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Readers Write In #186: Karthik Yenn Dial Seytha?
(by Hariharasudhen Nagarajan) A Gautham Menon film receiving negative reviews has become increasingly common in recent years. Unaffected by brickbats and coronavirus, he takes up the daunting task of continuing to trace the lives of two of his iconic characters in his film Vinnaithaandi Varuvaaya. I am wary of sequels or any sort of follow-up […]
Alexander Zolotukhin’s ‘A Russian Youth’, set during WWI and now on mubi, is a perfect contrast to Sam Mendes’ ‘1917’
May 21, 2020
The most fascinating aspect of this “war movie” is the parallel narrative set in the present day, where a conductor is rehearsing with his orchestra. After a century of cinema, when nearly every genre has been twisted in every possible direction, it’s inevitable that filmmakers seek refuge in experiments. If the “World War I movie” […]
Karthik Dial Seydha Yenn: Gautham Vasudev Menon, STR and Trisha give us a lovely reunion, with a pinch of pain
May 21, 2020
A reflection on the 12-odd minutes spent with the characters that continue to haunt us, even after ten years. Many spoilers ahead, so make sure you see the film first. Spoilers ahead… How interesting that Trisha’s two most memorable films — and her two most memorable performances — have been stories about unrequited love. There […]
Posted in: Cinema: Tamil, Short Films
Readers Write In #185: The gloriously overlooked character arc of Arjun Reddy
May 20, 2020
(by Pragnya N) While the debate is still out on whether Sandeep Reddy Vanga’s Arjun Reddy glorifies toxic masculinity, toxic relationships, alcohol and drug abuse, and also sexism, a zoom-out on Arjun Reddy as a character study, shows that the film isn’t sermonizing on how a man should be modelled. Instead, it speaks about the […]
Posted in: Cinema: Telugu, Readers Write In
Interview: Vetri Maaran (by Dinesh Karthik and Basu Shanker)
May 20, 2020
For more, subscribe to FILM COMPANION SOUTH: http://bit.ly/2xoNult Copyright ©2020 Film Companion.
Readers Write In #184: Proof that Marvel has a heart
May 19, 2020
(by Aman Basha) Last year, Martin Scorsese provoked controversy, conversation, thought pieces, reactions and discussions when he called the Marvel series as not cinema, but theme parks. Scorsese later clarified his statement with a lengthy article which I haven’t read, but later gathered that he felt these movies had a sameness and lacked emotional connect. […]
Posted in: Cinema: English, Readers Write In
Readers Write In #183: That other kind of confusing: A psychological perspective on Bergman’s Persona (1966)
May 19, 2020
(by Piyush Pratik) It’s sort of confusing when you are bamboozled by a Tarkovsky film – his obscurity is well-known anyway, and his imagist approach to filmmaking obliterates any attempt to make plain sense. It’s another kind of confusing when you see Sayat Nova – you have to have some background information in order to […]
Posted in: Cinema: Foreign, Readers Write In
Readers Write In #182: A character analysis of Karan Singhania, the soul of Rang De Basanti
May 18, 2020
(by Sai Krishna Ramavajula) Apart from teaching us how to light a cigarette with utmost swag and style, the character of Karan Singhania (played by Siddarth)in Rang De Basanti taught us both filmmakers and the audience something else as well. It is about how to write an interesting character .In 2016 at the 10-year celebration […]
Posted in: Cinema: Hindi, Readers Write In
Readers Write In #181: Infinity War and the 3D experience
May 18, 2020
(by Amit Joki) Saw Infinity War on the second day and there’s this unsatisfactory feeling. I will write more on that later, but the first things first. I’ve never had a 3D experience until Infinity War and I totally hated it. Of course there were times when I waved my hand around fooled by the […]
Posted in: Cinema: English, Readers Write In
Readers Write In #180: Revisiting Swades
May 17, 2020
(by N Madhusudhan) Underneath the explicit messaging, a solidtransformation arc of its protagonist and a progressive love story stand out Revisiting an old favorite is a fascinating exercise. It gives you an opportunity to understand why you liked the film in the first place, which you could not or did not want to in the […]
Posted in: Cinema: Hindi, Readers Write In
