Har Kisse Ke Hisse Kaamyaab, Review: Many parts, many holes, no whole, no soul In one scene of Har Kisse Ke Hisse Kaamyaab, the protagonist, an actor who goes under the screen name of Sudheer, cannot get his lines right, because he has not had a swig of his favourite brew, and gives retake after retake. We see him do seven/eight retakes, after which, mercifully, the film-maker goes into a montage, with only music, after which it is revealed that he had given as many as 32 retakes. Mercifully,...

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...

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....

MAMI’s 19th Mumbai Film Festival, 12-18 November, Mumbai: Many good films, no masterpieces Overview of the films, seen and unseen. *Mukkabaaz-India-Anurag Kashyap: Inaugural film, inaccessible to me. Anurag Kashyap is a much-acclaimed film-maker and a member of the Board of Trustees of Mumbai Academy of Moving Image (MAMI). India Gold section *Checkmate-India-Ektara Collective: Good feature film debut of independent collective: *** (film still above). *Granny (Ajji): India-Devashi...

Siraj Syed’s IFFI 2016 diary VIII, Open Forum IV: Courses for horses or horses for courses? Both, really. We are in the age of customised platforms for film viewing finding best-match, multiple-matches and staggered exhibition alternatives for films. A magnum opus like Bahubali (Indian mythological blockbuster franchise) needs a massive, four-digit spanning simultaneous, theatrical release while a Lunch Box (the mouse that roared a couple of years ago), though critically raved, would be...