Tatsam Mukherjee

Director Kayoze Irani, son of actor Boman Irani, might be a fan of the Hollywood action-thrillers set in the middle-east. It might be the reason why I was reminded of films like Zero Dark Thirty (2012), Body of Lies (2008) and TV series Homeland (2011-2020) while watching Irani’s feature debut, Sarzameen. These films/shows valourise and sympathise with American national security agencies like the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) and the US armed forces. They have been criticised for (sometimes unintentionally) legitimising the American invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan, and characterising the locals in simplistic hues as barbarians and/or victims. It’s clear that Irani hasn’t grappled with the curdling reputation of such films/shows that inspired his debut, because he showcases similarly problematic politics in his own venture. It fits like a glove, of course. Divided by international borders, united by our effort to prioritise sleek, sexy thrills over nuanced, empathetic narratives.

As a follow-up to the 2022 blockbuster, Top Gun: Maverick – it only seemed sensible for director Joseph Kosinski to inch towards a racing film. After all, the Tom Cruise-starrer had all the dazzle of a sports or a heist film, more than a war film. The enemy is not named or seen, and the film is shouldered on a breathless sequence of planes flying low through a ravine (to avoid the enemy’s radar) with a stopwatch counting down. It’s such a jaw-droppingly idiot proofed mission, it borders on a parody of a war film – if it wasn’t so technically proficient and slick to look at. It conveys something Kosinski echoes with F1: if you’re looking for meaningful critique of existing power structures – he’s probably not your guy. Kosinski only wants to show you a good time.

One tends to forget how formal and dull a majority of mainstream filmmaking has become until a true-blue swashbuckling director comes along and destroys our notions of what films should look like. It happened to me during the opening stretch of Danny Boyle’s 28 Years Later, which begins with a strange corner-angle shot (by Boyle’s regular, Anthony Dod Mantle) showing a bunch of children, cramped into one room, watching an episode of Teletubbies. The handy cam aesthetic paints dread into the visual – as does the commotion outside as we hear elders scream at each other. And suddenly the door breaks, and in classic Boyle fashion, we’re racing through narrow hallways, to open fields with the “infected” chasing a young boy called Jimmy. It’s a sublime opening sequence filled with paranoia, thrill and weighty subtext, as Jimmy’s father – a priest praying inside the local church – awaits these undead (zombies), calling it his judgement day.

In R.S. Prasanna’s Sitaare Zameen Par, pegged as a spiritual sequel to Taare Zameen Par (2008), Aamir Khan doesn’t want to leave anything to chance. So, in a slapstick scene, Khan’s character Gulshan Arora – a perpetually irate, foul-tempered, confrontational basketball coach – is barking instructions to his player. It’s the final few seconds of the game, and the scorecard shows the teams neck and neck, this one penalty shot might seal the game for Arora’s team. He screams – Be mindful! This is our only chance! You’re our Arjun, so keep your eyes on the prize! This whole game rests on you making the shot! After a point even the player, Satbir (Aroush Datta), gets tired and tells Khan’s character to shut up. As the gag ends with people giggling around him, Khan in his own exaggerated manner gulps down the humiliation – without the slightest hint that his latest film is similarly verbose and patronising towards its audience.

Nia (Dheera Johnson) is scared. In the first scene of Subhadra Mahajan’s Second Chance, we hear the protagonist’s voice over a black screen. She’s calling Kabir – her partner, presumably. She’s pregnant, and doesn’t know what to do. “Please call me back when you see this,” she drops him a text, one of the many that have gone unanswered. The screen comes to life, and she’s in the middle of thick snow. It takes a while for us to register that she’s in some remote corner in Himachal Pradesh. As details trickle down, we learn that Nia comes from a rich Delhi family, who own a holiday home in the hills. Overcome with fear about the pregnancy, Nia flees from the capital. With limited network coverage in the home (near a bedroom window), a silent boyfriend, and seemingly supportive-yet-distant parents, Nia finds her refuge among the caretaker family of the home: Raju (Rajesh Singh), his son Sunny (Kanav Thakur) and mother-in-law Bhemi (Thakri Devi).

“Dating is not (a) serious (business),” John (Chris Evans) tells Lucy (Dakota Johnson) at one point in Celine Song’s sophomore directorial venture, Materialists. He could try telling this to those in their 20s and 30s who spend an inordinate amount of time on dating apps, matrimonial sites, and social media – consuming other people’s proposals, cocktail parties, pre-wedding shoots, gender-reveals. While most (especially those in proximity to the therapy discourse these days) are able to articulate their likes and dislikes, identifying socio-economic backgrounds and political leanings, one also risks being almost hyper self-aware (and self-indulgent) while searching for a partner. In the history of mankind, this is arguably the most cynicism we might have seen around concepts like love, marriage, fulfilment through a partner. The wild, wild west is nothing compared to modern dating – something Lucy knows better than most. Few people are willing to compromise on preferences, making their mental checklists that much more knotty.

Karan Tejpal’s Stolen might look like a thriller on the surface. But if one pays attention, it reveals itself as a survival film. For the uninitiated, a survival film is a subgenre of films telling tales of a character surviving an adventure gone awry. In Stolen, the misadventure entails residing in India in the 2020s. A nation with obscene inequalities, a broken law-and-order system that couldn’t be less bothered about the people who need it the most, and a culture that is a sinister concoction of ancient traditionalism and new-age apathy – India in the 2020s is a whole new beast. It’s a place that has picked up the vocabulary of empathy, privilege and virtue-signalling from the West, but one where fans of a cricket team throng a stadium and remorselessly stomp over dozens of people – as a part of their ‘celebration’.

Even though it is widely known, I don’t think enough gets written about how much of a nightmare it is to watch a film in its ‘purest’ form in India. One can overlook the overzealous censors that infantilise the audience with humongous smoking warnings, even for films rated ‘A’, desecrating the work of any self-respecting filmmaker. Along with that, most ambitious films play in sparsely-populated theatres. The screening for Karan Kandhari’s Sister Midnight that I attended in Bengaluru had about a dozen audience members. I have a feeling I would’ve enjoyed the film more if I’d seen it in a packed theatre because it has many visual gags, and most of them are spot on. Also, muted cuss words can feel like sensory speed bumps even if one can decipher them by reading the lip movement. I wondered how the British-Indian director reacted to the alterations? But hey, at least the film released, unlike Sandhya Suri’s Santosh (2024).