#Axone Vs #GulaboSitabo #NetflixIndia Netflix

2 Reviews in comparison 

Blog posted 14th June 2020

Sometimes... actually almost everytime, avoid going with the flow. Especially when it comes to the noise made on films starring big guns like the #BigB etc. #AmitabhBachchan #AnshumannKhurrana, you disappoint me no end!

 

This is probably one of the few times when I actually needed an urgent detox after watching such tripe in the name of good cinema. What pretentious nonsense!

 

For me GulaboSitabo is an overacted, underdone, poorly scripted and much-hyped, unbecoming tussle for a dilapidated haveli between two men, who look and act constipated for much of the showreel for some odd reason. Oh and yeah... Yawn. For the awfully timed attempt at humour.

What’s with the fake soda-water-bottle glasses and birthday party pop-up nose do??? I mean seriously, it’s 2020. #Shoojitsarkar beg you, dont, just don’t go there. You are so much better than this.

 

So. Now about... #Axone Axone - Akhuni Chutney

Moving on to some good Netflix and I am feeling so much more redeemed.

#Axone

You little pearl in this ocean drowning in #Bollywood depression. Thank you Arindam Chatterjee for pitching this one. Your suggest had my Sunday beaming with joy. What a find!

 

And yes. It is about time a film on Indian racism, biases and the allegedly “China” inclined Northeast Vs Mainstream india dialogue made its way onto my bedroom screen. I am so impressed with the dare of this - telling it like it is - In your face - for us Indians.

 

A simple story. Simply enacted. #SayaniGupta is a tad annoying with her faux northeast accent but she holds her own to a decent degree. The remaining crew #LinLaishram #tenzingdalha #LanuakumAo punch many fine uppercuts and mean jabs at the very narcissistic “North of everywhere” - Butter chickened - Bollywood and cricket obsessed- self anointed - holier than thou - terribly boringly and Mainstream - “Indian”. 

 

It’s a long one day in the life of, a small but conflicted bunch of North eatesterners - determined to cook a Mizo wedding delicacy for a bride to be. 

 

But this 120 mins is so, so much more than that- it’s a cheat window - of those who are trapped by economic means and social methods, stuck making a living in places like Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore... far away from the familiar smells of home and smoked pork and smiling faces and ... some guilty pleasures like #akhuni - this tight film, gets its lightness from some stellar performances. Darkly funny and almost painful at points of engagement - this little gem directed by #NicholasKharkongor is elegantly performed by a fine cast that includes #SayaniGupta, #VinayPathak and #DollyAhluwalia _ #Axone is a timely slice-of-life dramedy. 

 

For me. It’s a huge shot of nostalgia and part embarrassment, from my delhi days when I have watched or read or suffered this feeling of deep repression, helplessness, when some jerk on his bike or bigarsed car would shout obscenities at my friends in #JNU - all posh parts with such posh words of filth.

And yes this film at this point, neatly and vehemently underscores a rather urgent call - that #Migrantlivesmatter, now more than ever. 

 

Watch it. If nothing but for a need that such films ought be seen, made and circulated widely enough to become a parallel movement in Indian cinema - valuable enough to be shown across the hindi belt in PVRs and Inox’s, at matinees and weekend specials!!

More power to such filmmaking I say.

And yes. You will need it after you watch Gulabo Sitabo. I assure you.

#TheReport (2019 film) #AmazonPrime

Blogpost 20th May 2020
#BingeWatch #Docudrama #CIA

 

The Report (styled as “The Torture Report”) is a hard hitting - honest to a fault - 2019 American drama film written and directed by #ScottZBurns Produced by #StevenSoderbergh, starring #AdamDriver, #AnnetteBening, #TedLevine, Michael C. Hall, Tim Blake Nelson, Corey Stoll, Maura Tierney and Jon Hamm.

The plot follows the 6 year long 6 million page longer investigation by one staffer Daniel Jones and the Senate Intelligence Committee as they probe the CIA's use of detainee torture following the September 11 attacks in the post Bush era.

