When Adoor Gopalakrishnan, one of the internationally acclaimed Indian filmmakers, launched his first feature film Swayamvaram five decades ago, it was after many years of sustained effort. After passing out of FTII, Pune in 1965, he found it difficult to get a producer who would back him. Hence, he took the initiative of forming a […]
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We have had countless guests in Godiwala Bungalow but the memory of one stands out above the rest. Ritwik Ghatak Sometime in the early ’70s a Bengali gentleman landed up unannounced at home. He looked like he had seen better days. His entire demeanour was one of defeat, someone at the end of his tether. […]
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Every Bombayite of our generation had heard of Protima Gupta. She was the ultimate enfant terrible. People spoke in hushed whispers about her streaking through Samovar restaurant. For those who came in late streaking was big in the ’70s in the west. It meant running through a public place stark naked usually as a protest […]
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What’s common between Parinda and Ardh Satya? Or Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro and Hyderabad Blues, Pardes and 1942: A Love Story? Her name was Renu Saluja. Renu was the creative force behind at least a quarter of all “parallel” movies made in the 80s and 90s. As a point of fact, her roster as a […]
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Mahishasur Marddini “So many years past being raped, I tell myself what happened is ‘in the past.’ This is only partly true. In too many ways, the past is still with me. The past is written on my body. I carry it every single day. The past sometimes feels like it might kill me. It […]
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Despite mimesis as a narrative necessity and primary constructive principle of cinema being virtually absent in the lexicon of Indian filmmakers, their films work for the intended audiences, finds MK Raghavendra in his latest visitation of Indian films in the seminal book, ‘Philosophical Issues in Indian Cinema: Appropriate Terms & Concepts’. The cinema of […]
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Fire asks society a few uncomfortable questions. Is the desire to love someone beyond the periphery of the heteronormative relationship a sin? Can a woman not love another woman, or a man love another man? Even in this modern age, why do certain societies step backwards and attempt to regulate the bodily desires of individuals? […]
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Every era imprints its cultural vogue on its arts. Just over a decade following the onslaught of the information-technology wave thus the template of popular Malayalam cinema predictably underwent a radical change. Since someone has already coined a now-widely-accepted term for this revolutionary template, ‘new-gen Malayalam cinema’, I shall use the same term—even though it […]
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AFTER SPENDING OVER FORTY-FIVE years in media and entertainment, actively working in all sectors at the top, I decided it was time to quit working for profit. However, having spent a lifetime pursuing not only a passion but being involved with various arts and crafts of different media, I wanted to do some academic work […]
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Adoor Gopalakrishnan’s Anantaram (1987), his fifth film and its three preceding films have a common approach of a biography of an individual. They get deeper and deeper as we move from his second film onwards. While Kodiyettam (1978) follows the carefree Shankaran Kutty attaining maturity, in Elippathayam (1982), Unni is like a rat in a […]
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