Uday Bhatia

Over the past month, a rumour that Rashmika Mandanna and Kriti Sanon were playing a couple in Cocktail 2 caught fire*.* It grew to the point that the stars were actually asked about this. It says everything about us and our cinema that the height of imagined transgressiveness in a film might be something as basic as a lesbian couple. It’s even more revealing that, instead of letting the question hang and using the free publicity, the makers immediately shot it down (“We are three straight people,” Mandanna told reporters). Sanon is playing an Ally, but don’t take it literally.

When his compatriots were making paranoid thrillers in the 1970s, Spielberg was busy perfecting a different kind of film, one so successful it hastened the end of the New American Cinema. Years later, he made an excellent film about whistleblowers and journalists, set in 1971, called The Post (2017). His new film—set in the present day—is also a kind of paranoid thriller, yet it lacks the dread and the shadowy possibilities of the best ones. This is a genre that’s most effective when allusive, and Disclosure Day is both vague and too literal. When his compatriots were making paranoid thrillers in the 1970s, Spielberg was busy perfecting a different kind of film, one so successful it hastened the end of the New American Cinema. Years later, he made an excellent film about whistleblowers and journalists, set in 1971, called The Post (2017). His new film—set in the present day—is also a kind of paranoid thriller, yet it lacks the dread and the shadowy possibilities of the best ones. This is a genre that’s most effective when allusive, and Disclosure Day is both vague and too literal.

Six months later, we’re back in Sargodha. Main Vaapas Aaunga journeys to the same Pakistani city Dharmendra visits in Ikkis. Both journeys represent the last wish of a man at the end of his life; both are weighed down by history but lifted by the idea of shared humanity. It’s quite a coincidence that Sriram Raghavan and Imtiaz Ali zeroed in on the same place for a similar purpose—but then Ali’s cinema has always been powered by blind chance. Even as this film rises to a crescendo, Nirvair (Diljit Dosanjh) pauses to tell a doubter, “So what if it’s a coincidence? Coincidences happen in life.”

The title of Tribeny Rai’s debut is a mild criticism. Bishnu (Gaumaya Gurung) can make momos, they even taste fine—but they look weird. It’s a running joke in the family. “No one would believe you’re from Sikkim,” her sister, Junu (Shyama Shree Sherpa), teases her. This doesn’t seem to bother Bishnu as much as what perfectly shaped momos symbolise for her—another annoying standard that women are supposed to live up to. As though in solidarity, the film around Bishnu is misshapen too. I don’t mean this in a negative sense. Most films aim for defined shapes of exposition, character motivation, narrative structure because it’s expected and safe. Shape of Momo has a looser, more introspective progression, which seems more representative of life in this quiet Sikkim village and the limbo Bishnu finds herself in.

I was trying to keep an open mind about Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari’s System when Neha (Sonakshi Sinha) says, “Uski vibe hamesha off thhi par woh murderer type kabhi nahi laga.” And that was that. I don’t expect every lawyer to speak in iambic pentameter or quote Thomas Cromwell. I do, however, feel it’s not unreasonable to have a protagonist in a legal drama—one who’s trying hard to prove she’s not a lightweight—speak like a professional and not some millennial at brunch. Neha is a public prosecutor, though she’d rather not be. She doesn’t like the sweaty courts, the desperate cases, the grind, her boss. She’s also not particularly competent. The first time we see her in court, the judge explains that she needs to prove the accused actually committed the crime, not that he might have—and she looks shocked. So when her famous lawyer father, Ravi Rajvansh (Ashutosh Gowariker), makes her a deal—win 10 cases in a row and join my practice—it feels like a little exercise in humility, or humiliation.

Aarav (Lakshya) and his wife, Chandni (Ananya Panday), are cracking under the strain of caring for a newborn. Their frustrations boil over into an ugly yelling match. Aarav grabs her face. He’s motionless for a few seconds, then backs away, mortified. She runs into the other room and balls up in a corner, shaking in shock as he begs her to open the door. The moment when Aarav grabs Chandni is in the film’s trailer. I think it’s there because Dharma doesn’t mind giving the impression that this will be an ‘intense’ love story in the key of Sandeep Vanga or the Anand L Rai/Dhanush collaborations. Yet, Chand Mera Dil is nothing like those films, treating the brief physical contact with utter seriousness. Aarav is immediately contrite, but it doesn’t matter. The entire story turns on this moment. PSA films like Thappad are lauded for presenting characters who won’t stand for any kind of abuse, but Chand Mera Dil is equally steadfast without resorting to moral grandstanding.

By the time four thugs corner SHO Pawan Malik (Saif Ali Khan) in his home, Kartavya has been simmering for an hour and 15 minutes. Threats are made; Saif folds his arms and tells them to do their worst. I was ready for him to knock them out cold, but then something interesting happens. There’s a fight. It’s not even close. Saif barely gets two punches in and he’s overpowered. It took me a while to realise this wasn’t some clever ploy on the cop’s part. When’s the last time an Indian film hero lost a fight? It doesn’t take the small-town cop film anywhere new. There’s nothing in its view of khap panchayats or corrupt local police forces that hasn’t been explored before. Still, it’s hard to argue that Pulkit’s film doesn’t capture something of the spirit of these dejected times. Everyone in the film is resigned to their place in a rigged system, so much so that Pawan’s attempts to ensure justice are seen by well-wishers not only as foolhardiness but irresponsibility towards his family and his own prospects.

Ritwik Pareek’s film opens with the image of a temple on a hill after dusk, prayer bells on the soundtrack. This gives way seconds later to shots of distant highway traffic and a great reverberating spaghetti western guitar chord. A man stumbles out of a dive bar, slurs a farewell “Jai siya Ram” and rides off into the night. In the world of Dug Dug, the distance between sacred and profane can be covered in one drunken lurch. The opening stretch, around 11 minutes, is as mesmeric as anything I’ve seen in this decade of Indian film. Walking out of the bar, the man stands in semi-darkness, takes a swig from a quarter bottle, tries to light a beedi. He’s successful on his third try. At this exact moment, lights come on overhead, a brilliant mesh of blue and purple neon. A gravelly voiceover mulls the mystery of life. The man sets off on his motorbike, straight down the middle of a badly lit highway. More ominous twangy music. Vehicles whiz past; some curse at him and he curses back. He veers off the main road onto a less crowded one, but having got this far, skids and crashes. Under a gaze of a lurid billboard announcing a magic show, he lies, gasping. The camera pans away just in time for a passing truck to run him over.