indian popular cinema

[rischka]

i think we need a dedicated topic for bollywood and similar as we've got a lot of fans here and i need recommendations this week i've watched jewel thief with dev anand which was great fun, fantastic songs and swinging sixties style, if not the masterpiece that guide was. it's clear here why dev anand was known as bollywood's cary grant -- he's great at light comedy and very suave with the ladies. the colors of this film are amazing, and exotic setting of sikkim helps too





the plot is a complicated mistaken identity mashup of hitchcock and bond films which doesn't bear too close examination





(pre) masala fabulous ♥

[...]

Good call on making the thread, much appreciated as I'm still going that route myself at the moment.

[nrh]

started the year with chaalbaaz (1989), the 3rd film i've seen in the ram aur shyam template - identical twins are separated at birth, with one raised poor and self-reliant while the other is raised rich but brainwashed and terrorized by cruel relatives determined to sponge off the fortune left by the dead biological parents.

the first is really fun, an elegantly shot pop blockbuster with dilip kumar having fun for once; if there's a real charge to the film it's just how creepy the way that villain pran crushes rich version dilip's spirit is. seeta aur geeta is ramesh sippy and salim-javed a few years before they made sholay, flipping of the gender of the twins so that hema malini (having the time of her life) gets to be the star. it's probably the canonical version for most people.

chaalbaaz is by pankaj parashur, who had a weird an interesting career in the '80s, creating a cult detective show called karamchand and directing a couple of odd action comedies (most famous being jalwa, a beverly hills cop remake starring naseeruddin shah, then known only as an art house actor) that share a kind of anarchic, counter-cultural energy.

this one is a big budget star vehicle for sridevi, then the biggest star in hindi film behind only amitabh (her male co-stars, sunny deol and rajinikanth, were both big stars and barely get any screen time). hema malini was a star of course but by '89 amitabh had kind of totally overturned the nature of stardom in hindi film and there never had been or would be a female star in hindi film like sridevi was in '89. she doesn't just get to a ton of showcase dance features and a bunch of action scenes, she gets self referential call backs and punch dialogues.

stylistically it's almost a perfect tipping point between the 80s and 90s. anupam kher is the villain, shakti kapoor and kader khan (rip) get a comedy scene, the musical numbers get a distinctly mtv tone. everyone knows the story so everything is sped up or heightened (especially the cruelty of the villains). as with all the versions i've seen there's a very real sense of trauma and catharsis (the basis for any good masala film) that rings true.

sadly the available prints are kind of muddy and gross; i've seen screenshots that suggest it was a pretty gorgeous film, and the dp manmohan singh shot the very beautiful sridevi vehicle chandni the same year.

the only later film i've seen by parashar is rajkumar from '96, an absolutely insane ruritanian swashbuckler filled with intentional camp, early 90s cgi effects, and wildly stylized set design. there's a good subtitled version on youtube if anyone is interested...

[nrh]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7pKphVK_ZU

went to see petta, the new rajinikanth film from writer/director karthick subbaraj, the filmmaker most often credited with giving tamil film's post-2000s new wave its second wind. the marketing took great pains to establish this a rajini super fan subbaraj crafting a loving return to form after rajini's two divisive auteur films (two heavily political films by pa. ranjith, and the cgi action film 2.0 by shankar).

at its most basic it's a classic kind of masala, with (spaghetti) western tones - mysterious man takes job as warden of college hostel, cleans up the criminal elements in town while greater threat looms from outside, tragic past is revealed in flashback and cathartic revenge is taken.

but subbaraj is an odd director and this ends up being a much stranger film than i think many of the critics have let on - less a tribute to rajini's '90s peak but a kind of fevered remixing of the elements the director loved about those films when he was a kid, or an attempt to extend a certain '90s style into the present day as if there had never been an aesthetic break.

so if the pa. ranjith films are attempting to stretch the rajini/masala hero myth into very new progressive political territory (both films have endings that suggest in some way the myth must be expelled to make way for political action), the subbaraj film is tackling very nervy modern political subjects (right wing hindutva extremism, environmental/industrial exploitation, caste and religious issues) not only purely within the confines of those 90s films but almost in the way a young man would remember them. the style is extremely heightened (especially the lighting which suggests mani ratnam's thalapathi), and so is the violence.

really curious how this would play to anyone who doesn't have a real history with rajinikanth and his iconography; i have a feeling it would actually work fine but seema wasn't so sure... and first time seeing one of his movies with an audience who really got into it, with the ritual cheers and whistles and applause.

