with Dogtooth turning ten and The Favourite becoming an awards-season favourite. In an Indiewire piece, Eric Kohn summed up the Lanthimos phenomenon thus: “Not since the emergence […]
This new year, make a resolution to watch more foreign cinema (and here are some hacks)
January 4, 2019
Read the full article on Firstpost, here: https://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/this-new-year-make-a-resolution-to-watch-more-foreign-cinema-here-are-some-hacks-5829521.html This new year, allow me to tempt you with a relatively easy resolution, that you will watch more foreign films. Many of you already do this, but maybe some of you have fallen out of the habit. Let’s face it: it’s tough. With the glut of entertainment […]
On Gérard Depardieu’s birthday, a look at his work with the director Maurice Pialat
December 27, 2018
Read the full article on Firstpost, here: https://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/on-gerard-depardieus-birthday-a-look-at-his-work-with-director-maurice-pialat-5796541.html F or Gérard Depardieu’s birthday (December 27), I wanted to pick one film to write about — say, Claude Berri’s Jean de Florette (one of the actor’s most beloved films, and one of his biggest hits), or Andrzej Wajda’s Danton (one of the earliest art films I […]
Hu Bo’s ‘An Elephant Sitting Still’, Tarkovsky’s ‘Stalker’, ‘The Godfather’, and the concept of slow cinema
December 20, 2018
Read the full article on Firstpost, here: https://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/hu-bos-an-elephant-sitting-still-tarkovskys-stalker-the-godfather-and-the-concept-of-slow-cinema-5763511.html One of the highlights at the Jio MAMI Mumbai Film Festival with Star, this year, was Hu Bo’s Chinese film, An Elephant Sitting Still. There are many things that are noteworthy about it. One, the director committed suicide soon after finishing his film, reportedly due to conflicts […]
Searching for sci-fi/fantasy like ‘Aquaman’ outside Hollywood leads us to… ‘Enthiran’?
December 13, 2018
Read the full article on Firstpost, here: https://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/searching-for-sci-fifantasy-films-like-aquaman-outside-hollywood-leads-us-to-endhiran-5717981.html The upcoming release of Aquaman made me wonder if there’s another country that makes this kind of movie. Of course, it’s not difficult to find sci-fi films – in the broadest sense – in foreign languages. We have the surreal sci-fi of The City of Lost Children […]
On Ozu’s birth and death anniversary, a look at ‘Tokyo Story’ and the Yōji Yamada remake, ‘Tokyo Family’
December 12, 2018
Read the full article on Firstpost, here: https://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/on-ozus-birth-and-death-anniversary-a-look-at-tokyo-story-and-the-yoji-yamada-remake-tokyo-family-5715271.html Yasujirō Ozu was born on 12 December, 1903. He died 60 years later, on the same day. There is no need to reiterate this filmmaker’s greatness – if you are reading this column, you probably know this already. Wim Wenders put it perfectly at the beginning of […]
‘Last Tango in Paris’ remains a big deal, both as a movie and as the complicated legacy of Bernardo Bertolucci
December 2, 2018
Read the full article on Firstpost, here: https://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/last-tango-in-paris-remains-a-big-deal-both-as-a-movie-and-as-the-complicated-legacy-of-bernardo-bertolucci-5657231.html It’s a little hard, in this been-there-seen-that era, to grasp what a big deal Bernardo Bertolucci’s Last Tango in Paris was, upon its release in 1972. Indeed, one of my favourite appraisals of the film (though, clearly, not one that I agree with) is by a user […]
Kosovo’s submission for the Foreign Language Film Oscar is an LGBTQIA-themed drama, and a big hit
November 29, 2018
Read the full article on Firstpost, here: https://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/kosovos-submission-for-best-foreign-language-film-oscar-is-an-lgbtq-themed-drama-and-a-big-hit-5631551.html Kosovo is a small country of 1.8 million inhabitants. It now produces up to three or four feature films a year. The source of this information is Blerta Zeqiri, the Kosovar director/scriptwriter, whose Martesa (The Marriage), is Kosovo’s candidate for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar. Zeqiri […]
‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, ‘At Eternity’s Gate’, and how familiarity can influence how we view biopics
November 24, 2018
Read the full article on Firstpost, here: https://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/bohemian-rhapsody-at-eternitys-gate-and-how-familiarity-can-influence-how-we-view-biopics-5609411.html The Freddie Mercury biopic, Bohemian Rhapsody, made me recall many dramas about singers, but for different reasons. I enjoyed this film flaws and all. It didn’t bother me much that Freddie’s decision to pursue a solo career is treated by his fellow band mates with the kind […]
The letter in ‘Casablanca’ versus the ones in Chantal Akerman’s ‘News from Home’
November 15, 2018
Read the full article on Firstpost, here: https://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/a-cinematic-reading-of-the-letter-in-casablanca-versus-the-ones-in-chantal-akermans-news-from-home-5553291.html BBC Culture’s poll of the 100 best foreign films has given us fodder for many, many columns – so this week, let’s look at one of the female filmmakers on the list. Not that there’s much choice. There are only four women – three-and-a-half, in a sense, […]
Readers Write In #59: Is the film playing Kill-Marry-Hook Up with its female characters?