The unease of the Obama administration to bring it forth, in full 7000 pages worth of it - being held to ransom by the Republicans on the floor where other biggies like Obamacare were being hotly contested - makes you realise just how tough some democracies have to fight, in order to simply remain one... even the second largest one in the world.

It covers more than a decade's worth of real-life political intrigue, exploring and compacting Jones's 6,700-page report.

It later came to become the McCain- Feinstein amendment which Obama did sign in 2015 - overturning almost a decade of unchecked uncontested and uncontained “Enhanced Interrogation Techniques” conducted by an over zealous and hyper nationalist CIA.

The Report had its world premiere at the #SundanceFilmFestival on January 26, 2019 and was theatrically released in the United States on November 15, 2019 by Amazon Studios, before streaming on #AmazonPrime beginning November 29, 2019.

The film is staccato, blunt and unrelenting in its narrative- as it should be when delivering a statement this emphatic and so unapologetic - flying in the face of the usual braggadocio of US military and intelligence might. Slow clap to every single stakeholder for upholding what needed to be upheld. A tiny thing called truth. And yes, the truth did out, to a fashion.

PBS NewsHour's Jeffrey Brown asked Burns on his motivation for making the controversial 2014 report on CIA torture into a movie.

Both Burns' parents are psychologists and he found it "appalling" to learn from the Senate Intelligence Committee report, that "people had figured out a way to weaponize psychology", a profession that "exists to help people".

Burns said that he and the film's producer Steven Soderbergh, felt it reflected well on the United States that the government allowed the report to be published. Soderbergh said that he did not know "that there's another country, other than maybe Canada or the U.K.", that "would have even allowed this kind of investigation."

#PataalLok On #AmazonPrime

Blog posted : 16th May 2020
Lockdown takes for #BingeWatchersAnonymous

#nospoilers #mustwatch#Pataallok #AmazonPrime

I finished #netflix. I finished #hotstar. The edible list anyway. I was low with the thought of my depleting resources at hand. Almost out of beer and behaviour, I sat down for this midnight snack.

I haven’t slept since. I have gotten up now red eyes and red alert - at 730pm - to write the following review. Watch #Pataallok. I insist. That’s all. I am out of words in praise of Hathi Ram Chaudhary played by #JaideepAhlawat Jaideep Ahlawat & the wisdom that laces the presence of this stray #Shabitrithedog.

Swastika Mukherjee her character takes a giant leap of faith from her usual glamour portrayal. This actress is perhaps the softest gentlest and purest note in an otherwise loud cacophony of pain murder and trauma. She gives the Bengal connect an elegant yet raw twist in the show. Take a bow milady. Your Mrs Mehra was aces.

I implore you all to watch this series in one sitting. It renders completely, deep and profound, at such a thrilling pace! It reminds you of the country you want to deny.

As this faux intellectual ex media quasi liaise...I admit I shudder at the idea of this India. And yet. It is what it is. Not for the faint hearted. Nor the lockdown weary. It’s dirty, bloody and gruesome. But it simply doesn’t need words to convince anyone. Just watch it. It is how television in India should and must evolve.

With directors #AvinashArun, #PrositRoy this series reeks of intelligence - in crime, human nature and caste politics. Especially the casting and the editing. Crisp, clever and concise. Every single character is built and handled with care... nothing is rushed or overdone. #NeerajKabi, #AbhishekBanerjee, #GulPanag, Swastika Mukherjee #IshwakSingh, #MairembamRonaldoSingh, #NiharikaLyraDutt have taken to their roles like fish to water. Not a single false note. The soundtrack is neat.

The lyrics... listen to them. It’s not just an overlay of sound. Every thing in this show serves a purpose.

For once, I am happy even after wrapping up a very sharp season of #Homeland and #Fauda plus a big assed shitshow like #illegal ... i have found redemption in the grimy lanes of Chitrakoot.

#Asur : challenging Kalki in Kalyug.

Blogpost 5th April 2020, Calcutta
#VOOTselect Original.
How often has a series made you hum #JoanOsborne’s One of us, questioning the ordinariness of God?

