indian popular cinema

[rischka]

i watched rab ne bana di jodi over three days as well. the plot is completely outrageous but i do not even care! another proof that bollywood can make the most insane romcoms hugely enjoyable. all the references to bollywood past, terrific songs and stellar performances. srk plays a nerd who develops a more typical 'srk' personality (who calls himself raj kapoor!) to woo his secret crush/arranged bride (it's complicated!). esp loved this 'bollywood dream' sequence opening with raj's much beloved tramp character (borrowed from chaplin) and gold diggers reference

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





https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phir_Mile ... lte_Chalte -- all references listed, thx anonymous wiki person

[nrh]

mari selvaraj's periyerum perumal was one of the most important debut films of the last decade or so - a very upsetting movie about a young dalit man's experiences attending a rural college that turned into a major word of mouth hit across the country. his new movie karnan is another thing entirely - a fictionalized version of caste riots that erupted in tamil nadu in the mid '90s that fully embraces the mythic aspects that periyerum only hints at.

a remote dalit village, which has built itself up from a wasteland over the course of generations but is still locked in a subservient relationship to the upper caste village nearby which essentially acts as a landlord, is cut off from reaching the outside world by the refusal to open a bustop. small acts of resistance spiral into violence, then the police become involved...

in an interview before the movie opened mari selvaraj called santosh narayan (the composer, probably the most important indian movie movie composer since a.r. rahman) and dhanush (who unexpectedly had the biggest hit of his career with this, even with the covid restrictions) his two weapons, and this movie goes even further than mari's mentor pa. ranjith's kaala in refashioning the tamil hero/masala film into something revolutionary, combining that form with this finely observed portrait of village life, all sorts of subaltern forms of art and expression, local politics and a reclamation of this mythic register...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yULZ8y1J-s

joji is dileesh pothan's follow-up to the great thondimuthalum driksakshiyum; it was sold as a kind of blend of macbeth and k.g. george's cult classic irakal but in its precision and vicious black humor it reminds me most of those late period chabrol films centered around hateful, wealthy families.

this has the always great fahadh faasil as the failed youngest son of a wealthy, rubber plantation owning family dominated by an overbearing patriarch; the "inspired by macbeth" opening title card more or less lets the audience know how things are going to pan out. like thondimuthalum there is a kind of removed clarity here that makes the way things play out feel removed, almost surreal. this was shot during covid during a period where the situation was largely under control in kerala, and this is the first movie i've seen that uses that social reality, totally uncommented on in the movie itself, as part of the social mise en scene.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2OyKsF6Tq4

had waited for years for njan steve lopez to show up with english subtitles - it's one of those movies that found a cult following after a disastrous initial release, to the point that it's more or less considered rajeev ravi's best film (he's best known as a cinematographer - he shot thondimuthalum driksakshiyum as well as most of kashyap's better movies).

plays out as a kind of observational comedy of aimless malayalam 20 somethings (there is a lot of great onscreen text messaging) until steve lopez (played by fahadh faasil's younger brother), the child of a police officer, tries to save the life of a man targeted by what seems to be a gangland hit and the movie transforms into a paranoid fiction about the web of state sanctioned power and violence. it's actually a kind of genre of its own (shankar nag's kannada film accident, rahul rawail's hindi film arjun and its tamil remake satya to name just a few) but there is something special about the quiet way this one unspools, and a great patience in the way the movie allows its main character to come to terms with the nastier truths the audience comes to terms with long before he does.

[Lencho of the Apes]

Surprised there was so little love for Sholay in the last poll, only NRH mentioned it... I've never seen an Indian movie that got so close to "western" genre qualities; there's so much Leone in the mix I want to retitle it The Good The Bad And The Dhoti. Even Amitabh's presence was tolerable -- as a seventies/Bolly-specific action hero his persona makes perfect sense. Recommended to fands of Khamraev.

[mesnalty]

I don't like everything about Sholay, but I love that it uses the same double-headed coin trick as Only Angels Have Wings, but this time between two male friends. Very Hawksian, in its own way!

[nrh]

will write about it more in depth once i see it again this weekend, but rrr is an extraordinary movie and in some ways a deeply frustrating one. it is funny to see most of the indian kids i know really pushing against the movie's imagery and ideology at the same time a lot of western viewers are taking it's fantasy version of independence struggle as face value as some kind of anti-colonialist statement.

but for now i do think it is a genuine achievement, just a cascading series of images and set pieces that arrive with an real force, not just the action scenes (and there is one around the interval block that i think will earn its place in history) but two bound to be iconic musical numbers, one based on dance and the other on song.