November 11, 2018
‘Kill-Marry-Hook Up’, for the uninitiated, is a conversation game where participants are presented with three names. They are then forced to map each name with exactly one option from ‘Kill’, ‘Marry’ or ‘Hook Up’. ‘Hook Up’ is usually replaced with a “profane” synonym, but let’s stick to the Koffee With Karan version of the title. […]
‘Seven Samurai’ is certainly a great film, but is it the best foreign film of all time?
November 8, 2018
Read the full article on Firstpost, here: https://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/seven-samurai-is-certainly-a-great-film-but-is-it-the-best-foreign-film-of-all-time-5517931.html Polls are fun. They’re imperfect. They’re maddening when they don’t match your tastes. But they get people talking about the subject, which is the whole point of the poll. For a while now, BBC Culture has been running polls on cinema. In 2015, the web site asked […]
The long gaps between the films of David Lean, Terrence Malick and Ildikó Enyedi, whose ‘On Body and Soul’ is on Netflix
October 25, 2018
Read the full article on Firstpost, here: https://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/david-lean-terrence-malick-ildiko-enyedi-and-the-long-gaps-between-their-films-5443691.html The Hungarian director Ildikó Enyedi is part of a unique trivia list of filmmakers: the release dates of at least two of their films were separated by more than a decade. Stanley Kubrick belongs in this list, with a 12-year gap between Full Metal Jacket (1987) and […]
‘The Godfather’, ‘Citizen Kane’, ‘Son of Saul’, and the philosophy behind cinematography
October 18, 2018
Read the full article on Firstpost, here: https://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/the-godfather-citizen-kane-son-of-saul-and-the-philosophy-behind-cinematography-5400201.html One of my favourite anecdotes about cinematography comes from Francis Ford Coppola’s DVD commentary track of The Godfather. He says that they decided to be very “classical” about how the film was going to be shot, the camera always about four-and-a-half feet off the ground. “It never […]
Detective Dee and the Strange Case of the Non-Hollywood Franchise Film
October 11, 2018
Read the full article on Firstpost, here: https://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/detective-dee-and-non-hollywood-franchises-if-youre-game-for-subtitles-its-a-blast-5359121.html On July 27, this year, Detective Dee: The Four Heavenly Kings was released. It’s the third instalment in a supernaturally flavoured action franchise, which is a blockbuster everywhere except in the US. The first film (Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame, 2011) made under […]
‘My Life with James Dean’, ‘gay cinema’, and whether cinema should be classified as ‘gay’
September 20, 2018
Read the full article on Firstpost, here: https://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/my-life-with-james-dean-queer-gaze-and-whether-cinema-should-be-categorised-into-inclusive-labels-5216091.html/ In the June 25 column, written on the occasion of Pride month, I wrote, “There are, of course, many filmmakers who are homosexual, but it’s interesting to explore whether this ‘gayness’ manifests itself in the films they make, and what really makes for a ‘gay film’. Is […]
Interview: Aishwarya Rajesh
September 14, 2018
Aishwarya Rajesh talks about TV serials and her entry into cinema with films like Pa Ranjith’s Attakathi. She talks about casting couch, about North Indian heroines and the opportunities they get. Despite performance-oriented roles like the ones in Dharma Durai (with Vijay Sethupathi) or Kaaka Muttai, she emphasises the need for glamorous roles opposite big stars […]
Running between films at Venice, Cannes, Berlin… Why put yourself through the festival grind?
September 13, 2018
Read the full article on Firstpost, here: https://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/running-between-films-at-venice-cannes-berlin-why-put-yourself-through-the-festival-grind-5175061.html At the Venice Film Festival, this year, I ran into Peter Bradshaw, chief film critic at The Guardian. We were in line for a press screening, and we were generally chatting about the films we liked and disliked. The topic shifted to the nature of film festivals, […]
FC @ Venice 11: New films from Zhang Yimou and ‘The Babadook’ director, plus ‘Soni’, a terrific Indian drama
September 8, 2018
Read the full article on Film Companion, here: https://www.filmcompanion.in/fc-at-venice-2018-zhang-yimou-ying-jennifer-kent-the-nightingale-ivan-ayr-soni/ Zhang Yimou’s Ying (Shadow; Chinese) plays like an all-action, zero-psychology take on Kurosawa’s Kagemusha (which shared the Palme d’Or with Bob Fosse’s All That Jazz at the 1980 Cannes Film Festival). The latter film was about a shadow warrior, a lookalike used as a body double […]
On the 20th death anniversary of Kurosawa, remembering his Golden Lion winner ‘Rashōmon’, and his only female-centric film
September 6, 2018
Read the full article on Firstpost, here: https://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/on-kurosawas-20th-death-anniversary-remembering-rashomon-and-his-only-female-centric-film-5128341.html/ You’re lucky if you get one solid peg for an article. This one, about Akira Kurosawa, has two. First, it’s the 20th death anniversary of the great filmmaker – he died on September 6, 1998. Second, the Venice film festival is underway, and it’s a good time […]
January 17, 2019
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