[Lencho of the Apes]

I saw last year's Padmaavat, by Sanjay Leela Bhansali. Admired the grandiose CGI-ness of it almost in spite of myself, but there seemed to be only a very limited range of effects that SLB was capable of, got a bit wearying (and I felt that his control over the material faltered) toward the end.

3 pad 2.JPG (74.67 KiB) Viewed 8130 times

3 pad 1.JPG (121.87 KiB) Viewed 8130 times

[thoxans]

one of the co-owners at this nearby convenience store is always watching indian flicks on netflix in between checking out customers, so i like to talk to him about what recs he might have, and he said that the best thing he's seen recently was andhadhun, so that's def high up on my watchlist. to this day, i think he's amazed an ignorant uhmurican drunkard such as myself is a budding indian cinephile. i mean, i really can't blame him, since half the time i'm there i'm wearing my stay-at-home comfy clothes, doing nothing more than buying a beer or two


^me, buying a tall boy (or two), and talking indian movies at the quick stop

[...]

I saw last year's Padmaavat, by Sanjay Leela Bhansali. Admired the grandiose CGI-ness of it almost in spite of myself, but there seemed to be only a very limited range of effects that SLB was capable of, got a bit wearying (and I felt that his control over the material faltered) toward the end.

I keep hoping to make a Bhansali thread because I think he's interesting, though definitely not for everyone and interesting in ways that don't necessarily mean "great" just singular in an auteury way that deserves some unpacking. I've got tons of screencaps from several of his films and some basic concepts to throw out there, but I keep getting waylaid with other things, like being sick all last weekend when I was going to make a start.

[nrh]

watched rettai vaal kuruvi, writer/director/editor/cinematographer balu mahendra's 1987 remake of blake edwards micki & maude, about a man who becomes a bigamist when both his wife and mistress become pregnant at the same time. definitely feels like a dry run for mahendra's great comedy of infidelity sathi leelavathi, but this is pretty terrific, and the push and pull between traditional values and a changing society works much better in tamil than in did in english at the time, and he cuts out most of the maudlin section at the end where dudley moore stalks his family. here mahendra pushes much more towards the idea of the male lead as slightly infantilized (especially compared to the women around him).

[Evelyn Library P.I.]

I'm looking for Indian horror movie recommendations. Can't find any Indian films listed on most horror movie lists, but I'm sure there are some interesting items out there I just don't know about. Anyone know of any good ones?

[nrh]

I'm looking for Indian horror movie recommendations. Can't find any Indian films listed on most horror movie lists, but I'm sure there are some interesting items out there I just don't know about. Anyone know of any good ones?

tbh there's not really a particularly robust indian horror film tradition to speak of. there are some great classic films that are kind of on the edge of the genre - kamal amrohi's mahal, tapan sinha's khudito pashan, the raj khosla mysterious woman films like woh kaun thi, thrillers like ittefaq and adhey kangal - but they're not of the genre in a primary way. and then the ramseys pretty much define the genre from '70s on with likable but pretty shoddy b movies. the 2000s mostly vikram bhatt schlock... but a few films of interest might be -

tumbbad - haven't seen this one yet but it was one of the most talked about films from last year, an ambitious indie production that seems to treading into rajasthani folk horror territory.

pari - another film from last year that seems to be treading into folk horror territory, this one i thought was really underrated. not entirely successful but it's doing some interesting things.

pisasu - mysskin is probably the most idiosyncratic of the recent generation of tamil film directors, this is him doing a ghost/revenge thing of sorts.

raat and kaun? - two smallish, somewhat experimental films from ram gopal varma, the first being a possessed child thing and the other a peculiar thriller set entirely in one house over the course of a night. would give the edge to kaun, which has a gleeful sort of campfire story wickedness.

manichitrathazhu - one of the most beloved malayalam films, this cycles through a few dozen genres but is mostly past life possession/haunted mansion.

sigappu rojakkal - bharathiraja directed serial killer film, making great use of romantic leading man kamal haasan as the murderer. they made a later film called tik tik tik which is about as close to giallo as indian film ever really got.