[nrh]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4dJE1yH-9V0

amal neerad's bheeshma parvam was the only movie i watched this may apart from that disastrous memoria screening (apparently neon printed the only 35mm version on damaged stock? complete idiot move). a lockdown movie, set within a sprawling wealthy family (it took me at least an hour into the movie to figure out the family relationships, and after looking at the family tree diagram on wikipedia i still think i got some of it wrong), with the great mammootty as defacto patriarch.

the godfather parallels are obvious but it's really a weird creature of it's own, with mammootty not as the father but the oldest by default trying to uphold family values across the fault lines of a complex, multicultural kerala society (muslim/christian conflicts, various issues of women's autonomy). and very elegant in how it treats its aging superstar's presence here. not sure how this will read at all for someone not plugged in to current malayalam movies but i thought it was a really version of a big star movie.

[nrh]

was very impressed by garuda gamana vrishrabha vahana, the second movie by writer/director/star raj b. shetty.

his first film ondu motteya kathe was very well liked for good reason, a kind of dry romantic comedy about a balding man working through the indian marriage market, but it seemed formally kind of tentative. this one, a story of two adopted brothers who form a kind of organized crime ring in their small city and the reluctant police officer asked to take them down, is something else entirely; there is just a total confidence in not only performance and writing and social space but where to put the camera, where to put narrative emphasis (almost always unexpected), how to stress the passing of time, futility of the violence.

interesting in that the stakes are in some ways quite high (there is a large body count by the end) but these are all men fighting to be a large fish in a small pond, even when mythic structures are invoked this never shoots for the legendary quality of a gangs of wasseypur for instance.

kannada movies had been languishing for a long time but this new generation of directors (who often star, write, and produce and work on each other's movies) does seem worth paying attention to.

[nrh]

and title should be garuda gamana vrishabha vahana (damn lack of edit button).

[Rabie]

saw that train scene from shaamshera on my tl and it made me kinda curious, anyone saw the film?

[nrh]

i watched shamshera last night and i am sad to say it is a pretty dire movie. but then i thought the train scene (barely a scene - a 3 minute or so cgi animatic) was just embarrassing, so who knows...

[Rabie]

actually after watching the trailer and seeing its lb score i think you are right, it looks awful and the hero looks v unconvincing ( not everyone is prabhas bit still...)
that train thing gave me campy bad-cgi vibes which i dig a lot but the film seems very serious revenge film, and without good setpieces i won't bother
it seems that bollywood unlike the south industries has no good blockbuster filmmaker, i can't remember anyone pushing a recent big bollywood film at all

[nrh]

ranbir is an often great actor but he is pretty out of place in this sort of movie, prabhas made the transition from romantic hero to action hero pretty well in baahubali but then he had rajamouli and a huge cast of stars (anushka shetty, rana, tamannah) and character actors to back him up.

the closest to a big talented blockbuster filmmaker in hindi right now would probably be bhansali, paadmavat was a mess of bad cgi (a very difficult production including the sets being attacked by right wing protesters multiple times) but bajirao mastani has some amazing set pieces, for all of its other problems.

maneesh sharma is a great director and fan had wonderful action sequences so there is some hope for ek tha tiger 3, but it's salman who is known for meddling and so much financially will be riding on that movie that i worry the producers are going to fuck with it...shamshera definitely feel like a movie with significant restructuring in post.

[Rabie]

i checked it out of curiosity, it's not good but not bad either, you're right about the restructuring, there's a total disconnect between every sequence with very odd cuts and the emotional core was really empty which is a shame the stakes here were high and it could lead to a very emotional catharsis

also i will correct my earlier judgement, the lead was pretty good, he's esp great in the songs and the goofy parts, a good crier, the action scenes were underwhelming but he was better than okay, they fit him because no way i'd believe he can beat many guys ( the train scene broke this tho sadly ) but i hated the antagonist so much ( i don't know if this is a common style of acting in these films ) and it's politically different from rrr?

wow i could never imagine that prabhas wasn't a big action hero before baahubali

bhansali's last film played near me but didn't bother, watched devdas years ago and the underwhelming padmavaat but will probably check the two films before padmavaat as they sound much stronger

maneesh sharma is the bbb guy? oh wow, need to see fan and sad this his comeback film is a just for hire job
it's pretty telling about the current hindi film that you named these two, my first impression on them was very different

[nrh]

loved pa. ranjtih's natchathiram nagarigarathu, a kind of strange ensemble movie about a mixed (caste, class, race, region, language, ideology) group of theater kids making play based on how love gets read by society. so there is a love triangle but it never gets quite resolved, there are rehearsals and long dialogues about ideology that remind me a little of zabriskie point (a movie i love). it's a big pop movie! there are songs, fights, romantic montages...

and it is not a movie made to travel outside of tamizh cultural circles, which i think is a bold move in a time where the push is to go "pan india" or global.

i get the criticisms but i think pa. ranjith is making a movie here he knows is going to needle almost everyone, either formally or politically. just making a movie with theater kids at the center is enough to make a lot of people angry! wish the music was better though.

