Sukanya Verma

Survivors of Partition could never truly move on as the horrors it brought on continued to haunt their hearts for the rest of their days. So did the hope to see their home once in their lifetime. They never really believed they won’t be able to return ever again. I’ve heard of the displacement and a desire to revisit their home in stories of my grandparent-in-laws. They, like many others, on both sides of the border, died without getting their wish fulfilled. Scenes of burying their wealth in the backyard with hopes of reclaiming it on return, fleeing bloodthirsty foes on the other side with the help of friends from the same community or women wearing a vial of poison around their necks in the event of violent mob attacks, days and days of uncertainty spent in camps would become stories of staying alive. One that flocks of homeless and heartbroken refugees, like my relatives, would remember and remind generations to come.

There was a time when India’s coffers were nearly empty. Impacted by the Gulf War, the Soviet Bloc collapse and a climate of political instability incensed by shaky coalition governments on the home front, reserves were drained out and revenue depleted, leaving India on the brink of bankruptcy if it didn’t get its act together. And soon. Told by an aunt to his nephew like a fairy tale in flashback, Chinmay D Mandlekar’s Governor unfolds sans any real context, without ever explaining its purpose or underlining meaning. Despite its contemporary resonance, the film insists the country is a lot more flourishing now than it was back in the early 1990s. Set against the backdrop of India’s financial troubles in 1990-1991, Manoj Bajpayee in and as Governor shows how a single man’s acumen for finding bold solutions while everybody else moped about consequences rescued the nation from dire straits.

A brand’s biopic by virtue is hagiographical. Conventional wisdom says telling the story of what made a product so great without becoming its mouthpiece kind of defeats the purpose. Even the likes of Barbie or Air, showing a shrewd acumen for perception versus pop culture, cannot shrug off the weight of the legacy they’re inherently protecting. Made in India: A Titan Story chronicles the history of a homegrown brand at a time when the market was too conservative to dream big. It may not carry the nostalgia of HMT, its more iconic predecessor whose monopoly Titan founder Xerxes Desai ended with a mid-1980s collaboration between the Tata group and the Tamil Nadu Industrial Development Corporation that gave birth to the quartz timepiece in the era of mechanical. But there’s enough of the likeability synonymous with the brand. Titan’s accessibility, appealing appearance and after sales service, boosted by a catchy advertising campaign riding high on Mozart’s Fifth Symphony, proved to be another feather in Tata’s cap.

Anything may happen when womanhood has ceased to be a protected occupation, scoffs Virginia Woolf in her fiercely feminist 1929 essay A Room of One’s Own. Her sarcasm over patriarchy’s need to confine women in roles decided by men carves 32-year-old Bishnu’s (Gaumaya Gurung) rebellion in director Tribeny Rai’s superbly sublime Shape of Momo. A frame of Woolf’s essay, flanked by a picture of poets Rabindranath Tagore and Bishnu Kumari Waiba aka Parijat – the Nepali writer she shares her name with – adorning the walls of Bishnu’s childhood bedroom in her Sikkim home are telling of the liberal literature she fed on before escaping to Delhi in search of greener pastures.

There are countless instances of the influential getting away with murder while the man on the street bears the brunt of their crimes. It’s not uncommon for an eagle-eyed lawyer to use their legal smarts for the benefit of an affluent client while the disadvantaged gets thrown under the bus. In her courtroom drama System, Director Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari takes a roundabout route to wonder if everyone is equal in the eyes of the law. But it’s only when she stops asking and starts suggesting how two can play at the game, the plot grows some legs.

Policeman Pawan has a lot on his plate in Kartavya and it’s not cake. Although the movie begins with a scene of him cutting one. It’s his fortieth birthday and one he’s unlikely to forget for a long, long time. But for a few moments past midnight, outside Jhamli station, a fictional town in what sounds a lot like Haryana, the mood is cheerful and celebratory. Pawan (Saif Ali Khan) appears so entertained by his subordinate Ashok (Sanjay Mishra), you barely notice his laboured accent. Only they are cops at the end of the day and banter will end in bloodshed. Pretty much what happens when a senior journalist they are escorting is gunned down by unknown assailants.

When the Russo Brothers, Joe and Anthony, launched the espionage vehicle along with showrunner Davil Veil three years ago, the idea was to create something grand, global and glamorous. Given their success with the Avengers factory, one envisioned a slick Bond sort of brand taking on worldwide threats. It’s a shame then to see their ambitious vision marred by hackneyed writing and muddled goals. Neither the international Citadel nor its Indian (Citadel: Honey Bunny) and Italian (Citadel: Diana) counterparts to follow made the grade.

A lone rider makes his way into the eerily empty night speeding across a remote road of Rajasthan. Shrouded in darkness, our only impression of this drunk dude is the existential crisis in the voiceover’s monologue, ‘Manzilen mili unhi ko jo raaste mein hain goom.’ Babbles of a stoned fool or prophetic words of a sage mind? Dug Dug lets you decide after the dangerously dizzy ride meets its crashing end right before magician P P Sharma’s pulpy art poster eyes. Despite repeated attempts to confiscate the deceased’s bike by local cops, the blue and pink Luna keeps miraculously resurfacing at the exact same spot it was first found. As the moped earns divine status, word spreads far and wide and droves of believers flock the site-turned-shrine with offerings of beer, beedi and big bucks.