The circle of eternal flow Through scented breeze and reminiscing nights Through a thousand nascent dawns and seagulls’ ocean-defeating flights The spirit’s eternal race to new shells of myriad experience The endless dance of blending love, lust and and tears pay obeisance To the stillness in endless motion The supreme truth of life divine. The slice of blue spheres In[Read More...]
Why does Hate extend her reign? Why do divides raise ugly sides? When will mankind unite? Casteist fervour, abhorrence and race Manmade borders that breaches create, tolerance break, love annihilate, rancours breed Marginalised, classified — we still remain broken, fragmented with spite When can love colour all our kind? There is no North, no[Read More...]
The post Onekind appeared first on Countercurrents.
Some time ago, another edition of International Women’s Day was observed with the right amount of feistiness. Among other things, women-related films were screened and discussed in some places in this or that city. Two early documentaries by Mira Nair could perhaps have been profitably included in such programmes. Unfortunately, her documentary films have been little seen and less discussed.[Read More...]
Kente cloth adorns his body, Complete with a youthful grin. His soul is at its peak of joy, with Pride in his ebony skin. The sudden boom of an approaching gun Startles him in his wake. Whisked away by pale ghostly spirits He must obey, for his life is at stake. He is taken at gunpoint to a colossal ship[Read More...]
The post Ebony Skinned appeared first on Countercurrents.
The overwhelming triumph of the film is its portrayal of same-sex love. It is arguably India’s first serious film about bisexuality. Muhammad Razi’s Velutha Rathrikal (White Nights) is one of the most exciting debuts in recent times among independent film-makers in South India. From the looks of it, the film seems unpromising. Yet another adaptation of Fyodor Dostoevsky’s story ‘White Nights’ (there have[Read More...]
A hundred years ago, a silent film called Bilet Pherat (England-Returned) was made. That pioneering work placed its maker by the side of such greats of early Indian cinema as Dadasaheb Phalke and Hiralal Sen. The example and exploits of Dhirendranath Gangopadhyay, or DG, as he was popularly known, were been recalled on many occasions by Mrinal Sen or Dinen[Read More...]
As a protagonist of Telangana state, it was a kind of a dream movie for me. There are many reasons for it. One of the first reasons was the “local accent” of the movie. I was never comfortable with the Andhra accent that smacked of “internal colonialism” in the Telugu movies both in accent and content. It reflects the urge[Read More...]
Review of “A Poet, a City and a Footballer” “Men, music, light, landscape, color and motion brought into one integral whole by a single piercing emotion, by a single theme and idea – this is the aim of modern cinematography.” Sergei Mikhailovich Eisenstein (1898-1948)[1] Introduction A/ Musical foreword The movie begins with a song of Rabindranath Tagore, a song interpreted[Read More...]
With Chaitanya Tamhane’s second film, The Disciple, headed to the Venice International Film Festival in September, it may be worthwhile recalling, Court, his first film that bagged the National Award for Best Feature Film in 2015. As we live through the COVID moment witnessing the targetting of students, teachers, and poets, Court’s damning testimony of caste oppression and its tribute[Read More...]
Every time I returned to Mumbai, I looked forward to reading the pocket-cartoons of RK Laxman. Though everything changes around him, the common man, with his studied silence witnessing twists and turns, had looked the same for decades, in the pocket cartoon of THE TIMES OF INDIA front page. It gave me a sense of permanence. Every time I made[Read More...]
