Shomini Sen

India’s independence from British rule came at a price. As the British left India, they ravaged and divided the country - emotionally, based on religion and geographically. The happiness of independence was far less on 15 August 1947, as so many families were destroyed; people were separated from their loved ones, their homes, and their motherland. The Partition led to the birth of Pakistan but also to a great Hindu-Muslim divide, an enmity that continues to this day between the two countries. Bollywood has made innumerable stories on India’s Independence and the partition. Most have narrated stories of brutality and riots that preceded partition. Filmmaker Rajkumar Santoshi’s latest release, Batwara 1947, flips the narrative a bit- telling the story of a Muslim family in Lahore in the aftermath of partition. Santoshi teams up with Sunny Deol, with whom he has delivered iconic films like Damini, Ghatak and more. Deol and Santoshi collaborate after decades, making Batwara 1947 special. The film also features Shabana Azmi, marks Preity Zinta’s comeback to Bollywood after a long time and has Aamir Khan as the producer. With such impressive names attached to the project, expectations are bound to be high for Batwara 1947. So, does it deliver? Let’s find out.

The Kargil War remains one of the most crucial and difficult wars that Indian forces fought and won. Since then, numerous films and shows have highlighted the valour of the Indian Army, who bravely reclaimed key peaks in the Kargil sector from the Pakistani army, but not much is known about the role that the Indian Air Force played in the war. Netflix’s new series, Operation Safed Sagar, retells an important chapter in history where the IAF fought in the toughest and highest altitudes in history and successfully bombed key hideouts of the Pakistani army in the Kargil and Drass sector, thereby enabling the Indian Army to capture the peaks for India.

Not so long back, post the release of Avengers: Endgame, the world declared it was suffering from superhero fatigue. As Marvel Studios churned out stand alone shows of all its characters- heroes, side heroes and villains alike- and introduced new superheroes on screen, the audience felt jaded watching the same stories. Clearly, Marvel Studios took note of the fatigue, reassessed its content and then reinvented a new template. Films like Thunderbolts and the series Loki have all attempted to explore the inner demons more than villains in physical form. Thus, MCU’s latest Spider-Man: Brand New Day fits right into the same framework where the friendly neighbourhood superhero is no longer a funny, slightly reckless but humorous high schooler, but a grown-up man, fighting loneliness and warding off evil from New York City in equal measures. Tom Holland returns as the web-slinging superhero along with his wife, actress Zendaya, who plays MJ and Jacob Batalon as his buddy Ned Leeds. But the trio, unlike the previous films, are not together anymore thanks to Doctor Strange setting things differently in No Way Home.

Vikrant Massey’s Musafir Cafe, a slow romance drama, comes at a time when there is anger on the streets of India and spy thrillers and murder mysteries are dominating screens- big and small. The eight-part series, produced by Massey, who also plays the lead in the show, takes a practical approach to modern-day relationships, where love alone is not enough to make a relationship work. It reiterates that timing is everything, and that two right people can drift apart if the timing is not right. Created and written by Sharanya Rajgopal and based on Divya Prakash Dubey’s novel of the same name, Musafir Cafe is refreshing, real and breaks the clutter of action thrillers that have been releasing of late.

Trust Christopher Nolan to deliver a strong message on the futility of war through an age-old story based on Greek mythology. Nolan, one of the greatest auteurs of our time, weaves the most beautiful and poignant story of homecoming and redemption in his latest, The Odyssey. Based on Homer’s age-old poem, the Odyssey, which is set after the Trojan War as King Odysseus and his men make their way back home, Nolan’s film looks beyond the mythology and delivers a story that astounds you from the word go. It is a story that may have its origin in Greek mythology, but its relevance to the present times is hard to miss. The release of the film feels timely as the world is engulfed in one war or the other. The Odyssey is not just about Odysseus’ long journey back home but of realisation, of coming of age, of being just and fair - qualities that make a true leader stand out from the herd. The story is also about men and their lofty egos and ambition, which lead to mayhem and blind them to reality.

Sunny Deol and Tilottama Shome playing opposing lawyers in a very commercial thriller is a promising premise for an engaging watch. In Siddharth P Malhotra’s Ikka, Deol plays a hot-shot successful lawyer Arjun Mehra defending a murder accussed Shauryaman Gaur, played by Akshaye Khanna, while Shome plays the prosecutor of the case. The two come from very different schools of cinema, and thus, seeing them share screen space in a film holds a lot of promise. But does Ikka, a Netflix film, deliver? Let’s find out.

First things first. Alia Bhatt is no Lara Croft and YRF is no Marvel. The studio’s latest release, Alpha, projects Alia Bhatt as a deadly assassin, treated like a lab rat since her birth, who goes rogue and turns against her mentor, played by Bobby Deol. On paper, the film may have felt like a brilliant idea. After all, YRF pitches two heroines as the lead, flexing muscles, killing bad guys without any male superstar. However, the film’s execution is shoddy and stereotypical, making Alpha a slow-paced, cleaner reverse of Dhurandhar. Confused? Let me explain. Alia Bhatt is estranged from her biological father, Colonel Luthra (Anil Kapoor) right at her birth. Kidnapped by Lt Colonel Fateh Singh Shekhawat (Bobby Deol), Sita grows up in a run-down oil refinery where she is weekly tested for Shekhawat’s secret mission called Project Alpha. Alpha was a life-changing serum developed to help soldiers heal quickly. The secret mission was carried out under Luthra’s leadership soon after the Kargil war to create a special task force. Sita, being the only human on whom the serum had worked, is trained by Shekhawat to be a deadly assassin, but at the cost of being completely isolated from her family, unaware of her father and a twin sister, Durga (Sharvari).

There is a certain uneasiness inside you after you finish watching the Voice of Hind Rajab. The voice of five-year-old Hind Rajab, or Hanood as she was called fondly, continues to echo in your ears hours after the film is over. Directed by Kaouther Ben Henia, the docu-feature blends reality and fiction to deliver a heartwrenching account of a 5-year-old Palestinian girl, Hind Rajab and her urgent pleas on calls to Red Crescent volunteers to rescue her after her family was ambushed by the Israeli forces in January 2024. The Voice Of Hind Rajab is a film that is a testament to the times we live in. And while the semi-fictional semi-real film makes you uncomfortable, angry, emotional and ultimately numb, it is an important watch.