[nrh]

impressed with director/actor rishab shetty's kantara, a true masala film about feudalism and land rights wrapped in a rigorous attention the culture and texture of its coastal karnataka adivasi culture (the animist bhoota kola ritual/performance is the through line that ties the whole thing together).

it is a hard film to describe; there is a tricky balancing act between ribald village comedy (could probably lose about 20 minutes of this, but that may be me not speaking the language, the audience i saw it with was totally onboard), mythological resonance and economically/socially grounded conflict. great climax, makes an interesting rejoinder to rrr in a way.

[Rabie]

pathaan is embarrassing film can't believe it was that successful
just a rehash of all the worst trends of current blockbusters with awfully cut action scenes. it was painful to see srk being unfunny and what a clumsy vfx i was on board with how campy it was in shamshera but this was beyond awful

[nrh]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6NkluQDUbU

viduthalai part 1, vetrimaaran

starts with the brutal aftermath of a train bombing (shown in one amazingly choreographed one shot) and then just descends deeper into nightmare, as a naive young driver (played by the comedian soori in his first dramatic role) enters a world of capricious police brutality carried out in the name of suppressing a maoist/naxalite challenge to the sale of mining rights. a truly harsh movie, even by vetri's standards; even the one action sequence, a police raid carried out in twisting village streets and over rooftops, is undercut with desperation and futility. waiting for part 2 in september...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xeclPw5YBA

dasara, srikanth odela

an impressive debut that kind of tanks in the second half, where it becomes far more generic, down to the bloody revenge climax in front of a burning raavan.

but before that it is really good - a love triangle of sorts set in a tiny coal mining village where everyone drowns themselves in alcohol to escape the oppressive environment, and the local politics are entirely centered around control of the single bar. the caste/class politics are kind of rudimentary compared to what's been going on in tamil movies in the last decade, but are a huge step forward for telugu movies. santosh narayanan makes his debut as composer in a telugu production, and the director makes the most of it; the movie is awash with music and wonderfully choreographed song sequences.

feels weird to complain about a movie i had a great time with in the theater, but it's good enough i wish it were a bit better. so far it's been a huge hit, which is great for the director and nani (the star), who's been taking on risky projects and struggling at the box office a bit these last few years.

[nrh]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8YiqM0Y-78

[nrh]

it is turning into a very good few months for new indian releases. the new karan johar, rocky aur rani ki prem kahani, has turned into a minor phenomenon at least in the west, where almost everybody i know who has seen it has gone back multiple times. his last, ae dil hai mushkil was a great movie but a very strange one, an aging man (still not out of the closet) grappling with a younger generation of directors and with the sense that the person you love will never love you back.

this one is johar returning to the movies he made as a young man (and he started in his early 20s), a giant, overstuffed family romance set in comically glamorous houses. the high concept - wealthy punjabi gym bro rocky randhawa and bengali news reporter rani chaterjee decide to switch families for a month before marriage - doesn't even get started until halfway point, with the first hour just tracking allia's character baffled at how she is falling in love with ranveer singh (the best he's been in years) being full delhi rich boy goofball with baffling english and ridiculous costumes.

nelson's jailer is another big hit, although a very different one, with the young director following up the disappointing beast and superstar rajinikanth following up two disappointing movies that tried to play it safe and ended up disappointing everyone. this one finds a much better balance between nelson's black comic sensibility and the big star persona, here by really leaning into the malevolent potential latent in the rajini persona (the body count is really high). and vinayakan is one of the best villains in years.

[nrh]

jawan -

kind of an extraordinary pop spectacle. srk (there's more than one srk in this, but that would be spoiling it) leads a 6 woman vengeance squad targeting the systemic failure of the government to protect its citizens rather funnel its resources into corporate profit.

the old kind of masala - proudly goofy and very serious, proper songs and sentiment, romance (both deepika and nayanthara are great in this),a proper villain, and a kind of direct social address that hindi movies have been too scared to even try throughout the modi regime (some of this is kind of corny - there is a late film speech about the importance of thoughtful voting - but in the current context it is hard to complain).

and a huge victory for srk, who just over a year ago had his own son targeted by the government on fake drug charges - he even gets a "before you go after the son, deal with the father" line that is a wild applause moment.

