Once a filmmaker of enormous potential, Gowariker’s name is now associated with creative irrelevance and a political turn to the right. His role as the jury head of the National Film Awards has also reignited criticism of the institution itself.
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In a country where celebrities are deified and worshipped, we do not want to know that they live with the same fears, melancholia, and biochemical imbalances as the rest of us.
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Pariyerum Perumal’s rawness came from the fact that it didn’t try to universalise the Dalit experience. Its protagonist, Pariyan, is a witness, a survivor, and, crucially, a question mark aimed at the viewer. Bollywood, however, rarely trusts its audience with discomfort.
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Mandala Murders is a copy-paste cult drama with no pulse. If you want eerie towns, esoteric cults, and detectives chasing twisted truths, there are better shows out there.
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In Udaan, you can find the first traces of Motwane's constant: his love for broken men trying to stitch themselves back together by defying the moulds the world tries to put them in.
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After 25 years in Bollywood, Abhishek Bachchan is still here, still acting. And that is something.
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Looking back, Jagga Jasoos feels like a road not taken—the one that could’ve led to a more playful, meta, narrative-rich, visually daring Bollywood. Instead, we got stuck with a resurgence of toxic masculinity, lazy biopics, and franchise fatigue.
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Bollywood routinely profits from hypernationalist military narratives that demonise entire communities in the name of storytelling, but scrutiny of such films is often met with resentment instead of critical thinking. The 'Sardaar ji 3' controversy exemplifies that outrage only erupts when someone dares to imagine a version of India that doesn’t include perpetual hostility.
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What Panchayat lacks in substance this season, it tries to make up for with extreme melodrama. Once a refreshing show, it now feels like it’s just going through the motions, one threadbare plot point at a time.
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New York Indian Film Festival | A spunky homage to desi detective stories, Kaisi Ye Paheli harks back to every iconic fictional detective, from Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple to Satyajit Ray’s Feluda to Sharadindu Bandyopadhyay’s Byomkesh.
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