This post first appeared on Totally Filmi on August 1, 2016. Award-winning Malayalam director Jayaraj turned to an Anton Chekov short story, “Vanka”, to find the inspiration for his most recent film Ottaal (“The Trap”), proof that some themes transcend place and time. Eight-year-old Kuttappai (Ashanth K. Sha), orphaned after the…
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This post first appeared on Totally Filmi on September 26, 2016. With Island City, director Ruchika Oberoi presents a tryptich of stories dealing with oppression and alienation in the modern island city of the title, Mumbai. In the first story, “Fun Committee”, Vinay Pathak is perfect as Suyash Chaturvedi, the…
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This post first appeared on Totally Filmi on September 21, 2016. When Vibhavari (Sugandha Garg), an up-and-coming Bollywood music director, finds herself facing a creative block, she sets off for Punjab to meet and record folk singer Bibi Swaroop (Sadhana Singh). She first meets Bibi’s son, Mastana (Siddhant Behl), a…
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This post first appeared on Totally Filmi on September 26, 2016. There is a bittersweet bit of irony at play in the fact that Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy’s Academy-award winning short documentary film A Girl in the River: The Price of Forgiveness is on the schedule at LIFF2016. I watched it the same…
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This post first appeared on Totally Filmi on September 30, 2016. Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy’s documentary feature Song of Lahore is about honour of a different kind than that of her award-winning A Girl in the River. Lahore has been a major South Asian cultural centre for well over a thousand years.…
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This post first appeared on Totally Filmi on March 9, 2017. I was curious to see what director Ritesh Batra was going to do as a follow-up to his 2013 film The Lunchbox, his feature film debut that garnered much critical acclaim, for good reason. Batra’s film was a love-letter to…
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This post first appeared on Totally Filmi on April 28, 2017. I’m almost late to the party, but finally turned up my copy of Mr. India in order to put together my contribution to the Great Villain Blogathon, a celebration of all things villainous, hosted by Silver Screenings, shadowsandsatin and Speakeasy. Be sure to check out all the…
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This post first appeared on Totally Filmi on June 30, 2017. Pakistan-born stand-up comic Kumail (Kumail Nanjiani) meets American graduate student Emily (Zoe Kazan) at the club where he’s performing. They hit it off immediately, and what looks at first like a one-night stand gradually develops into something more. Perhaps…
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This post first appeared on Totally Filmi on July 15, 2017. This post is part of the Swashathon, a blogathon devoted to the swashbuckler adventure genre of films, hosted by Fritzi at Movies Silently. Be sure to check out all the posts!) It’s probably true for many that when one thinks…
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