Observations and Reflections
The last thing I expected from Zoya Akhtar’s The Archies was commentary on the current state of Indian politics. But cleverly hidden between the lines of what at a surface level seems like a whimsical romcom intended to launch a prestigious line of nepo babies is a story about the struggles of being a minority in a country that is driven by the capitalistic greed of certain businessmen.
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What’s with these boring war films in the past few weeks? Following in the footsteps of Ridley Scott’s Napoleon is Meghna Gulzar’s Sam Bahadur. Despite being a film about one of the most prolific military leaders in India’s recent history, the movie fails to feature even a single well-structured battle, let alone the war that defined the future of the entire Indian subcontinent.
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Midway through the tumultuous Battle of Waterloo, my patience for Napoleon’s portrayal grows wearisome. How is it possible to transform the narrative of one of history’s most brilliant minds into a dreary and lackluster cinematic experience? Ask Ridley Scott.
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One of the most celebrated documentary makers of all time, Bert Haanstra relies heavily on the use of music and montage to elevate his visual storytelling. Through a harmonious marriage of these cinematic techniques, “Zoo” transcends the boundaries of traditional documentary filmmaking, transforming a simple zoo into a stage for a captivating and multifaceted symphony of life.
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A spiritual successor to 2018’s Veere di Wedding, I expected Thank You for Coming to have the same issues – crass humour with an attempt at being audacious about women’s sexuality but being too scared to actually dip its toes in that water. Surprisingly, Thank You for Coming manages to be terrible in a completely different way.
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I wanted to like Barbie, I really did. But to no one’s surprise, a film funded by a corporation that has made most of its money through ‘sexualised capitalism’ can’t really be expected to critique the very structures that allow it to exist.
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Park Chan Wook’s Decision to Leave is a study in restraint. At a first glance, it is unlike most of the directors’ body of work, dwelling more on the peaceful ordinary than the violence and gore many have come to associate with Park’s cinema. But Decision to Leave emerges as his best directorial endeavour to date – flourishing because of the very thing that sets it apart – the mundane.
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Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse is one of the few movies that started the trend of Metamodernism in cinema. Vox even made a video talking about how the movie forced animation to evolve beyond mere hyperrealism – by using animation to create what the camera cannot capture, instead of simply replicating a lens’ vision. Yet even a recent rewatch of that genre-defining film could not prepare me for the sheer audacity of its sequel, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse.
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Following the success of Amazon Prime Video’s recent OTT releases, Dahaad is an inspiring story that doesn’t shy away from pointing out the flaws in our societal and governing structures. Show creators Reema Katgi and Zoya Akhtar explore difficult issues, such as caste prejudice, misogyny, and Islamophobia that still continue to thrive in our democratic and secular nation, even though most of the show’s intended audience would rather pretend that they no longer exist.
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Going into Everything Everywhere All at Once, I did not expect myself to walk out emotionally wrecked. Through their clever use of the multiverse, the two Daniels (Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert) have created a reality completely different from ours but with a beating heart at its centre.
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