Ishita Sengupta

Neeraj Pandey’s latest Netflix series, Taskaree: The Smuggler’s Web, rests on ingenuity. It foregrounds a world that is mostly wrapped in intrigue and focuses on a group of people who aren’t necessarily under the spotlight. In a streaming landscape crowded with an assembly line of thrillers, even an inventive premise counts a great deal, and Pandey offers it in plenty. His latest show is concerned with the machinery of customs and widespread smuggling syndicates that continue to bypass them — a swing that pays off till it does not.

One side wins a battle, but both sides lose in a war. Hindi films of late, committed to depicting historical warfare, have been relaying stories of battles. Neatly structured narratives keep pitting men — and nations — against each other as hyperstylised filmmaking and hypermasculine action nourish an appetite to roar for one and ridicule the other. Bravery in these tales is distinct and calibrated, above moral probing and beyond mortal restraint. In his war drama, Ikkis, filmmaker Sriram Raghavan looks in the eyes of onlookers, trained to bay for blood, and offers them water.

Aditya Dhar, who gentrified propaganda with Uri: The Surgical Strike (2019), has made an accomplished Pakistan-set Hindi film with Dhurandhar. As a producer and director, his career leans on perpetuating bigotry in the garb of persuasive filmmaking. And while this continues with his sophomore feature, he also displays more curiosity about the neighbouring country than most outings, peddling similar politics, did of late. This perverse obsession is so extreme that if Dhurandhar was a teenage boy, one would assume he has a crush on Pakistan.

As someone in her 30s, I have a lot of worries: ageing parents, climate change, whimsical world leaders and the growing cost of living. But late at night, when struggling to sleep, one thought plagues me the most: how is Milap Zaveri still making films? This isn’t a personal affront, at least no more than what his films unleash on us. But really, lesser filmmakers have dwindled into oblivion and here’s Zaveri with two films in one year, and while one seemed like the worst, the other has somehow surpassed it.

There is something called an Aditya Dhar film. The emphasis might feel odd, given that he has directed only one feature till now, and the second is waiting in the wings. But the projects he has been involved in the capacity of a writer and producer, most notably Article 370 (2024), bear the distinct stamp of his filmmaking. Tenets of this include compelling set pieces, imposing artistry, and bigoted politics. In Baramulla, the latest film he has bankrolled, all these are heightened to greater, more dangerous heights.

HAQ becomes a better film once it ends. The Suparn Verma directorial feature is based on the landmark 1985 Shah Bano case, where a Muslim woman won her right to alimony. Although personal, her fight assumed big proportions because it revealed the knotty relationship between Muslim Personal Law, where a husband is entitled to provide maintenance during the iddat period after divorce, and the Indian secular law. In this particular case, the Supreme Court ruled in favour of Bano; later, the then-Congress government offset the judgment by sanctioning women to receive “reasonable and fair provision and maintenance" for three months after the divorce; Haq concludes by mentioning this, applauding, in the same breath, the current government for criminalising triple talaq and passing the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Act, 2019.

Films centring on women are often tethered to an issue and conclude with a resolution. This is as much a roadmap as an outline; an overused detour and a rewarding shorthand. Nachiket Samant’s Single Salma ascribes to this with commitment. The protagonist, as the name suggests, is a single woman and her singlehood, as the first ten minutes hint, is the issue. She is 33, the eldest among the four siblings, and is drowning in responsibilities. As most stories like this go, by the end, Salma ought to have her life in control, deliver a spiel about being overlooked for being a girl, find love and find herself in the process. She does, and yet all of this feels novel.

Milap Zaveri’s Ek Deewane Ki Deewaniyat is the worst film of the year. I say this knowing that there are a few months left, that art is subjective, and the response it evokes is objective. I also say this because there is more strategy than heart involved in the making, and despite every tear and slo-mo being curated for cheers, Zaveri’s new work is gratuitous, concerning, and I will go out on a limb and say, is really terrible.