Analysing films

Family Man 2 is the news for all the right reasons. It pretty much stays on course from where it left off with Season 1. Except that Season 2 focuses less on the family and more on the action and chase part of the discourse. One character out of the whole melee that takes off is, Chellum Sir (Uday Mahesh) and has virtually got Social Media on fire. Amongst so many tower house characters why did Chellum Sir become so viral. He is what we want to be or be like him. Have answers and solutions to all problems, no matter how complex it is. And the solution remains in a matter of fact way. This is what 2020 and 2021 has been all about. Rise of the niche world. Super stars, item numbers, blockbusters have all crashed. Across industries (Telegu and Tamil remains an exception though) it has been the rise and rise of meaningful cinema, and meaningful content. Perhaps Hindi cinema is the worst affected. And the OTT boom has further decimated the hopes. Take for instance a film like 83 which has

One thing that remains clear after watching Sherni (it streams on Prime Video); never judge a film by the trailer. I remember a Srijit Mukherjee film (not a big fan anyways of his film) Zulfiqar released in 2016 and it had a promising trailer to boot. The trailer had created so much anticipation about the film and eventually the film turned a big Dud. With Sherni, the trailer did not hold, and I was only hoping to sit for a couple of minutes to see through the proceedings. However, the film just took off. Amit Masurkar took his own time after his debut, Newton launch his second outing and he continues to hold his mettle. Sherni is an important film not just for the context of the plot but also for understanding what happens when mankind and animal kingdom clash. This has been a phenomena affecting the animal kingdom globally. A brilliant documentary on Apple TV, The year the earth changed showcases when the humans where locked up at home in 2020, nature started reclaiming it's rig

  Mandela has to be one of the definitive films of 2021. Mandela and Karnan (featuring Dhanush and another 2021 release) trudge the same path of caste based oppression but the genre of the two remains starkly different. While Karnan pretty much follows the age old path of revenge, violence and the down and out protagonist fighting back; Mandela takes a completely different route to addressing the issue of caste based oppression. In a small village Soorangudi (Tuticorin district) a small time low caste barber suddenly becomes the most important man in the village, as his only vote will decide the future of the village elections and the gram panchayat. The village has a history of conflict with the northern and southern part of the village at loggerheads (a caste based divide). Both the sides have their respective leader and who are ironically the sons of the local panchayat head. The head has strategically married two women from the two different sides of the village, but it still does