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Kritikalodia
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My Sweet Housewife (2023)
Engaging and important movie
M Sweet Houswife is a bittersweet tale and an engaging movie on the surface. At the same time it is a nuanced take on the state of women in the great Indian middle class, particularly young women who become 'housewives', and their daily lives filled with the trials and tribulations of living up to other's expectations. In a patriarchal society the expectations that a house wife needs to meet are that of her husband and his family, which is what the titular protagonist of the film goes through, and more.
It meets audience's expectations with layered characters who are always more than what meets the eye. Everyone is dealt with intelligently and that goes for the audience too.
A world of suspicious husbands, pesky neighbors, gossip mongerering colleagues, and on the other, contemporary artists, actors and musicians in the city of Bhubaneswar in Odisha.
The city sneaks in cinematic montages that appear rhythmically in the movie while the resedntial colonies of the nouveau riche Odias appear in overture shots from a drone before swooping in to the daily life of the couple living in a 2 BHK duplex house, the husband is a Govt officer and she is a woman of many talents she has to let go of if she wants to be the 'sweet housewife'.
Actors Naina Das and Pritiraj Satpathy shoulder a two and half hour long movie with grace and gravitas, and when required with wit and candour. They are also co-producers of the movie which is commendable because they have taken a difficult decision for a finance head, that is to be true to the story and not commercial interests. Instead they have come forth with a movie that is more than a movie, it is a reflection of our own lives.
The role of the camera as a patriarchal apparatus that subjects women to various forms of the male gaze, a tool of surveillance that can be used as evidence for moral policing is uniquely addressed in the movie. The movie merits academic reading as it is a rare feminist movie from Odisha. It must be noted that one of the Directors of the movie is a woman and presumably the one responsible for the movie not slipping into mansplaining mode. The movie is highly watchable, worthy of many reruns.
Trial by Fire (2023)
Decently made but quickly turns mediocre
The inability of the modern filmmakers to speak with minimalism and the tendency to pack more than your money's worth have become hurdles for the artform of the moving images. A series like Trial by Fire goes to the edge to make a plunge into a braver aesthetic but then walks all the way back to where it started from. The series alternates between being a singularly emphatic portrayal of perseverance and a generic docudrama recreation. If the film did not have its myriad plots and characters and scenes that seem to be woven in only for dramatic effects then maybe it would have found enough space to take the audience closer to the struggles of the protagonist and her husband. Her silence speaks more than anything and its a failure that the series just makes you notice it as an accidental good performance of the actor and not an artistic expression to be well utilised in the series. The series also fails to explore the context and implications of mass media and public viewing in the aftermath of the tragic massacre at Upahaar cinema. To its credit it is certainly less voyeuristic and sensational than the usual webseries content one comes across like Delhi Crimes.
An Action Hero (2022)
A lost opportunity and a half baked script
The film tries hard to be a clever tongue in cheek take on stardom, public obsession and the sensationalist gaze of the media but ends up just ticking boxes. Ayushman does his best although looks awfully uncomfortable in the action scenes, trying hard to be what he isn't. The film is not true to its own story, the protagonist suddenly becomes a brave man ready to fight his fight from being a self possessed snob in a matter of a few scenes without making the audience privy to this transformation. The anatagonist's character is underwritten and is a stereotype that never stops being one. One is even more surprised that the film got good reviews and was even presented as a clever satire on our times, but that it is surely not. The scenes where India's cacophonic newsreaders are mimicked are mimicry at most and never a real critique. The film proposes to take us on a roller coaster ride through stardom, wealth, power, vanity, feudalism, paparazzi, mob frenzy and so on, but its actually a linear and predictable path that the film follows.
Pratikshya (2022)
Seems earnest but is hackneyed
The film has decent craft in the sense that nobody is wearing loud make up, dialogues arent outlandish, the camera isnt going crazy, the edit is steadfast, the performances are mostly not operatic except for a couple of key characters, but that is all the film has to offer. While it claims to give an inner look into an existential crisis it ends up being a justification of all the causes of the crisis. The critique of social practice and ills that it claims to offer is actually a cover up. What it does instead is offer is a one size fits all solution, a generalised story that suits all. It is not a bold piece of art at all, instead it placates the middle class, appeases the political structures, reinforces meritocracy and nitpicks upon a couple of characters created only for mirroring the same. All of it results in a terribly mediocre movie.
