Movie Murmur

The Bankrupts (Haal-e-Kangaal) V N Lakshminarayana, Critic, Mysore It was a fruitful experience to watch 'The Bankrupts' at Mysuru and again In Bengaluru. 'The Bankrupts' is a high profile movie packed with the dialectics of form and content, image and sound, verbal and the nonverbal expression, truth and falsehood, bluff and imagination, gender and human relationships, capital and cinematic art- and finally the ideology in the era of postmodernism that is embedded in the very fabric of social life of the people at large. An undercurrent of sadness born out of systemic deprivation of existential opportunities to realize one's talents adds to the absurdity of the entangled life situation the two artiste friends are placed in, gives the movie a tint of comedy too. The minimalistic approach adopted in creating the entire movie is not only novel but also path breaking in the production of Indian films. Rajiv Kumar, Film maker, Delhi 'Th

A few days back, late at about ten in the night, I receive a missed call from a valued colleague. I call back after a while. Me: "You had called...?"  Colleague: "Yes.. this is not relating to work, but something else... Can we talk now?" Me: "Sure..." Colleague: "Ram, would you be interested in being a part of the Jury to the Panorama...?" Me: (Not sure) "Meaning...?" Colleague: "You know, there is a Jury that decides the films that are shown in the Panorama section... in the film festival in Goa..." Me: "Oh, the pre-selection of the films for the Panorama Section...?" Colleague: "Yes, the pre-selection committee... would you be interested?" I am not sure on what capacity he is offering me this post. I assume that the powers that be might have asked him to make his own pre-selection. Me: "Hmmm... well... when does this happen...?" Colleague: "It happens in Nov

On the 14th of July, 2015, the first thing in the morning, I found myself staring at a Times of India report that stated that The Government of India spends Rs. 12,00,000 per student per year at the Film and TV Institute of India or The FTII. I assume that the figure relates to the year 2011, as the report also mentions that the recovery from the students, as academic fees, is about 11% for the year 2011. There were 350 students... so 350 into 12,00,000 is equal to... wait let me check with the calculator.. is equal to.. 42 and seven zeros... is it eight... no, seven...   42 and seven zeros which is Rs 42,00,00,000. In words, forty two crores for the Film Institute, I presume, for the year 2011. It is more than what the Government spends on students of Engineering, Management and Medicine, screamed the news item. Is it? One part of me felt elated as it boosts ones ego to know that at some point of time in your life, your worth was more than that of other wannabe profes

Sometime in January, 2013, Jayashree Rajagopalan got in touch with me regarding an article that she was writing on Children's films in India. She had picked up four films for a detailed analysis - Santosh Sivan’s Tahaan (2008), Jayashree Kanal and A. S. Kanal’s Chota Sipahi [Little Soldier] (2005, in Hindi, Vinod Ganatra's Harun-Arun (2009) and my Putaani Party (2009).    Here is the link to the entire article by Jayashree Rajagopalan... Heal the World, Make It a Better Place: Social and Individual Hope in Indian Children’s Cinema  I am pasting the relevant portion of what she has written about Putaani Party .....   By involving children in politics, Ramchandra P. N.’s Putaani Party presents a completely different kind of idealism that deals with substance abuse at the rural household level and covers the larger argument of a child’s ability to reason with adults. Ramchandra P. N. reveals that his child protagonists “have discussions and dialogues through which