#Qissa #PunjabiFilmMovieReview #JohnsonThomas #Rating:* * * *
#Qissa #PunjabiFilmMovieReview #JohnsonThomas #Rating:* * * *
#Picks&Piques/SnippetFilmReview20thFeb2015/#JohnsonThomas
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#Picks&Piques/SnippetFilmReview20thFeb2015/#JohnsonThomas
#Badlapur(Hindi) Rating: * * * #SriramRaghavan tries to steer clear from the Bollywood norm and manages to fashion an interesting enough exploration of revenge. Heavily borrowed moments from the TV drama ‘Dexter’ and conscious and obvious effort to steer clear of clichés and stereotypes makes this a note-worthy effort but the lack of tension, studied tone and the heavily indulgent showboat editing make it less than entertaining. The neo-noir cinematographic texture does lend it substance and deliberately stylised performances by #NawazuddinSiddiqui #VarunDhawan #RadhikaApte #VinayPathak #HumaQuereshi #YamiGautam #DivyaDutta adds to the interest! #UniversalCommunications #ParagDesai #VarunDhawan #SriramRaghavan #TSeries #MaddockFilms #ErosEntertainment #DineshVijan
#SomeTimes (Cineplay,English) Rating: * * *1/2 #SubodhMaskara & #NanditaDas’s latest venture #CinePlay that’s slotted to hit the VOD sector is a series of entertaining plays captured on camera for a wider viewing audience. #Sometimes , the latest play in the series, written by #AdhirBhat and Directed by talented #AkarshKhurana is a vividly entertaining experience. A confluence of solid writing, tight direction and superb performances, this one makes you sit up and take notice. Be prepared to rush to the theatres for the next showing...! #RomaPerieraTalwar #AnishaSenguptaYanger #TurningPointBrandConsulting
#Qissa(Punjabi/Subtitled) Rating: * * * * Multiple award winning Indo-German Production #Qissa is a Stunningly eloquent and intense dramatic engagement. #AnupSingh’s Superb direction, brilliantly structured screenplay combined with unforgettable performances by #TilottamaShome #IrrfanKhan #TiscaChopra #RasikaDuggal make this a never-to-be-missed experience. It’s been a long time since #NFDC came up with a winner..this is it! #VikramjitRoy #HemaUpadhyay #EverydayMedia #1HPR
#Monsoon(Hindi) Rating: * A coming of age tale that lacks distinction and direction. School boy crush on an older woman has been treaded on before with much better finesse and refinement. This one just bludgeons through a set-piece story in order to score on sidey, risque entertainment! #MahendraDhariwal #JitenderGulati #SuzadIqbalKhan #SrishtiSharma #Sudhanshu #Shawar Ali #VijaySingh #RajaGulati
#Wild(English) Rating: * * *1/2 Based on the memoirs of #CherylStrayed, this exploration of the self through a wild adventure trek, a #ReeseWitherspoon topliner, is not as intense or dramatic a road movie as it could have been. Director #JeanMarcVallee tends to be a little more wordy(Voiceover) than visually descriptive(fleeting flashbacks) and that makes all the difference in the experience. #ParagDesai #UniversalCommunications #FoxStar #LauraDern #GabyHoffmann
#Whiplash(English) Rating: * * * * Director-writer #DamienChazelle’s low-budget film, about the development of a top-notch musician(Drummer), shot in just 19 days, devotes itself to the cruelty infused dynamic of the relationship between a music teacher and his student. It has all the tension and intensity of a top-notch thriller. Simmons as Fletcher and Miles Teller as Andy are fantastic.#Whiplash is riveting. #HardlyAnonymous #UniversalPictures #PVR
World Cinema(Punjabi Film/ English subtitles) Review
Johnson Thomas
Breathtakingly Eloquent
Film: Qissa
Cast: Irrfan Khan, Tisca Chopra, Tilottama Shome, Rasika Duggal, Faizeh Jallali, Sonia bindra
Director: Anup Singh
Rating:* * * *
An Indo-German surreal drama written and directed by Anup Singh, this film won kudos at several festivals across the world and even garnered the Netpac award at Toronto 2013.
Set in the aftermath of partition, the haunting narrative tells a harrowing tale of emotional suppression with elements of the surreal and paranormal creeping in to depict the flighty fancies of a devastated mind.
Umber Singh(Irrfan Khan), a Sikh displaced by partition of 1947, moves with his family consisting of a pregnant wife Mehar(Tisca Chopra) and three daughters to a more amenable location, Punjab, India, with hopes of building a lumber business. While his business takes off as planned, fathering of a cravenly desired son, to carry-on the patriarchal legacy, is shrouded in deceit and suppression. When his fourth child is born, Umber Singh refuses to allow anyone connected, to identify the sex of the child and decides to assert that the child is a boy. His wife, fearing the backlash of certain reprisal, becomes complicit to the suppression. As a result the child is brought up as a boy, Kanwar Singh( an absolutely brilliant Tilottama Shome), who until he achieves puberty isn’t aware of his hidden sexuality. The complexities in the narrative begin to unfold once the boy attains puberty and Umber Singh continues to foster the denial of his true sexuality, thus creating havoc in the young child’s life- to the extent of even having him marry a gypsy girl, Neeli(Rasika Duggal) who becomes aware of the monumental deceit played on her , only after the marriage is solemnized.
From thereon Kanwar Singh tries to escape the clutches of his repression but an over-zealous and patriarchy conscious Umber Singh will not allow it, leading to a tragedy that sees Kanwar Singh and Neeli flee the family abode to hole in at the dilapidated matriarchal home. Once the oppressive chains of repression are set free, Kanwar and Neeli have to face the ire of a society unwilling to allow a free expression of sexuality, thus pushing their lives further into harms way!
#Qissa is a heartrending tragedy played out to surreal, paranormal portents. The narrative moves in an elegant, intrigue inducing pace to a climax that may appear illogical but actually is rooted in the psychology of repression where a young mind reaches breaking point and digresses into a schizophrenia altered reality. When the teenager is subsumed by the ghost of his father, it’s a subliminally telling moment in which a tragically repressed personality allows his own personal extinction in the hope of escaping a traumatic unbearable reality.
Gender dynamics,filial loyalty and tortured personal identities criss-cross with legends in a construct of hindered reality riven by overwhelming despair. Mehar, Kanwar and Neeli, all women who are oppressed, are the three pivots in the story which is as much a telling statement about patriarchy and the extent to which the families of the subcontinent would go to further their obsessive yearnings in that direction, as it is about sexual repression and the rigidity that governs it’s expression.
Director and co-scriptwriter Anup Singh makes the experience much more insightful by installing the sexuality riven drama in a seminal space ravaged by the historical context of displacement and loss. The performances he extracts from his cast are also extraordinary. Rasika Duggal as Neeli wins you over with her winsome charm and demurring courage, Tisca Chopra lends a sharp edge to the wife/mother whose voice is subject to her husband’s commands, Irrfan Khan takes the difficult role of Umber Singh and makes it his own while Tilottama Shome does a ‘Boys don’t Cry’ turn with such brilliant aplomb that for most of the movie you are convinced that she is indeed a boy/man.
Co-produced by NFDC, this is indeed one of the most accomplished films to come out of the government aided production house in a long time. Indeed, NFDC appears to have got it right after a long time. Hope the audience too will give the film the required and imminently deserving patronage!
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