Josef - Born in Grace (2019)
Neither a time image nor an action image
The film is made in a manner reminiscent of telefilms and series made for the state owned national tv of India, i.e. Doordarshan. The film is a rather poor adaptation of the original story and utterly fails to be either an impactful film or a trascendental experience. It oscillates between the aesthetics of the time image and action image, unable to make up its mind. Actors lack continuity, not just costumes and props, but some actors behave like different characters in different scenes. The film has a rushed up start and end while it meanders all along. The landscape is used as eyecandy to make up for the lack of content, it ends neither evocative nor dramatic, just Himalayan eyecandy.
Madam Chief Minister (2021)
Badly made and even malicious
It is one of the films that will go down in history as an example of misappropriation and misrepresentation of marginalised identities. The movie cleverly draws parallels between a real life political leader from a marginalised community but uses fictitious plots depicting the leader as a scheming murderer. One doesn't understand why make a film at all about someone and then distort the story to no end. As if that were not enough for the film to be terrible it further suffers from hammy performances of the entire cast, a stupidly written convoluted script that seems to have the sole intention of weaving in a bit of reality with heavy doses of propaganda against the political leader it is based upon. The film received immense criticism from the marginalised communities of India, watching it explains why. One thing to be noted is that filmmakers now mould their scripts to appease Govts so that they can earn heavy subsidies and grants. This film is a glaring example of what such patronage does to cinema.
DAMaN (2022)
Half a film with a Swadesh hangover
Yet another film about a privileged saviour of the masses which by itself makes one cringe. The film has decent camera, sound, edit, etc. But lacks originality in its presentation. The film suffers majorly from a 'Swadesh' hangover as well. But the main lacuna of the film is the improper representation of indigenous people. Moreover half way through the film it turns out to be borderline propaganda. The film tells you its a true story but paints everything in broad strokes, but more than the generalisations the film is guilty of erasure, i.e. Erasure of the truth that it wants you to believe. At one point in the film there is a full screen powerpoint presentation blurring the lines between cinema and state sponsored propaganda. The film does promise objectivity at the start, but quickly abandons it and the language of NGOs takes over. Babusan's acting is alright but one wishes a better actor with a wider range was cast. Dipanwit's is a decent performance but also a borderline caricature of regional accents and dialects. The funniest scene was to see a so called Maoist leader decked with ornaments and jewellery almost like the outlandish villains of 80s Bollywood. The film is gaining popularity because of its tragic-comedy sort of treatment although it leans more heavily on comedy and occasional sermonising by the protagonist. The film actually has nothing to offer after the first half itself. All three acts of the story are finished by the first half. The second half, as pointed out earlier, is just glorification of the Govt and the protagonist. The film's title 'Daman' means 'oppression' and is usually used to describe repression of the poor by the the powerful. Strangely in this film there is a song urging people to unite and do 'Daman' because its meant to be an abbreviation of a Govt programme for the eradication of malaria, and without this context it seems a like a war cry for more oppression of people!
Black Adam (2022)
More Rock than Black Adam
The movie was announced so long ago that much of the excitement was lost by the time it came out, especially because of the disastrous experiments post Nolan's tryst with DC. Black Adam keeps it straight and simple without attempting too many subplots but that doesnt help because most of the characters are really inconsequential including the Justice Society. The actor's give their best but they are made to walk oft trodden plotlines. So, nothing really to watch out for except Brosnan's charm and Dwayne's smoldering Rock postures. Dwayne could have done better than his usual stares but beyond histronics he was never really a great actor. And what a joke of a villain they have made of such terrible VFX. Is the 'superhero cinema' dead?
Dhokha: Round D Corner (2022)
A few nice surprises but tacky craft
The actor-producer Kaushali Kumar delivers an impressive performance of a complicated character. Despite the tacky camera and edit and a couple of leads acting badly, its Kaushali's intense on-screen emotional labour that keeps one invested in the film. To speak much of the complexity of the character is to reveal too much of the plot but she manages to seamlessly blend the multi hued character into something composite and believable. Madhavan is experienced in the art of delivering powerful performances with minimalism and does so here too. It is the other performances that pull down the film. The policeman and the terrorist characters are badly written and performed, one speaks with a terrible accent that has the ability to kill whatever emotional graph the film is climbing or plunging into. The story itself is predictable in the sense that it lays out a complicated challenge for the characters but ends with easy resolutions. It starts out as a deep dive into the human psyche but gives up too easily.
