Prague

Prague is an unlikely gem of 2013. Eerily trippy, it's a whirlwinding ride through the fragmented mind of a delusional schizophrenic. The generic umbrella term 'psychological thriller' sounds more apt. Chandan Roy Sanyal rediscovers himself [his acting mojo?] after the sensational act in Kaminey four years back. The sheer range of kaleidoscopic emotions he embodies is remarkable. Fragile and volatile, erratic and unpredictable, brooding and explosive - the polarising dynamics of his character have been succinctly portrayed with precision. He is constantly visited by the apparition of his friend, Arfi [Arifi Lamba], whose suicide was involuntarily triggered by him. Gulshan [Kumar Mayank], another friend, comes as a destructive force into his life and he sleeps with the girl Chandan had been wooing, Subhangi. Despite the betrayal, Chandan idolises him and feels threatened by his menacing presence at the same time. In Prague, he falls for a young gypsy girl, Elena [Elena Kazan]. The chequered tapestry of their relationship is challenged by Chandan's deteriorating mental state, as he sinks into obscure depths of obsessive insecurity and hallucination. There are nuanced homoerotic moments in the film which raises the question: is Chandan a repressed bisexual? Quoting his initial impression of Gulshan: "When he pees with his head hanging back, it is as if he is orgasming." Later, he beats up a queer admirer at a bar, hysterically screeching, "I am not gay!" Right at the end, it is revealed that Gulshan too is, in fact, a figment of his frenzied imagination. He had pushed Gulshan to his death before arriving at Prague. The power politics of human relationships is another theme that has been explored in the film. Since Chandan's male machismo is imperiled by Gulshan, he looks for weaker people to reestablish his superior position of power. That's why he holds on to the vision of Arfi, who is already dead. As long as Elena plays along, submitting to his charm and later as a muse to the artist in him, Chandan manages to suppress the memories of Gulshan. Just when Elena declares that she is not his girlfriend, Gulshan reappears. Although they reconcile, the illusion of his presence drives Chandan to the path of self-destruction, culminating in Elena's death. It's a stellar debut by director, Asish R. Shukla, who has co-scripted the film along with Sumit Saxena. The cinematography by Uday Mohite is spectacular, so is the editing by Meghna Sen and the background score.

The Spectacular Now

Sundance Special Jury Prize winner, The Spectacular Now is yet another spectacular coming-of-age movie of 2013. The writer duo of Michael H. Weber and Scott Neustadter [500 Days of Summer] gives us an unsentimental and layered drama that successfully avoids the posturing of generic teenage romance. It offers a penetrative look into the susceptible confusion and tender fragility of youth. The director, James Ponsoldt brings out the characters' struggles with intense minimalism and nuanced restraint, embracing and juxtaposing the worlds of adolescents and grown-ups. The film boasts of an incredible supporting cast: Jennifer Jason Leigh, Kyle Chandler, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Andre Royo [The Wire] and Bob Odenkirk [Breaking Bad]. The lead pair of Miles Teller and Shailene Woodley play out their roles with effortless conviction, especially Shailene, who plays an unadorned, unassuming, innocuous loner with a muted elegance and lively spark, a departure from the commanding portrayal of George Clooney's daughter in The Descendants.

Chander Pahar

When you see Akash Chopra as a television expert on T20 cricket, you often wonder, WHY? When Kamaleswar Mukherjee decided to cast Dev as Shankar, I too wondered, WHY? The film, Chander Pahar, centres around a raging young Bengali, shrieking, squealing, screeching and howling through the jungles of Africa. Dev clearly suffers from a split personality. Either he is adorably harmless like Toothless from How to Train your Dragon, with perfectly combed hair and restrained exchanges stripped of enthusiastic bravado, or as the nostril-flaring human ghoul in a daredevilish wrathful avatar, replete with swashbuckling comedy. The cinematography, however, is breathtaking. All hail, Soumik Haldar. The CGI is exceptionally shoddy for a 15 crore film, and makes certain parts look like an underpriced photo album of an overpriced trip to the Alipore Zoo and Science City, with a 'Made in Africa' label tagged on it. Kamaleswar could not celebrate the life of Ghatak in his previous film, deliberately striving to emotionally manipulate the audience with a flawed depiction of half-truths. In this film too, he could not bring out the very essence, spirit and emotional crux of Bibhutibhushan's novel. Like Sandip Ray's glorified travel diary of Singapore in Tintoretter Jishu with catalogued documentation of Chinese restaurants, Kamaleswar's adventure drama comes across as a discounted African tour package. With FB flooded by recurring updates on "Bangla Cinema'r Punor-jonmo", Balaji Telefilms might reconsider sharing their K-serial rebirth-patent with these aficionados.