To be honest, for me to imagine #ArshadWarsi as any kind of criminal investigator, esp. a CBI chief forensic expert was a far ask. But I played along because this series, I was assured, had meat. Lots of meat and blood and mind and matter.
Asur sparked to life, very early in the story. It defined the margins and kept them there for a fairly long time, before blurring it towards the end. It makes you want to stand by the usual good fellas... And then... you catch a glimpse of this boy.

#VisheshBansal has that face. He is the reason I stuck, to what for many in hindsight, might seem an oversimplification of a battle of good vs evil. But for me, in any such crime / thriller narrative, there is always that one person, who makes the rest of the cast, labour hard to keep up. This young man’s stone dead challenge to Vishnu’s Dashavatara - now I dig that train of thought!
His Asura and their mythical demonisation, is what underlines the script. He is the most chilling thing about Asur. And he sets the tone for what comes next.
The beauty of this demon child, lies not in the brutality of his crimes (these are gory tales - viewer discretion is advised) nor is it the efficiency with which the Crimes are affected. It is rather the faith behind these psycho verdicts.

The idea that evil needs a “critical mass” for ensuring God’s own and urgent intervention.
I mean, we all have at some point questioned his/ her existence. We have wondered if divine justice is a lullaby to put us into a deep amniotic state...yes?
And it is this challenge that is brought out in this script. Shubh’s silence that envelops the persona of evil along the ghats, or time spent arousing inmates inside prison and later in deep meditative warfare, on the out.

It builds a sense of restlessness in the viewer’s mind. You start believing in part, all that he commits to: This boy delivers his lines with a decent amount of conviction.
Nikhil Nair, played by a very chop-chop, brooding and sharp witted #BarunSobti gives a standout performance. His script correctly and thankfully steers clear of all the Kalki- Yuga - Vishnu purana - new age Hindu mythology redux - and for good reason, clings to the science in the Forensics. It is an eventual mud wrestle that pits the Washington returned Delhi boy’s precise mind against a brilliant but flawed notion of a Benaras boy.

A very tense, ill at ease CBI officer Dhananjay Rajput (#ArshadWarsi) is expected to intuit his way around murders that rely on distorted and reinterpreted Hindu mythology. Didn’t quite cut it for me. I am more an #AdilHussain does the investigation, sort of viewer.

Then there is the earnestness of Lolark Dubey (#SharibHashhmi) who is efficient as the lackey, your mild mannered, slightly dim witted but born ally, and does the part of holding the fort for the good guys rather well. His words make the series lighter, easier to manage once the darkness sets in.
Nushrat (#RidhiDogra), is a strange second chapter that greets you intermittently as the voice of reason, love and longing from a past that you never really walked past. She lingers.
#AnupriyaGoenka as Naina Nair is annoying. Blame it on the character she was given to pitch or just the way she has brought forth her role. She makes the wife a complication. An adjustment. A necessity. And that punctures the speed of the script for me.

#SayakBhattacharya the cinematographer speaks in a highly versatile visual grammar that is quite arresting. One must note his skill
at making a mythology inspired criminal series that has to sit well in an Ozark, mindhunters, Fargo - fed universe. He does that. With aplomb.

But for everyone’s sanity and mine, it was the mad genius of #OniSen that went on an overkill and succeeded.

Because it all works. It comes together.
Albeit in the end, it appears a tad too easy to guess, for old timers like me, who live to read Japanese and Korean crime novels. But for any viewer, it holds its own rather well.
It works because the idea of good and bad slowly, ever so slowly start shifting through their boring shades. And quite honestly, become much easier for a common man to acknowledge and identity with. We don’t all naturally kill to sin. Sin is everywhere .. and all partake in it, in socially approved parts.

For me ASUR asks a few very high pitched questions.
Who is a serial killer? Do we breed them in our midst or do they come born evil, in varied shapes and sizes, pre-destined to unleash hell on earth? Are we all Asurs in small reasonable measures? What is the critical mass for the demonic to raise enough cain for the Gods to smote him and bring peace back on this lonely planet?

Or will a virus suffice?
Watch it and let me know if you find any answers in there. Or we could hunt together for these existential ones.

