Nonika Singh

Life is real, life is magical. And when a movie brings these two elements of reality and fantasy together, which doesn’t happen too often in the Indian film industry, the result can be a thing of beauty, a joy to behold. As it is with director Raam Reddy, of National Award-winning film ‘Thithi’ fame, whose Hindi feature ‘Jugnuma: The Fable’ literally grows on you and glows like fireflies. The title itself tells you that the subject at hand is surreal. The very first scene, in which we see Manoj Bajpayee flying with a wing-like contraption, tells you that nothing is what it seems. There is a fable at play which comes rather innocuously in the narrative. Set in the 1980s in Himalayan mountains, shot close to the Indo-Nepal border, the pace is as idyllic as the setting. Bajpayee as Dev is the owner of vast orchards, which he has inherited down the family line from his ancestors, who served the British masters. Deepak Dobriyal, whom we are so used to seeing in comic parts, has an equally significant and sombre part. He is not only the manager of the estate but also the commentator letting us into the twists and turns, the inner crevices of the story. Not that this is a whodunit mystery that makes you sit on tenterhooks. If you have seen the trailer, you know fires will soon engulf this beautiful orchard.

The story of Charles Sobhraj is not new… we have seen his criminal life unfold on the big screen more than once. Back in 2015, Randeep Hooda’s ‘Main Aur Charles’ constructed the notorious criminal through the eyes of police officer Amod Kanth. More recently, Vikramaditya Motwane’s web series ‘Black Warrant’ on Tihar jail had Sobhraj as one of its key characters. And then there has been BBC’s drama series ‘The Serpent’. So, what can ‘Inspector Zende’, based on the escape and capture, rather recapture, of the dreaded serial killer offer? For starters, it introduces us to Inspector Madhukar Bapurao Zende (Manoj Bajpayee). The spin is kind of new and ‘Inspector Zende’ is couched as a comedy. A tall order, indeed! Making the tale of a dreaded criminal on the run funny is not everyone’s forte, even when you have a stellar actor like Bajpayee in the saddle. He makes you chuckle here and there, but as his character of Inspector Zende asks one of his colleagues, “Why don’t you laugh?”, the query could well apply to us too.

Beyond politics and violence, the Kashmir valley has a soul and a voice. ‘Songs of Paradise’, as the title suggests, come wrapped in a melody, nay many melodies — the folk songs that once echoed from its radio station. The film claims to be inspired by the songs of Raj Begum, the first woman to sing on Radio Kashmir. In the film, she becomes Noor Begum, though initially her name in the celluloid adaptation is Zeba Akhtar. The very first scene is dramatic and symbolic. We see Saba Azad as Zeba, singing with gusto, unmindful of the smoke around her. In another time frame, Soni Razdan wakes up frantically and we soon see her preparing for a concert. A young student of music, Rumi (Taaruk Raina), approaches her; he is preparing for his thesis on Kashmir’s music. And thus begins a peep into her journey. Saba and Soni play the younger and older versions of the lead. If this transformation appears smooth, so is the editing by Hemanti Sarkar. There are no jerks. The flashback begins in the Srinagar of 1954. Soni is excellent as always and Saba, who is the niece of the late theatre activist Safdar Hashmi, finally gets the part she deserves. She is diffident and endearing, especially the way she utters “maatlab”.

It is touted as a political thriller but unfolds like a potboiler. The very first scene and the dialogue, “I trust you will make the right choice”, is a precursor and portender that impossible choices will soon beset this happy family. The scene shifts to UK’s Parliament. Abigail Dalton (Suranne Jones) is the British Prime Minister facing a volley of barbs from the Opposition leader. As she prepares to meet her French counterpart, President Vivienne Toussaint (Julie Delpy), again an indomitable woman of substance, something sinister is brewing alongside. Abigail’s husband Alex Anderson (Ashley Thomas), a doctor, is abducted along with other medical professionals. The ransom demand is no less than her resignation.

What happens when two superstars come together? One, Hrithik Roshan as Kabir, a bona fide member of YRF spy universe, who headlined the prequel. The other, super sensation from the South, NTR Jr, makes a new entry but in no less powerful role. Well, the movie becomes a fan-service, a showcase of these two heavyweights. Thus War 2 is as much a battle of their swags as face-offs between their muscle power and show of strengths. For the world, rogue spy Kabir is still a mercenary but as audiences we soon learn he is a patriot who believes in the dictum; death before dishonor, service before self and of course India first. NTR Jr as Major Vikram too is a desbhakt. Or is he? If you have watched War, you know nothing is what appears in this spy-game. ‘Hero ko villain banana aur villain ko hero… tumhara shauk hai kya’… Well, it certainly seems to be the motto of the writer. The story credit belongs to Aditya Chopra.

What can be more exciting than the world of espionage, especially when the lead character is somewhat fashioned after our current National Security Adviser! We won’t name him since ‘Khuda Hafiz’ fame director Faruk Kabir’s ‘Salakaar’ doesn’t. The similarities, however, are uncanny. Of course, like all celluloid fiction, the series, too, takes cover under a long disclaimer and the ultimate caveat: inspired by true events. As is with all marriages of fact and fiction, as viewers, you are clueless about which part of the film is true and which isn’t. Pakistan, we all know, is a bona fide nuclear nation with a substantial nuclear arsenal. So, why should a web series revisit the days when it was trying to make a nuclear bomb? The period of attention here is 1978 and the focus is on the Kahuta nuclear plant. The man in charge of Pakistan is General Zia-ul-Haq, portrayed by Mukesh Rishi with demonic inflections of a demagogue, which is what perhaps Zia was.

Not all love stories are about roses and wine, even when these come from the house of gossamer romance, Dharma Productions. Many love tales come laden with thorns, especially when the lovers try to cross the class divide — even more pressingly, the caste divide. Thomas Jefferson’s famous words, “when law becomes injustice, resistance becomes your duty”, set the tone of the film. The very first scene establishes that despite two exceptionally good-looking actors, Triptii Dimri and Siddhant Chaturvedi, helming the film, standard notions of romance will take a backseat. ‘Dhadak 2’, the spiritual sequel to ‘Dhadak’, walks the same line of deeply-entrenched caste prejudices and is once again a remake, this time of Mari Selvaraj’s Tamil film. Since one consciously chose not to watch the 2018 ‘Pariyerum Perumal’, comparisons are out of bounds. So, while we can’t say this Shazia Iqbal directorial is as searing, it does cut you through and quick.

The series opens in 1952. Villagers are set to burn what they are led to believe is an abode of witches. What these women, led by the feisty Shriya Pilgaonkar (in a cameo), are doing is another point of interest. Undeniably, the very premise is intriguing, suspenseful and supernatural. Cut to the present day. Rhea Thomas (Vaani Kapoor) is a CIB (yes, the CBI derivative) detective assigned to crack the case and sent to Charandaspur, the epicentre of mystery and murder. ‘Gullak’ fame Vaibhav Raj Gupta as Vikram Singh is a cop suspended from duty. He is back in this quaint place, which happens to be his hometown and where his mother went missing decades ago. Both find themselves in the midst of a series of bizarre murders and get together to unravel the truth behind the shocking deaths. In the latest Netflix series ‘Mandala Murders’, superstition, magic, miracle and horror (science too) collide. The very first body, of a photographer uncovering a political scam, is discovered with the torso missing. Two more have their arms undone. At one level, the series unfolds like a police procedural, at another it’s political intrigue at its vilest best. But since at the heart of the series is some unnatural phenomenon, the mystery will not be easy to unfold, and conventional answers won’t apply. Who is killing and why, the mystery deepens.