abhay (the fearless) - actually a children's film, with a beatlejuice like set up where a thoroughly modern family moves into a haunted mansion. but the film slowly shifts into something unexpected and kind of troubling. unfortunately don't think vishal bharadwaj's children's horror makdee has subs.

the bengali film kuheli looks great and is on youtube with subs but i haven't seen it. the middle story in satyajit ray's three daughters is a ghost story, but it's the weakest of the three. pizza is terrific but it only seems to be a horror film; it ends up in a different genre entirely. some people loved phobia but it looks a little iffy to me. i liked last year's stree a lot but it's much more comedy than horror. also heard good things about the kannada film u-turn, not sure about the two remakes that just came out last year.

[Lencho of the Apes]

It'd be easy to make a case for Ayirathil Oruvan (2010) as being horror-adjacent... but maybe 'adjacent' isn't good enough? Time-travel, recurring-nightmare historical cycle and zombies...

[nrh]

^the frustrating thing is that selva actually completed a full on horror film back in 2017, but it has been held up in release issues ever since then -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mK3pv46s4v4

[Evelyn Library P.I.]

Thank you nrh and Lencho for these detailed recommendations, these all look really interesting. I think I'll start with Mahal, though if it could find it with subs the promise of Tik Tik Tik's Indian giallo would win out!

[nrh]

I will upload tik tik tik this weekend. just watched tumbbad with seema last night, a really extraordinary film, a slow burning generational tragedy with some of the most interesting digital cinematography I’ve seen in years. it’s on prime if anyone has it and can’t recommend enough.

[Evelyn Library P.I.]

Oh amazing, thank you!

[nrh]

added tik tik tik to resources, not a great copy but can't find anything else out there.

[roujin]

once nenjam comes out i will finally be able to die in peace

[nrh]

once nenjam comes out i will finally be able to die in peace

https://silverscreen.in/news/selvaragha ... l-trouble/

[roujin]

holy shit

Surely NGK will come out...

[Lencho of the Apes]

Watched last year's Yemaali (in Tamil, dir. by V Z Durai) and hated it so much... Facebook crises among young people launch a cyberstalking incel breakdown that escalates into "she blocked my calls, I have to kill her now."

It's kinda comforting to know that South Asia sometimes makes bad movies; I've been so lucky until now, I don't think I've ever seen any I disliked. At least not to this extent.

[nrh]

that one looked really dire from the trailers...wikipedia mentions that it bombed at the theaters but i can't remember any of the review outlets of note even deigning to mention it existed. which is sad because some of durai's films from the 2000s, esp thotti jaya, are pretty interesting, even if they hardly suggest he'd be suited for this kind of material...

[charulata]

@augusto omg pls pls tell me about watching joker

[augusto]

still haven’t seen the raju murugan one (though watching the gypsy trailer and the new SaNa track was another reminder i need to); watched the akshay kumar one last night while unable to sleep.

[charulata]

. But also miss you and left you this on Twitter just coz.

[nrh]

katho upanishad, ashish avikunthak 2011

how it feels to work through some shit and be left with...what? a beautiful film, not just for how he plays with the text but how he choreographs his actors in this weird little space. a lot of weight here if you know where to look.

[augusto]

ha, yes! thanks. what book is that from?

while i'm here...

merku thodarchi malai (lenin bharathi, 2018)



bharathi's engagement with landscape and its stories and people is worthy of aravindan at times. the sad irony of the final shot in particular shares something with oridathu. (and unlike oridathu, affords its communist an endearingly sympathetic portrayal, even when committing murder.)

[charulata]

Its from amit chaudhuri's friend of my youth. Tough to pin down the shape of the book even after finishing it but a) generous in its descriptions of food and restaurants which is catnip for me ofc and b) I think any reservations I have about it are things he's poking at completely intentionally. I may reread at least parts so maybe I'll be able to say something more articulate about it soon.

[charulata]

Also just putting this out here but haven't felt any inclination to listen to the Gully Boy sdtrk or watch the movie. My little personal boycott.

[augusto]

also pathetic that kumbalangi nights (and peranbu a week before that) don't release anywhere near here while uri and manikarnika (and soon, gully boy) continue to stink up the cinemas.

[roujin]

zoya akhtar auteurism baby