#PANCHAYAT my TV pick this week

Blog Posted:
4th April 2020 Calcutta

You unpretentious little gem. #Panchayat #TVF’s web series for #AmazonPrime Video starring #JitendraKumar (Jeetu Bhaiyya as I call him fondly) as a reluctant public servant ... is a find. This one takes you back to your DD days in a time warp ... with familiar faces, old world dialogues, life and times that seem not too distant. From a past when India was very easy going, de-stressed, un-satellite TV’d and simple.

Thank you baby for recommending this one. It is such a brilliant, in your face, honest to god, series. #DipakKumarMishra you genius!

It’s delightful to see a narrative sticking so close to just how real this “real-India” can get for a regular CAT aspiring, urban, cynical, irritable, bored, weekend seeking, educated, demotivated “Isssnooogood”. Jeetu does a rather slow but steady journey from being an annoyed, completely lost and disillusioned soul to a heartwarmingly brave and rather efficient village level bureaucrat!
Panchayat has the unique distinction of going from hilarious to hardcore in minutes. The frames are done so disarmingly, keeping the village life, the disconnect between the urban and rural, from expressions to characters- so effective and untainted. The lines they spout are light, effortless, not trying too hard.

The warmth radiates in all directions and infects every human of Phulera. Pradhan Brij Bhushan’s lackey Prahlad (Faisal Malik) has a gentle giant air about him, while (Jeetu) Abhishek’s assistant Vikas (Chandan Roy) is unfailingly loyal and mild mannered despite flaring tempers all around despite being talked down by his boss at most cross-ends.
Every single shot is seamless, making the edits... so effing tight. It’s how TV ought’ be with new age tech. Clever and sharp.

The dialogues are witty, tugging at your heart strings, ever so gently. The humour... is loud and subtle. It’s hearty like wet mud after a bout of rain and light as the breeze that blows after the rain washes all the mud away.
The storyline doesn’t mess with your brain, but picks on the most elementary of life events and makes them so much larger than life and yet so innocent that you fall in line like a child... episode after episode...unaware of just when you stopped being all “city” and started enjoying the sights and sounds of this back of beyond village Phulera.

The crew that has put this series together, has really done its homework. They have made sure that the “days in the life of Sachiv Babu” of gram panchayat come alive for you, in so so many unusual and delightful ways.
How does one say this... it’s so utterly rural, that it’s almost urban in its nonchalance. It’s written to make you chuckle. And feel bad. And happy. And sorry. And tempted. And silly. And funny in all sorts of old time ways.

Add to that the joy of watching #RaghubirYadav as (Faux) Pradhan and his chimta wielding firm as a firewall wife #NeenaGupta share screen space once more. That in itself transmogrified me into my good old childhood state.
So earnest and definitively honest, this village saga, that I am forced to binge watch, despite more pressing, hungry and somewhat holier domestic duty calls. 🤓
Just Do yourselves a favour ... stop reading this blog and start watching the damn series! You can thank my post later.

#aDarkNudge

Blog Posted 20.03.20
Calcutta #Facebook #WHO #COVID19

Did you feel it? The slow, ever so gentle flexing of the planet’s muscles? The yawn. The lazy reminder of who’s *Boss*?

People. Your planet just Nudged you, with a microscopic suicide bomber and your best defence is a mask. The planet must be chuckling in utter glee at this moment.
Chances of you, in your recent preoccupation of hoarding sanitizers and tissues, having missed this “earth moving” experiment, are rather high.

Be rest assured, the planet is being polite in its reminder. It is a mild tempered hibernating bored sort of giant. (Watch the time lapse video of the planet from a weather satellite on #Youtube- it’s a living breathing ball of pure green and blue).
And it’s pissed off beyond measure. And we should be worried. This is just a dry-run if I may say so.

It’s going to get a lot worse before she accepts our apology: remember the #PinkFloyd track #takeitback? Someday.

