A maker with a penchant for addressing social and sociological malaises tries his hand at the intra-nation village/small town to big city trans-migration issue in India, as seen through three different angles, by inhabitants of a Mumbai chawl (shanty/slum). Though Bhonsle is largely realistic cinema, Devashish Makhija, nevertheless, bends his treatment occasionally, to use tropes to move the story forward. The result is an above average film that has enough merit to be watchable on its own, bu...

Bose Dead or Alive: Rajkummar Rao in thriller take on Indian freedom fighter If you were a patriot and freedom seeker in the British colonial India of the 1920s-1940s, you either believed in non-violent struggle, a movement led by ‘Mahatma’ Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi or the increasingly violent approach of ‘Netaji’ Subhas Chandra Bose. Mahatma means great soul and Netaji translates as leader. Both belonged to the Congress party, but when Bose called for armed struggle,...

Ajji, Review: Gran finalé Enough of laurels for acclaimed shorts like Taandav, Aglee Baar, Absent, and the largely unknown feature, Oonga. It was time for Devashish Makhija to push the limits hard, and make a shocker that would provoke the critics into hot debate, and leave the masses, if and as and when they get to see it, cringing and stunned. In Ajji (Granny/Marathi title, though the film is in Hindi), as in most films that emanate from and belong to a genre, content dictates form....