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After films like Lagaan, Taare Zameen Par and Peepli (Live), Aamir Productions is back with another project – Dhobi Ghaat (Mumbai Diaries). As the subtitle (in plural) suggests, the film is about the lives of four different people in Mumbai- a painter- Arun (Aamir Khan), Shaay, a New York based investment banker on a “sabbatical”, Yazmin Noor (Kriti Malhotra), an innocent girl from UP who has never been to Mumbai before she is married off here, and Munna (Prateik), the Dhobi. As you would expect, their lives are intertwined in a strange manner. It would be difficult to reveal these entanglements without giving away the total plot, so go watch it for yourselves. If people decide to walk out of theatres complaining, “story nahin hai”, they would only be partially wrong. Stories just form the most superficial layer of the film and hence there are not hundred events one after the other like in a James Bond movie. The movie is about the city, its different facets, its meaning to each one wh...

Printed Rainbow is a short animation film that won three awards at the Cannes International Film Festival. As animation is not something that Indian film industry takes pretty seriously, it’s an honor to have a filmmaker like Gitanjali Rao and her films. The film starts in black and white and for a while one tends to forget the “colorful” title of the movie. This movie is about this old lady who lives alone in an urban apartment. Well, not exactly alone, with her cat. Color appears for the first time when the lady opens a wooden box that contains her collection of colorful match-boxes with hundreds of different designs. The only human presence in her life is that of another elderly man of the neighborhood who visits her regularly to exchange match-boxes. These are not just match-boxes but our granny’s gateway into a fantastical world full of colors, in contrast with her black and white life. What really steal’s the audience’s attention is the brilliant imagination of the filmmaker and ...

Dosar- The Companion- A 2007 entry for the Cannes International Film Festival, this film gives several reasons for it to be one of the seven films selected that year. Functioning through three plots, the thread that weaves them together is marital fidelity. Dosar is the story of Kaushik (Prosenjit Chatterjee) who cheats on his wife Kaberi (Konkana Sen Sharma). He is caught when he and his mistress meet with a car accident that kills her on the spot while he is left seriously injured. What strikes the audience first and foremost is the making in black n white. The classic look makes the film extremely appealing, and one is tempted to ponder upon the director’s decision to try his hands on this technique when blinding colors seem to be imperative to make a good film. It seems to make sense to use B&W for a theme that has appeared in art and literature since time immemorial! But he would not be Rituparno Ghosh if he didn’t make something magical out of this ordinary theme. It’s not ju...

ज़िन्दगी यूँ थी बंदिनी जैसे काली घोर कोई निशा प्राची की एक किरण सुहानी अब हैं मैं और मेरी ज़िन्दगी विपाशा अब पंख बने हैं आशा हुई हूँ मैं यूँ दिवानी बस उडती जाऊं बिन खोजे दिशा नशा कर रहा है यूँ मनमानी आज है कुछ नयी उषा आज है कुछ नयी जवानी आज है यूँ खुला आसमां कौन जाने कहाँ है ज़मीन... निराली