There are films you watch, and then there are films you feel. Teesri Manzil (1966) belongs firmly in the second category. It doesn’t demand your attention; it seduces it. On the surface, it’s a murder mystery. A young woman dies under suspicious circumstances at a Mussoorie hotel, and her sister […]
Cinema
Love: Devotion to One Reality
“Find something you love and let it kill you.” There are certain quotes you do not merely admire. You return to them repeatedly, almost unconsciously, at different stages of your life, and each time they reveal another layer of yourself back to you. For me, this quote by Charles Bukowski […]
The 2ND EXTREME Paradox
Throughout history, one pattern appears repeatedly in the evolution of societal norms: the journey from one extreme, through radical opposition, to the establishment of balance. This phenomenon can be called the ‘2nd Extreme Paradox’. Extremes, whether ideological, political, or cultural, do rarely provide a sustainable or just foundation for society. […]
Behind the Spotlight: A Powerful Tribute to the King of Pop
Unlike most celebrity biopics, this one is much more personal than others; it takes viewers into Michael Jackson’s life (not just the story about how he achieved fame), and shows how he experienced both tremendous success but also constant pressure from others, many people loved him, but ultimately Michael lived […]
Would I Go Back?
There are, to me, two kinds of speculative readers: those who are driven by plot, and those who are driven by character. The distinction is not absolute; both elements exist in any meaningful story, but most of us lean instinctively toward one. I find myself, almost stubbornly, on the side […]
A Movie That Cost Indian Cinema Generations: ft. Kaagaz Ke Phool
When we speak of the golden age of Indian cinema, this is what I imagine – A time when films were not merely commercial products but works of art, created by artists who treated cinema like their own children. Kaagaz Ke Phool stands as one of the purest examples of […]
When Society Creates a Saint: Rethinking Guide
Today, in the wake of Dev Anand, I re-watched Guide, and it turned out to be a completely different experience. Earlier, when I watched it, it felt like just another old-school masterclass. But this time, something was different. I don’t know what exactly changed, but it felt like a weight […]
Meet Joe Black — A Review
Martin Brest’s 1998 film “Meet Joe Black” stars Brad Pitt, Anthony Hopkins, and Claire Forlani and is more than just an imaginative romantic comedy; it is subtitled as “A Philosophical Inquiry into Life and Death”. The story is intriguing: a young man named Joe Black represents Death on Earth to […]
I Didn’t Know What to Feel
Tyeb Mehta, the Paintings That Distanced Me, and the Film That Brought Me Back The first time I saw a Tyeb Mehta painting, I was too young to know what I was looking at. It was at a virtual tour of an exhibition in Mumbai, some corporate gallery in a […]
Pankaj Tripathi’s Perfect Family: A Debut That’s Anything But Ordinary
“All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” Anna Karenina, Tolstoy It’s in the quiet boredom of Holi after hours where we give in to our parents’ watch recommendations. So that’s exactly how I landed in this uncharted corner of youtube watching a show […]
Anurag Kashyap
Whenever I talk about directors who significantly changed the traditional Hindi cinema, Anurag Kashyap’s name always comes up. He isn’t a typical Bollywood director like others who focuses only on big stars, grand sets, and commercially successful formulas. Instead, he focuses more on the script of the story, the characters, […]