Out of the Furnace

Scott Cooper's slow burning, prosaic working class crime drama, Out Of The Furnace, his second feature after Crazy Heart, is a masterpiece, one of the finest of this year. Christian Bale yet again proves why he's the most versatile Hollywood actor among his peers, Casey Affleck is uncharacteristically intense and the supporting cast of Willem Dafoe and Forest Whitaker are dependable as usual. Woody Harrelson, as a volatile fanatic reveling in violence, delivers the most stunning performance of his life after Natural Born Killers. Emotionally overpowering, spurred by striking images captured by DOP Masanobu Takayanagi and the soulful score of Dickon Hinchliffe.

Dhoom 3

It will be a futile exercise to attempt a cerebral introspection of Dhoom 3. For starters, it's relatively better than the other two big budget no-brainers of this year, namely Chennai Express and Krrish 3. The perfect admixture of all possible ingredients required in a typical masala flick. For the average Bolly movie-goers, some of the stunts are indeed incredible. It's Amir Khan aka Chup-Chap-Charlie all the way, carrying the film on his bulging shoulders and also compensating for the screen time hogged by the dispensable duo of Abhishek and Uday. These clowns drive an auto on and over tile-chawls in a dingy neighbourhood, and you thought Jesus walking on water was a miracle? Did I miss out Katrina Kaif, the circus performer mostly seen in sports bras, who "sings and dances like liquid electricity"? The unanticipated twist right at the interval is a masterstroke; those who think otherwise, "teri aisi ki taisi"! Nobody saw it coming except a certain Christopher Nolan. The director, Vijay Krishna Acharya's first film, Tashan was one of the finest mock-parodies Bollywood has ever produced, and I am expecting to be lynched by fellow cinephile friends for saying that. Interestingly, the baddie in the film, a greedy bank mercenary, has been named Warren Anderson. Unlike the former Chairman of Union Carbide responsible for the Bhopal Gas Tragedy, the reel Mr. Anderson is brought down to his knees. Bollywood's yet another dodgy stratagem? But the larger question remains: do inspired scripts really enhance the 'prestige' of a film or the industry in general? I'm sincerely hoping that Mr. Nolan doesn't have the misfortune of watching this film.

