"Peepli Live can be accused of the same crime that it accuses the media of – just scratching the surface of all issues it could in an hour and a half without really trying to push the envelope of discourse on any front, neither the role of media, nor agrarian crisis or indeed the crisis of Indian politics itself", says Tejal Kanitkar in a review of the movie in this post.
Once in a while a film is made which does not try to sell you a dream but rather shows you the inner contradictions of the society that we live in. (This review contains spoilers)
Films like other performative cultural forms can speak the language of its own times, in which they have been created and situated. As a visual reflection of society in which it is contextualized, it can speak both covertly and overtly about the past and present world, and albeit can articulate politics and reflect upon philosophy as well. James Cameron’s Avatar, a mainstream Hollywood blockbuster is not an exception in this regard. Maidul Islam writes in his review of the film.
Students' Struggle, the organ of the Students' Federation of India has been carrying a section roughly titled, "The book that inspired me". Economist Venkatesh Athreya recently wrote in the section, how Das Kapital inspired him.
The film Avatar breaks a trend (but for some exceptions) in Hollywood films - which has been about the self-aggrandisement of the "empire" as the saviour of the world from the ruthlessness of barbaric aliens (either extra-terrestrial or perceived ideological enemy of the United States).
It was quite a brave decision to watch another experimentation on Devdas that hit the screens last February in its Dev D avatar. The fear was entirely courtesy the shallow, pretentious, gaudy and doyen-of-kitsch rendition of Devdas as done by Sanjay Leela Bhansali. The nauseating melodrama of the actors combined with the crass show of “big budget” has left in it’s trail a lot many ardent Saratchandra readers bruised and fuming. However 10 odd minutes into Anurag Kashyap’s creation and the feeling is one of having ditched an abusive old lover for a better life.
In many ways Agantuk is an inciting film. Though there is a genuine doubt if at all the grungy middle class can really think today in the way Ray wanted them to think. The basic theme is an intellectual soul searching for a re-discovery of the lost human values. It bluntly focuses on the vices of the post-modern world. The reckless immorality of the elite class, their greed for material possessions is harshly criticized. A ‘civilized’ person was defined as the person who can wipe out an entire population with lethal weapon by just pressing a button but has awfully forgotten how to embrace an alien stranger!
Pragoti presents a review of Anand Teltumbde's book by Vijay Prashad. Written originally for Himal, it is being posted here with the author's permission.
"Hanna Schmitz in ‘The Reader’ is responsible for the death of hundreds of Jews, but why do we sympathise with her?" Shelly Walia reviews "The Reader"
"I would like to propose that the film, in its realist figuring of the city’s sordid streets and quarters actually touches on a very profound anxiety of the upwardly mobile urban middle class towards those spaces on the fringes of the city ( by- passed by global economic transformations and home to thousands who battle there for survival) that continually threaten to either spill over into the manicured residential and shopping spaces of the beneficiaries of market economy or to suck you into the black hole of its deathly abyss! In this sense Aamir is any ‘common man’ whose entrapment in this ‘other’ world proves to be so dreadfully fatal." Reviews Aarti Wani