Well, that day is almost here I think: correct me for exaggerating.
In a precursor - letting us know just how casual the next wave of *extinction level* episode might be ... the planet (she) has unleashed an exceptional condition. A social condition to be precise, that ensures, You Me and Us are 3 unique words - & standalone.
This is raw power. Packed with proteins & RNA. And it has wrought,
Socially Distanced Humans. 
And so we must remain for a considerable amount of time in the future - for humans to brood. To come to terms with the fact that we have abused the power that came with uniquely sitting on top of a food chain, we didn’t create in the first place.

Yes, a lot of you have theorised on #bioterror, some on induced global #pandemics, the apparent medical and health policy failure by governments, falling standards in hygiene emanating from Asia - but how many, I ask you today, have sat back and pondered the “Whatsnext” in this chapter?
Do you realise just how effectively the planet has re-evaluated our domain of ops? Nothing is as was.

This is the new normal. And nothing is normal about it. It’s bats and pigs and things we touch and eat and drink and breathe.
It’s almost a silent revenge for those bespoke but extinct species - a minute of global silence - for all that we have slayed and removed - with our profiteering industrial blade.

Scientists are debating whether Earth is now in the midst of a sixth mass extinction. If so, it may be the fastest one ever with a rate of 1,000 to 10,000 times the baseline extinction rate of one to five species per year. Humans are largely responsible for the striking trend. Scientists believe that pollution, land clearing, and overfishing might drive half of the planet’s existing land and marine species to extinction by 2100.
But who’s the Dodo now?!!

These #Gretathunberg #Nationalgeographic #PlanetEarth Greenpeace India David Attenborough voices have implored you, repeatedly, begged you, at will, over time. Sit up!
The world as we know it, is telling us a few things. For the last time perhaps, before this ball shakes loose and restores balance once and for all. It’s telling us “Things” we simply won’t listen to unless it kills us not to. It’s simple. Really.
Stop. Development. As you know it. 🛑! We don't need to grow at this pace. We simply can't afford to. Rather the planet cannot and will not allow it.

Stop. Mass production:
Isolate need. Industry must grind to a halt.
Take a long look at the weatherbeaten planet, before you plunge deep inside its chest and rip it’s heart out this time. Do it, before retracing your pathetic steps back into your GDP restoring assembly lines.

Reckless Consumption will kill more than this virus.
This larger Pandemic of greed, of I, me, you and Us. Too few have too much, and it's been this way for far too long ...

And the planet knows. It knows that the old and the children won’t survive this greed. The planet simply wants corrective action. This time onwards it is going to simply let Darwin do the math. Yes, your money might be your next roll of toilet paper - good luck.

It amazes me every day just to sit back and realise that it is taking a freak strain of common influenza - a blinging precise century after the Spanish flu - to let us know - that it’s time for a fresh act - a renaissance- an overhaul of thought.
What is the virus about? It’s a little microdot that makes sure you and I pause. We stop. Before we act: it’s giving us precious time, which no economy was willing to give it’s people and policy makers - to hit “reset”.

So Earth did what it does. It pressed the little red button. Not the big one. Not yet. This one is a test. A test of how many of us wake up and smell the flowers and how many must perish because too many didn’t count Nature as a worthy opponent.

For perish we will: and no, it’s not going to be enough just washing our hands off this matter, cometh the next 18 months - if we do not reconsider what we have become in the past 100 years.
- a Parasite the planet wants to weed out.

#Thappad. A Film Review

#Thappad. A Film Review
Blog Posted Thursday 5th March 2020



This film is a dare.

A test of your ability to come to terms with the breaking of every day norms. Norms unsaid but preset, to condition your relevance in a contract. A breaking that threatens to smudge the line that labels you within our crisp and critical society. And basing it all on one *teeny tiny almost forgettable, nearly forgiveable and yet incrementally huge* Incident.


It, the script by #MrunmayeeLagoo #AnubhavSinhaa and she #TaapseePannu, try you. They question your base instinct... to either squirm a little in your chair at each passing, flowing, seamlessly parallel narrative... or throw your hands up in despair and proclaim "hey that girl, she's just intent on watching it all burn. #WTF."


