The Impossible opens to the shot of a blank screen roaring like the sea..as if gathering all its might for a kill but then you realise it is just an airplane carrying a family away to a Christmas vacation. The family of five..unpacks mundane conversations in a picture perfect tropical beach resort just a few […]
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Category: Cinema/ TV
Imagine..
In a world where a random shooting spree can take away 20 young lives in a school, what do we need from not just our law makers, law enforcers, politicians but our musicians, artists, writers, film makers? Through the ages, the arts have been the humans spirit’s escape from intolerance and violence. For cinema, music, […]
Beyond Life And Death..
Pandit Ravi Shankar passed away today. Rajinikanth turned 62. Dilip Kumar turned 90 yesterday. Smita Patil passed away almost 26 years ago on December 13. Births, deaths. Years counted, measured, emptied out. filled up. This whole idea of time and that somehow it should be accounted for in terms of achievements, milestones, awards, body of […]
The Life Of Lee
Ang Lee is a quiet and baffling auteur. Someone without a whole lot to say about his craft but like an operatic conductor, he orchestrates visual symphonies that no genre can contain. He can touch any genre and make it his own and always with a quiet felicity that juggles the magnificent, clutter breaking […]
Lessons From Life of Pi
Religion is a just a life jacket But in a storm you need more ** Not all storms come to destroy Not all islands offer refuge ** God is not a ritual Evil is not outside The terrors we see around us often begin within ** Even when we are adrift we are getting somewhere […]
Talaash: Layered Moments
Like Zoya Akhtar’s Luck By Chance, the evocative opening sequence of Reema Kagti Talaash tells (co-written by Zoya Akhtar) a story in a tightly spun, unforgettable montage. Here the story is of the dispossessed and the marginalised. Invisible to a rushing, glittering- on- the- surface megapolis. The old woman with nowhere to go. The drug addict and the dog. […]
The Definitive Heroine?
Every film loving generation in India has had a definitive Hindi film heroine. Suraiya was possibly India’s first female superstar and was a perfect fit for the cinema of 40s and the 50s that was rich with Urdu poetry and elemental stories of passion and sacrifice. She was the reigning queen of the developing Talkie […]
The Story So Far
Serendipity often irrevocably alters preordained lives. Mona Ambegaonkar, of the fiercely intelligent eyes and a face like a living memory, for instance was going to study science and could not have imagined that one day she would become chief assistant director of Shekhar Kapoor’s Mr India. Or a model, writer, producer and director of documentaries, an actor working with renowned […]
Press Release: Passion And Empathy
To Act Is To Do is a theatre and performance workshop that renowned actor (across the platforms of cinema, TV , theatre and beyond) Mona Ambegaonkar brings to Bangalore on November 23 and 24 at Atta Galatta. She says, “I use theatre training techniques mainly to help actors realize when and how and why they hit their individual […]
Jab Tak Hai Jaan: Fearless Sentimentality
There was a bit of Yash Chopra in every one of his heroes. Like some of them he believed in an ever-after. In the integrity of emotion. Whether that emotion was hate etched like a tattoo on a wrist or anger over the betrayal of a father. Or lost love that a poet mourned […]
Of Bond, Starry Birthdays And The 1984 Riots
So here is the overwhelming thing. It is the anniversary of 1984 riots. It was Aishwarya Rai’s birthday yesterday and it is Shahrukh Khan’s birthday today and on top of that.. Bond..James Bond is wowing audience worldwide. So the media is in a tizzy trying to keep up. Why am I clubbing the 1984 […]
The Conspiracy Of Silence..
It has been over one year since Keenan Santos and Reuben Fernandez were killed in Mumbai by eve-teasers for trying to protect their girl-friends. Their loved ones are still waiting for justice though finally charges have been framed. However, never before in the history of independent India have the young faced so many challenges as they […]