Tusshar Sasi

“Nostalgia sells,” says Patsy Cline impersonator Claire (Kate Hudson) to an exasperated Mike (Hugh Jackman) in Song Sung Blue. He had just refused to don a Don Ho getup at a paying gig. If it weren’t a film and the actors weren’t well-known, this would be the last scenario where any sparks might fly. In a striking dramatization of a true story, the duo come together, romantically and professionally, to become a hit among Milwaukee’s music lovers, who take Neil Diamond’s songs like a sweet pill. Beyond the onstage fireworks, the unbelievable love and family story of Lightning and Thunder takes shape in Craig Brewer’s musical melodrama.

India and Pakistan are neighbours, and much like how things work in our colonies and housing complexes, we are always more curious about what happens next door. Our fascination with a distant relative doing well is not very different from the interest many Indians showed in Zohran Mamdani’s victory in New York. Dhurandhar taps into this instinct, which makes its obsession with Pakistani politics immediately relatable. Pakistan’s activities, specially the extremist ones, have historically brushed directly against India. Aditya Dhar uses these shared touchpoints of language, culture, art, and sport to craft a story that feels rooted in reality yet remains thoroughly cinematic and engaging.

In a world where human beings thrived like any other mammals, sans languages and every other paraphernalia, would they still qualify as apex predators? When danger appears, our first instinct is to think. A lone man, suddenly confronted by a tiger, would probably scramble up the nearest tall tree. His brain would tick over time for a way to escape. A rock, a branch, or anything that might distract the big cat would become part of his strategy.

As civilians, most of us are not familiar with war fields. We hear stories from folklore, listen to ballads of valour, and then there is cinema. When you think about such a space, what’s the most heartrending image that appears in your mind? To me, it’s a soldier’s wallet – the one he carries into battle. However dramatic that might sound, it usually has a picture of his loved ones – spouse, children, parents. In Razneesh ‘Razy’ Ghai’s 120 Bahadur, too, we get a fleeting moment like that. For once, I thought to myself, why is it important to show it? The answer is more of a question rather. As we live safely nestled in our homes, catching the war news bulletin with our loved ones, do we think about a soldier’s family or his or her life at all?

How do you hit the establishment in the gut without even brushing against its hair? Ask Jafar Panahi and he might have the answer. His filmmaking legacy and long-standing battle with the Iranian state show that he is one of the bravest filmmakers alive. His Palm d’Or–winning film It Was Just An Accident is a furious work, yet laced with sardonic commentary on a system that is corrupt, greedy, immoral and inhumane.

If done well, conversational films carry an undeniable charm. The context and dialogue must hold our attention, and the actors must know how to talk. It all sounds easy, although the absence of location changes can quickly make any film monotonous. In Prasanth Vijay’s Ithiri Neram, we meet podcast host Anish (Roshan Mathew), who reconnects with his former girlfriend Anjana (Zarin Shihab). Before we realise it, a brief encounter turns into an unforgettable night for the two.

In Indian society, we have grown up listening to theories that hail women for their strength. If biology makes men physically stronger, what’s the other kind of strength they are referring to? And when do we stop comparing them to Goddess Durga to let them be? In Rahul Ravindran’s Telugu-language film The Girlfriend, we meet a woman who stands as an antithesis to the prototypical heroine of popular Telugu blockbusters.

It’s often said that if men were the ones to menstruate or give birth, the rules of the world would have been entirely different. Much has been written about women’s strength and multitasking abilities. Hindi cinema itself coined the famous line, “Woh stree hai, woh kuch bhi kar sakti hai.” But can we step aside from these mock-consolations for a moment and ask why women need such reaffirmations in the first place? Director Suparn S. Varma’s Haq is a harrowing tale of a woman who reaches the highest court of the nation seeking what is rightfully hers as a wife, a mother, and a woman.