K.G.F: Chapter 2 (2022)
Robin Hood with a Kalashnikov.
Welcome to the cinema of the man-child! Watching the film is like watching a cinema version of the games kids play with their action figures, the sounds they make to mimic explosions, figures flying in the air in slow motion, if you get what I mean! But what is actually interesting is the attempt to stitch various genres and styles together. Michael Bay meets Prakash Mehra? Yes! Nouvelle vague jump cuts meet classic Indian melodrama? Yes! Mad Max meets Scarface? Yes! The story is predictable and formulaic, it is really Robin Hood with a Kalashnikov. The dialogues are almost witty but not really so. It meanders in a confused manner through its own plot. Even then the film has its undeniable moments of glory. A spark of brilliance is there somewhere in this film, but hidden beneath layers and layers of VFX! Despite everything certain images, sounds and scenes get strongly etched in one's mind, one does end up rooting for the protagonist's journey. I watched it once and enjoyed it while it lasted. Not going to watch it again though.
Monica O My Darling (2022)
Predictably funny, Irritatingly stretched out average fare
Half way through the film one starts disliking what one liked about the film at the beginning. The background score leitmotifs are used so often that one is fatigued halfway through. The score is well composed but overused. Most of the cast are well known actors and here they have very little to do except for play cool cats. Rajkumar and Huma's performances is being appreciated by many but it is these two actors who take down the film a few notches lower than what it would have struck with other actors. Rajkumar plays the same guy in every second film so one is just used to him behaving that way. Huma is clearly an actor with limitations and is unable to add the amount of enigma needed for the character. At one point the twists and turns start to bore you, one is not even interested in the whodunit because clearly the filmmaker will just fill in the time with some predictable twists, averagely funny jokes, etc. Till its the end and the mystery is unravelled. One is surprised because the filmmaker's last movie was relatively better thought out and structured. The Indian film standard has always been very poor and the even the remotely average is held up as being exceptional. Just like for most Indians the biggest movie is Sholay, a film that plagiarises scenes, music, plot, etc from well known Sergio Leone classics. AT the very least this film needed five more sessions of writing the script. Yes, it's a premature script!
Kantara (2022)
Passionate, honest yet average
The film by itself isn't extraordinary, its rushed up, its formulaic and cliched as well. But one feels the passion and honest effort the filmmaker and team have put in. Sometimes that is enough for receiving appreciation. One feels for the story, the community depicted because it is a common story across the world of human greed and environmental devastation versus traditional sustainability of indigenous people. This film certainly could have made a more poignant and deeper impact if it would have stayed on course, if it would have allowed its scenes to breathe a bit more. This film didn't have to be paced like KGF but it is. And it is in this pacing of the film that it loses subtlety and depth. It is this attempt to be everything at once that derails the film's possibility of being better than what it is. The film really stands out for the spirited performances of the cast, they elevate it to a whole new level and thats what keeps us spellbound. Some great drama here. Could have done with a bit more cinema.
Adieu Godard (2021)
A Priyadarshan flick with Bhadralok gaze!
Not only poorly made but arrogantly as well. A film that mocks at common people cannot be a tribute to Godard in any manner. Its a mockery rather. The absolute opposite of this film would be a better tribute to Godard who was even a self-proclaimed 'Maoist' at one point of time in his life. While watching the film one was astounded how deeply prejudiced the filmmaker is, e.g. One character's inability to speak is used repeatedly to punctuate the comedy beats of the film. How can a film that makes a mockery of disabled people and poor people be a tribute to Godard? The film actually felt like watching one of those potboilers from Priyadarshan & his kind (Hera Pheri, etc.). But even a Priyadarshan grants much more agency to his characters. The film's basic premise seems to be that all humans inhabiting the film are inherently stupid except for the genius filmmaker. Slow clap.