“Idhu namma kaalam. Ezhundhu vaa!” (lit. “This is our time. Arise & Arrive”) Dialogue from Pa. Ranjith’s Sarpatta Parambarai, which revolves around boxing, a bloody, violent sport and identity of clan prestige. Mahatma Gandhi epitomised non-violence as a potent tool to express one’s strong dissension against injustice. His peaceful protests against the brutal force […]
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Joji — a comparative study of four Macbeth inspirations Literary works provide off-the-shelf fast food in the pecking order for film makers to ply their trade when writers’ block bite them. However, a majority of these “inspired” adaptations by filmmakers have always been a tricky and tacky proposition. Only a very few stay true to […]
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Film festivalas — a platform for gender parity Discriminated, underrepresented, misrepresented with that proverbial male gaze syndrome on screen, and subjugated and suppressed to the point of stoic silence off screen, women in the film industry have had to face a Sisyphean struggle to come into their own and wrest their due from an otherwise […]
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Ever since the Venice International Film Festival, the oldest in the world, blew the bugle in late 2020, announcing with much bravado that it would be held on time, cineastes all over the world have breathed a ray of hope. Roberto Cicutto, President of La Biennale di Venezia, said on the eve of the festival, […]
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The Great Indian Kitchen “Woman is shut up in a kitchen or in a boudoir, and astonishment is expressed that her horizon is limited. Her wings are clipped, and it is found deplorable that she cannot fly.” -Simone de Beauvoir A mere semblance of defiance suffices for a young bride in India to be slandered […]
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Entertainment industry eyes a Phoenix post pandemic The global entertainment juggernaut that was having a great gambol run was arrested in its stupendous stride with the Ides of March bringing in its wake the world’s deadliest virus, quickly christened Covid-19. As ‘Social Distancing’ became the new lingua franca, the entertainment industry, which had witnessed robust business […]
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It is nine months now since the curtains were called on a thriving Sandalwood industry that had to shut shop when Corona came calling. The pandemic has had the entire world under its virulent tentacles, spreading dread and death, virtually putting an end to public entertainment in its conventional and traditional sense; theatres and multiplexes […]
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Here once was a colossus cultural phenomenon nonpareil — SPB — a peerless performer par excellence whose magical, mellow voice saw legions of listeners drawn like bees to a honeycomb, as if a Pied Piper has cast a spell upon them to transport them to an Elysian world. Like many of his ilk in his time, […]
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A perspective peek at the nonet of films that have pitchforked Mysskin into the exalted realm of Kollywood’s cinematic sense Straddling the Kollywood movie marquee in the last dozen plus years like a lodestar among his peers, Tamil film director Mysskin, nee Shanmugha Raja, since his trailblazing debut in 2006 with Chithiram Pesuthadi, has […]
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Pandemic pummels cinema into existential vortex Don’t open the pod bay doors, Hal. We need social distancing. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) Nothing can be alarmingly apocryphal than the above lines from the nearly four decade old film. ‘Social Distancing’ has become the new lingua franca of human transaction in this pandemic times […]
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