Blue is the Warmest Colour

The three hour long drama, based on a graphic novel by Julie Maroh, depicts a compassionate and emotionally exhilarating relationship between two young women, Adele and Emma, played by Adele Exarchopoulos and Lea Seydoux respectively, that is saturated with electrifying eroticism and fragile vulnerability, moving from intense want to helpless abandon of the heart. It is the coming-of-age story of Adele, a conformist adolescent initially, who undergoes a journey of sexual awakening through the trials of ecstasy and suffering, discovery and heartbreak. The two chapters represent Adele's transition from her state of innocence to experience. The extended, no-holds-barred, unapologetically graphic and explicit sex scenes had stirred up much controversy. Does this maddening intoxication of their primal passionate urges subsume and overwhelm the tender, blossoming love? Before pointing at sensual cataclysm, it will be prudent to say that there was always an inconspicuous disconnect between the two. They were not equals, either intellectually or on the social scale. The cultural clash is evident through the recurring motif of class. The contrasting family dinners or the instance when Emma talks about Jean-Paul Sartre being a great liberator and Adele responds by saying that Bob Marley was a prophet too. Emma's friends and her family share a condescending contempt for Adele aspiring to be a nursery teacher. With time, the dynamics of their relationship start changing. Earlier, Emma was consciously defiant, and in her rebelliousness Adele found a sympathising mentor. Later, as we move towards domesticity from the heightened passionate frenzy, Emma outgrows Adele in her careeristic ambitions of artistic pursuits while Adele outgrows Emma in emotional complexity. There lies their tragedy. The scene in which Emma confronts Adele after her brief affair with a man, is as fierce as their volcanic sexual energy. Even before the release of the film, it ran into controversy with the lead pair dubbing the director, Abdellatif Kechiche, as "intrusive, oppressive, tyrannical". Julie Morah has complained of the film being a "prurient male fantasy rather than the truth of lesbian sex." At times, the prying eyes of the camera lens and its claustrophobic proximity with the female body raise important questions. Does the heterosexual director's vision, instead of documenting erotic sensation, regress into voyeurism? The feminists have slammed the relentlessly obsessive close-ups as typifying the 'male gaze' or is the director trying to unwrap the soul through the prism of the bare body in an attempted observant study of the queer? Kechiche has used references of the male gaze through the character of the art gallery owner, who rambles about mystical female orgasm and goes on to say, "Ever since women have been shown in paintings, men try desperately to depict women as they saw them, imagined them, or wished to be their fantasy." The first half is deeply layered which gives way to exhausting indulgences of melodrama in the second. The most remarkable feature of the film is the minimalism of background music, and the emotions displayed are largely raw and unedited, bordering on hyperrealism. The performances of both the female leads is absolutely unreal, inexplicably superlative. The film, for me, belongs to Adele Exarchopoulos. She delivers the most stunning performance of the year, with so much assuredness and control over the contrasting emotions of curious uninhibitedness and calm restraint. The film, however, does not match my expectations, only because it is somewhat undeserving to be a Palme d'Or winner.

Spring Breakers

Spring Breakers is the trippiest film I have watched since Enter The Void. Another audacious offering from the outré auteur, Harmony Korine. The hallucinatory trip goes beyond the provocative montage of tits, coke and guns. Thematically, it is a borderline pulp-parody of Biblical Paradise and the pop culture bubble, a derision of the American Dream projected through the eyes of a nihilistic generation. James fucking Franco, who are you! Such a stupendously gifted actor, playing a self-exalting rapper gangsta, who swears by Scarface and plays Britney Spears ballads to entertain his shotgun-toting psychosexual bunnies. The alluring cinematography of Benoit Debie with fluorescent splashes and neon shots make everything visually hypnotic. Finally the propulsive, adrenaline-driven soundscape. Have you heard God orgasming? That's what Cliff Martinez does with his electronic score, along with dubstepper, Skrillex.

The Class of '92

The Class of '92 is beautiful. By the time you finish watching it, you're so overwhelmed that you don't know what to do. Inspiring and deeply engrossing, it subsumes you to the extent of getting teary eyed and all or maybe get a hair dryer as an antidote/desensitiser for the goosebumpy skin. The documentary goes beyond the beautiful game, talking about the socio-economic conditions with the new Labour government coming in and also highlights the cultural space with the rise of new-age Brit bands like Oasis and The Stone Roses. It's an incredible and perfect mix of romanticising the United legends and mortalising them too. The DreamCatchers who owned the Theatre of Dreams.

Insidious: Chapter 2

What happens if the Ramsay Brothers decide to remake Stanley Kubrick's masterpiece, The Shining, and their only reference material is an inspiring lecture on metaphysics by Chetan Bhagat? You get a comic spook-fest called Insidious: Chapter 2. A thoroughly rollicking joyride. Horror, anyone? Clueless yet overzealous ghostbusters entering and exiting the netherworld portal, ridiculously face-painted clownish apparitions in scarecrow rags, eardrum-bursting cheap thrills and all other formulaic cliches make the film inexquisitely insipid.