Readers Write In #179: Khandavaprastha: The Illusions of Reality
May 17, 2020
(by Sundaresh Raja) (This short-story is loosely (I mean not-so loosely) based on an episode from Mahabharatha, the greatest story ever) They asked for Khandavaprastha. Nobody would have seen that coming. They pleaded to be given that barren land in the outskirts infested with snakes, and known as Khandavaprastha. In reality, their rightful property was […]
Posted in: Fiction, Readers Write In
Readers Write In #178: The Russian Revolution, Chapter 15 – The Conclusion
May 17, 2020
(by G Waugh) Introduction, Preface, and Chapter 1 are here. Chapter 2 is here. Chapter 3 is here. Chapter 4 is here. Chapter 5 is here. Chapter 6 is here. Chapter 7 is here. Chapter 8 is here. Chapter 9 is here. Chapter 10 is here. Chapter 11 is here. Chapter 12 is here. Chapter […]
“Shikara”… An intimate love story that (rightly) puts people before politics
May 16, 2020
The protagonist represents all that is nice and good and innocent and naive and pure about the director’s homeland. Even after he is displaced, he continues to “save the world”. Spoilers ahead… Rage mellows with age, and that’s what seems to have happened with Vidhu Vinod Chopra. Exactly twenty years ago, he channelled his angst […]
Posted in: Cinema: Hindi, Television / Online
Survival Stories, directed by Rahul Riji Nair, is on YouTube: A sense of the lockdown in eight different ways, with eight shorts
May 16, 2020
Every short features a character who is confined in a way. Some of them mention COVID. Others exist in a timeless space — their stories could have unfolded even before the lockdown. Spoilers ahead… What can you hope to see in a roughly 45-minute film that opens with the note that it was “fully conceived […]
Posted in: Cinema: Malayalam, Television / Online
Readers Write In #177: Before Sunrise in 2020
May 16, 2020
(by Harish Prakash) “You know what drives me crazy? It’s all these people talking about how great technology is, and how it saves all this time. But what good is saved time, if nobody uses it? If it just turns into more busy work…” Jesse says that to Celine in Richard Linklater’s Before Sunrise (streaming […]
Posted in: Cinema: English, Readers Write In
Girmit, with the voices of Yash and Radhika Pandit, is on SUN NXT: A rewind of this entertaining “mass” movie by Ravi Basrur, with a cast of kids
May 14, 2020
The film is serious — but because the actors are all children, there’s also the sense of the film winking at us. It’s the Flipkart advertisement ethos, expanded to feature length. Spoilers ahead… Most “mass” movies are so slave to formula that the question while making one isn’t “what do I make?” as much as […]
Posted in: Cinema: Kannada, Television / Online
Chat Masala #1: Cannes & Why Film Festivals Matter
May 14, 2020
Anupama Chopra and Baradwaj Rangan get together for a new series titled Chat Masala. On the first episode, they discuss the Cannes Film Festival that was called off this year, owing to coronavirus, and their memories from the French Riviera. The critics also chat about the importance of film festivals and how the world will […]
Posted in: Chat Masala, Film Festivals
Andrei Tarkovsky’s ‘Solaris’ versus the Steven Soderbergh version, plus a diss about Kubrick
May 14, 2020
Solaris is a planet capable of reaching into the recesses of your mind, the places where you’ve tucked away your most painful memories. In the case of the protagonist, these memories are of his wife… One of my favourite disses in cinema history is Andrei Tarkovsky calling 2001: A Space Odyssey a “comic book”. It […]
Readers Write In #176: Heads or Tails, Random thoughts on Randomness
May 14, 2020
(by Sundaresh Raja) Language, whether it is spoken by the commoners or by the pseudo-intellectuals, is always interspersed with terms and definitions of words whose meaning in entirety one is not cognizant of. A word may have an inherent reference to a concept or the word in itself maybe a concept; at times we must […]
Posted in: Perspective, Readers Write In
Interview: Bhargav Ramakrishnan (Baggy), whose stand-up show is now on Amazon Prime
May 12, 2020
For more, subscribe to FILM COMPANION SOUTH: http://bit.ly/2xoNult Copyright ©2020 Film Companion.
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May 21, 2020
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