In one of the very important scenes of Ek Ladki Ko Dekha Toh Aisa Laga, Sahil Mirza, a struggling playwright by profession says – Humara jo yeh natak hain na, aap dimag se nahi dil se dekhiye. In a way, Sahil is impersonating the writers of the film here, because just like him, even they are rather lackluster writers through and through, and write a half hearted drama sans soul jisme woh true love wali feel nahi aati. Yes it stays fairly superficial, simplistic and ornamental all along. Which is sort of sad because the story is written by trans-woman Gazal Dhaliwal and writer director Shelly Chopra Dhar, who should have treated it with far more maturity to actually realize the intent of breaking barriers and #SetLoveFree.

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Ivan Ayr‘s new Netflix film Soni is a must watch. It thrives on its minimalism, and says so much about the inherent patriarchy and gender terror prevelant at every nook and corner of the society we live in – doesn’t matter if it is the dark deserted bylanes of a big city, the secured classrooms of the most modern schools, the police headquarters itself, or the posh interiors of the homes of A list administrators of our country.

Continue reading “SONI : The Battles Around and Within” →

Let me start by saying that when the first trailers of Uri: The Surgical Strike came in, it did not appeal to me. On the surface, it seemed to be cut out of the same hyper-nationalist jingoistic fabric as a typical J.P. Dutta film that flourishes on dialogbaazi. As a result, I never really felt excited to watch the film for about a week, but finally decided to go for it today to celebrate its success which is already on its way to become the first super-hit film of 2019. Let me start by happily confessing that my initial perception was proven wrong, and sensationalist jingoism is the least of problems of this film. Sadly though, it still misses the target of becoming good impactful cinema, and has bigger problems to deal with. Hence, all we get in the end of it is a strictly average and quickly forgettable cinematic experience.

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