[nrh]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nV_XVr2ZiCs

merry christmas, sriram raghavan -

disappointed that this is getting spotty distribution in the us, but it's very much the years long wait - a frederich dard adaptation(!) with makkal selvan vijay sethupathi and katrina kaif meeting cute on christmas eve and drifting through a fantasy night time bombay, until of course the twisty murder plot comes in. as accomplished and eccentric as we expect from raghavan (who else is going to explicitly reference lubtisch's merry widow in a big screen hindi movie in 2024?) but slower and more melancholy than expected. 2024 will probably be a fairly weak year for hindi movies, but this is at least a great start.

[rischka]

can't believe i forgot about jawan need to fix this ASAP

[rischka]

k that was WILD. my favorite part the tractor trailers hijacking down with revolutionary terrorism but also, voting: the power of the finger!

wonder if srk will go into politics ...

[therouxxx]

It feels like it's been a slow 2024 so far for Indian cinema. I've only gone to one film so far--Guntur Kaaram. It was a little disappointing, but it was good to get a feel for Trivikram's style. And a Mahesh movie in the theater has a high floor.

I thought about going to see the Malayalam film The Goat Life. But it only showed a few times and the theater was a 1.5hr drive away. Wonder if I'll regret that.

I didn't consider going to Fighter after last yr's debacle with Pathaan. But this is a better effort by Anand, though still hard to recommend. There is a ton of boring militaristic stuff to get through, but I really liked the songs. Full disclosure I had it on while doing chores and was only locked-in during the songs.

I haven't seen Amar Singh Chamkila yet, but I will eventually. It's sad there was no cinema release.

It seems like things should pick up this summer. Idk if it'll be good, but in June I'm probably going to see Raayan; I missed Captain Miller in theaters, so time to end the Dhanush drought. Hopefully Pa Ranjith's new movie Thangalaan will be out in June too. Indian 2 comes out in July--probably my most anticipated of the year, maybe excepting Shankar's other, Game Changer.

In August we'll get Pushpa 2. And then in September we'll get Sujeeth's OG, his follow-up to Saaho. I can't believe he was only 28 when that released!

I just read that Vetri Maaran's Vidhuthalai Part 2 and Ram's Yezhu Kadal Yezhu Malai screened earlier this year at Rotterdam FF, so hopefully that means they'll be out later this yr. This would be Ram's first since Peranbu.

[nrh]

it's been a weird year, partially because it has been the worst year for hindi/bollywood in recent memory, not just that movies are flopping but there are weeks going by when there's nothing at all in theaters. merry christmas was great (my movie of the year so far) but it was barely released in theaters, and amar singh chamikla was a netflix movie. pushpa 2 will probably be massive, and nag ashwin's weird sci-fi fantasy thing kalki should be interesting, but those are essentially telugu movies.

heard mixed things about goat life but malayalam movies have been having an amazing year - malaikkottai vaaliban, aavesham, premalu, manjumel boys, bramayugam, aattam, just a diverse slate of really interesting projects. even the movies that haven't really worked like varshangalkku shesham, guruvayoor ambalanadayil, and anweshippin kandethum have been worth watching and talking about. really just a textbook vision of what a healthy commercial industry can look like.

tamil has had a slow start (although i liked captain miller more than most) but it will be a great year if everything that is finished actually manages to release. mari selvraj, pa. ranjith, bala, ram, mysskin (two movies!), ps vinothraj, vetrimaaran, ameer sultan...dhanush's second movie as director could be great (i liked power paandi a lot), s.u. arun kumar's vikram movie could be surprising, and there's indian 2 and venkat prabhu's movie with vijay. we may not get the mani ratnam/kamal haasan thug life movie this year but there's still enough to look at without it.

[therouxxx]

No Thangalaan screenings in MSP. USA distribution of Indian cinema is such a mystery to me. Same thing happened to Ranjith's last movie, Natchathiram Nagargiradhu--though that seemed much less mainstream than this tbh

[nrh]

No Thangalaan screenings in MSP. USA distribution of Indian cinema is such a mystery to me. Same thing happened to Ranjith's last movie, Natchathiram Nagargiradhu--though that seemed much less mainstream than this tbh

natchathiram got screens in nyc.

i always assume there is some degree of distributor dropping the ball, but it is also a week with one major hit (stree 2) and a whole bunch of other movies (khel khel mein & vedaa in hindi, double ismart and mr. bachchan in telugu) taking up space. not happy that i'm going to miss it though - this was one of my most anticipated movies of the year.