Surya, Review: Twilight zone Giving no clue about its content, Surya is an eponymous title, being the short form of the name of the protagonist. Symbolically, it also stands for the sun, as the dispeller of darkness. While there is no denying that the hero of the film does what all action heroes do, namely dispel darkness by annihilating the baddies, the way he is made to go about it is not only jaded but beaten to death, pun intended. Surya, made in Marathi language, with a generous dose of ...

Jhalki, Review: Stop stealing childhood from children After much-raved biopics on Rahul Dev Burman and Jagjit Singh, director Brahmanand S. Siingh trains his lens on an issue that is based on true incidents and is a burning topic for Indian society at large. It brought Kailash Satyarthi the Nobel Peace Prize, and he is both depicted as well as present in the film. How many film-makers can make any such claim? The subject is child-trafficking, and employing little children in carpet factories,...

P se Pyaar F se Farraar, Review: On a killing Alarming statistics at the end of the film reveal that killing of young men and women who elope or marry into other castes or religions increased by 769% last year. Reports of such barbaric brutality, called ‘honour killing’, appear in the newspapers and on TV channels regularly. States in the North, North-west and central parts of India are most severely affected. So, in the footsteps of Sairaat (Marathi) and Dhadak (Hindi), we have a...

IPTA’s 48th ICDC: Testament to teenage talent An inter-collegiate short Hindustani (Hindi/Urdu) drama competition (ICDC), introduced by the Indian People’s Theatre Association (IPTA) 47 years ago, has captured the imagination of budding talent in Mumbai’s colleges. It was this contest that has given us actors like Aamir Khan, Kunal Khemu, Neha Sharad, Channa Ruparel and Deven Bhojani. The 48th edition took place, as usual, in September, attracting 23 entries from local educa...

Mohalla Assi, Review: Holy river, unholy Babas He’ll get there, eventually. Beginning with the TV serial Chanakya (321 BC-283 BC), about the life and times of the master strategist in the Maurya dynasty period (322 BC-185 BC), Dr. Chandraprakash Dwivedi gave us a good follow-up in the form of the feature film Pinjar, set in India’s partition, circa 1947.  After three more period dramas, largely unseen, he now lands up in more recent history, with the 2004 story published in 2...

Kashi—In Search of Ganga, Review: Searchomania and Schizophrenia Suspense thriller it could be. It is not. Search for a sibling it could be. It is not. A film that takes the audience for a royal ride, it is. A classic case of the script and the direction tying up the story in knots, and then, not knowing how to unravel the Gordian knotty, only getting naughty and clever by half. Lucknow-based journalist Devina meets Kaashi in Kaashi (another name for Varanasi or Banaras) and takes an ...