Flying kicks, three point landings and stolen kisses. As both budgets and box offices for Hindi movies reach new heights, two trends become strikingly obvious. First, movies that would play well to international audiences are more often than not getting green-lighted. Streamlined scripts and far-flung geographic settings, supported by India’s expanding international trade ties, are helping to expand the market for Hindi movies to the farthest corners of the globe. The other trend is the fondness for story lines taken from real life events—indeed, six of the ten films on this short list are based on real life stories. The convergence of real life and reel life and other movie highlights in a year of Hindi movies.
1) Neerja
A real life planned hijacking from the 1980's retold three decades later in Ram Madhvani’s taut thriller was the apex Hindi movie event for 2016. An otherwise on-time PanAm Boeing 747 flight from Bombay to New York via Karachi is stormed on the runway in Karachi and immediately ignites jittery and far-reaching pre-9/11 geo-political shock waves. The pilots escape and the almost 400 passengers are at the mercy of armed Palestinian terrorists. Everything appears lost—save for the actions of one very brave Indian flight attendant. Sonam Kapoor’s coming of age in the title role Neerja was both convincing and moving. Supported by Shabana Azmi (as Neerja’s mother), Yogendra Tikku (as the father) and Jim Sharbh (as an especially creepy, crazed gun-wielding on-board antagonist-in-chief), the gripping entertainer also tapped into anxieties related to modern travel and the existential fear of death at a moment’s notice.
2) Aligarh
The rights of the LGBT community in India perfectly correlate to the rising and ebbing fortunes of Indian Constitution’s so-called Section 377, an archaic writ carried over from the British Raj. Hansal Mehta’s ground-breaking Aligarh, based on a true story, unfolds as a 64-year old linguistics professor is entrapped in a consensual sexual tryst with a rickshaw puller. Manoj Bajpayee in the lead superbly channels the professional and personal toll taken on a learned, tortured and ostracized man piecing together shards of an explosively shattered life. Supported by Rajkumar Rao as a rookie reporter struggling to land on his two feet, Aligarh in on par with Broke back Mountain in chronicling situational alienation faced by older, detached gay men up against a deluge of official and social scorn.
3) Pink
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Esta historia es de la edición December 2016 - January 2017 de India Currents.
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Elephant and Donkey Tribes of Politics
The Motorcycle Guru Speaks.
On Feminism
It has been eight months since I started my MFA at Bennington College. In the last eight months I have cooked half a dozen meals. I pack my children lunches and I clean up the kitchen after my husband when he makes dinner for the family after he comes home from working in a Silicon Valley tech company. Cooking has never moved me. Motherhood has—but not the baggage of social dos and don'ts that accompanied it. I have done fewer play dates than the meals I have cooked in the past few months, and I rarely go to a birthday party. My husband takes the children to their social engagements. “But is this fair?” you might ask and I answer, “It is not about fairness, it is about what moves you as a person and how to keep that flame of what keeps you alive, burning within you, while negotiating roles in an adult world that still largely favors men over women.”
Of Wedding Bells And Hospital Bills
Not another invite,” I groaned, picking up a thick cream and red colored envelope.
A New Lease Of Life
How an Indian grandmother started making heart-healthy choices.
A Mother Loses Her Child: Fact And Fiction Coalesce
LUCKY BOY by Shanthi Sekaran. G.P. Putnam’s Sons, an imprint of Penguin Random House, New York. 472 pages. Hardcover. $27.00
From The Hood Without A Loo
TOILET: A LOVE STORY. Director Shree Narayan Singh. Players: Akshay Kumar, Bhumi Padnekar, Anupam Kher, Sudhir Pandey, Divyendu Sharma, Subha Khote. Hindi w/ Eng. Sub-tit. (Viacom).
Life, Liberty, And The Pursuit Of Happiness
A LIFE OF ADVENTURE AND DE- LIGHT by Akhil Sharma. W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.: New York. 202 pages. wwnorton.com $24.95 hardcover.
Who Was Enid Blyton?
Raised in and out of India, I don’t remember reading too many Enid Blyton novels—barring those from the Noddy series. I knew, though, they were all the rage among girls—mostly girls. They’d spend hours reading them and like fish in a school, prattle over what they’d read over their lunchboxes.
Victoria And Abdul: It Looks A Lot Like Love
VICTORIA AND ABDUL. Director: Stephen Frears. Screenwriter: Lee Hall, based on book by Shrabani Basu. Cast: Judi Dench, Ali Fazal, Eddie Izzard, Adeel Akhtar, Tim Pigott-Smith and Michael Gambon. Focus Features, 2017. MPAA Rating: PG-13
Looters, Schemers And A Curse
Koh-i-Noor: The History of the World’s Most Infamous Diamond.