A lot of us will opt for the latter. It is after all an entire 2.5 hours of your life spent mentally arguing in favour of a woman, unmeasureably happy with her choice of life & life partner, now opting to fling it all out, baby and bathwater, over what looks like an involuntary movement of the right arm, in a moment of duress, in front of a room full of people.

However. If you were those that squirmed, thank you. I am happy for you, you have remained open to evolution.

This movie is not just about a slap. Or physical abuse in marriages or the mental trauma of being controlled, or of being a residue, an ant in the line production of the family industry...or sustained marital rape, among other forms of intimidation.


This is larger, more twisted, if you ask me. It is about the small stuff.

I think the Director #AnubhavSinhaa understood the nature of the tricky sands he was treading when he opted to make this film revolve around the social network of what is considered a *Privilege*. The genesis of it. And most importantly, how it is perpetuated by women at almost every level.

Let's forget the slap. It is almost irrelevant if you ask me. And he isn't in this for the finger pointing. Not once does the film hold a sustained rap on the knuckles for any of the males in the frame. Actor #PavailGulati who plays Vikram, isn't subject to your anger, but let's you breathe this one out. Shit happens.
And yet, of all the men I know, the impact of what occurs, was made plenty clear through the tautness of expressions, the unapologetic punchlines and a very tight script.

It poked all the right holes in all the right places, in the fabric of the *Perfect* institution. Nestled warmly in our #Facebook'd lives and #Instagram lies. Especially the final hesitant despair of #RatnaPathakShah Sandhyaki (Amrita's Mother) with her near-angelic husband #KumudMishra, when she brings to life his gentle crime, of letting it all pass.


It is in the lives that surround #TaapseePannu in the film...those fragile threads, that were woven with great attention to detail, I found some answers. Let's pick at those.

 

One falls in love with the eloquent wisdoms of #DiaMirza who plays the successful merc-driving-she-neighbour with such elegance and a perfectly curated wardrobe, and who admittedly married a near perfect man. She nails the single-mother tagline with such precision, it leaves you smiling. Happy in the knowledge that life can be good with and without.


#TanviAzmi aka the mother-in-law manages to portray so much with so little. Her pain is almost embellished, much like the dark pouches that hang like insults under her eyes and mask her pain, hiding behind a rising sugar level, a missing marriage and meaningless chores. Her response to the series of unfortunate events is classic, nothing out of the ordinary and understandably, depressing.


Let's bring the lawyers in for a bit. #RamKapoor representing the male argument and pitted against the sassy, up and coming #MayaSarao (Amrita’s divorce lawyer) are very adept at their roles. Ram keeps it stoic and real, manly, very legal, patronising and precise in his screentime.

Maya's blunt reality check for the "one slap argument" in court, runs uniquely parallel to Maya's own crises and the shadow it casts on her representing this case, for the finality she finds in the flimsy nature of the argument. This woman holds her own rather well.

 #GeetikaVidyaOhlyan (Amrita’s house help) is a revelation surely. Her mad lust for life, her compromise with it and her deep, gradual coming to terms with what made her man, just a man like any other... is a louder slap than the one you see rip across the main character's face. Her choices throughout the film, her words, her silences and her final comeback, created a lot of static in my head.

Of the younger ones in the script like #NailaGrewal (Amrita's future sister-in-law) who make room for expectations, engage you in quick, short bursts of how much room society is willing to make for her idea of a life-partner.

#MangeshDhakde doesn't overwhelm you with sound. His music is simple and it stays, much like the missing rights of a woman, in the background, like an underscore, a garnish that one uses to season a damn good salad.

This film, is complicated. It will be uncomfortable for many, to watch and to admit. Of being party to the lesser, subtler forms of chauvinism that we Women accept and sanctify with impunity.

Simply because one act, held in solation, lacked critical mass for any of us to call it out for what it was, some good ol' Patriarchy. It will take a while for us Indians, to come to terms with this dare, this growing need, that a woman, can and should, by her own good offices, determine and exact, legally, what is and is not, a "Privilege" she may choose to grant the men in her life.

And yes, just one slap, could be reason enough.