Aschorjyo Prodeep

The poster reads: 'Ebare Bhoot Noye, Doittyo'. Anik Dutta, an ace satirist who dealt with supernatural phantoms in his last film, Bhooter Bhobisyot, turns to humans this time, an adult fantasy tale of apologetic middle class existence with unrelinquished aspirations and inexhaustible greed of the consumerist society. But the end result? Populist adventurism marred by bland sarcasm, half-potent wit and crass humour. The opening scene depicting the tongue-in-cheek banter between Paran Bandopadhyay and Manoj Mitra is delightful, and the rest an underwhelming departure from the initial promise. The magic lamp makes an unsuspecting detour in its fantastical journey from faraway Middle East to a bustling Calcutta by-lane. Introducing Shaswata, the average wife-fearing middle class Bong, unassuming goofy doofus and grumbling gossip-monger with boorish jokes. An impulsive boozer and compulsive numerologist, he's constantly bullied at home and badgered at office. Booby-trapped in elusive fantasies of Malamaal played by Mumtaz, a sultry actress invading his daydreams and wet dreams, he's desperate to revitalize his browbeaten machismo with the lamp's aid. Just a hapless condom salesman stuck in erotic inertia looking for an upgrade. His wife, Sreelekha is a pompous English-obsessed snooty housewife, always whining and complaining. It is later revealed that she is on a high pay-roll for late night booty-calls. All in the name of raising her son as an anglicised dandy, a concerned mother's unrighteous path of inglorious sacrifice. Enter Rajatava, the urbane and debonair tech-savvy genie, programmed to gratify material and sexual needs of mortals. There's a disclaimer of course: unqualified ineptitude in matters related to the heart. Major bummer! Trust investment is always subject to market risks. The film rolls on with the no-surprise expose at the end. A whoring wife to burst his short-lived bubble of a happy life. The chemistry between Shaswata and Rajatava is sparkling and the only saving grace in this two hour long misadventure. Rajatava clearly delivers the best performance in the film, with unbelievable fidelity to his character. The dated jokes and static character graph of the actors makes Aschorjyo Prodeep a forgettable cinematic experience, a far cry from the subtle yet penetrating sarcasm of the director's debut feature which was a dark and lively social satire.

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire

When it comes to the word 'revolution', the Americans tend to foster a make-believe indulgent perception of squashy, muffled resistance in speculative distant future or distant planets. It almost makes you feel that Uncle Sam's persecuted nephews and nieces and other alien-speak dissenters will lead the uprising armed with Coca-Cola cans and popcorn tubs. I am not a fan of the Hunger Games franchise. And for people who have watched Battle Royale will echo my sentiments. Catching Fire, continuing with the flaccid survival tale storyline, has a better narrative structure than the first installment. It is visually stunning with jaw-dropping, spectacular set designs. But the games itself? Like the average Indian telly reality show with a few more dramatic punches, and added variants like toxic smoke and menacingly grizzly animals. Ruthless bloodlust? Yawn. Political symbolism? Balls. The surprising little twist right at the end comes off more like happy-anniversary-charity-sex, and not surprisingly, the climax with the hurried abruptness of a fake orgasm. However, Jennifer Lawrence is breathtaking in the film with a sense of forlorn determination and compelling intensity, giving her character that much-needed emotional drive.

Gam-si-ja-deul (Cold Eyes)

Cold Eyes is a new take on Johnnie To's scriptwriter, Yau Nai-Hoi's 2007 crime thriller, Eye in the Sky. Although the film is impeccably stylish and sleek, I must confess that I have watched better Korean thrillers in the past. The story doesn't lack in pace, but the narrative is not structured around a layered plot, with relative paucity of pulsating thrill as expected from this genre despite the extravagant chasedowns and slick cinematography. Sol Kyung-gu plays a cop with stoic intensity, a toned down and reserved character compared to his hyper-frenzied roles in films like Peppermint Candy and Oasis. Han Hyo-joo looks pretty and delivers on a perfect pitch, playing a rookie cop wriggling between professional duty and emotional turmoil. It is Jung Woo-sung who gives the best performance in the film, exuding a sense of vicious knavery coupled with stone cold efficiency of unsympathetic and forbidding ruthlessness.

The Necessary Death of Charlie Countryman

The Necessary Death of Charlie Countryman, Frederik Bond's debut film, is an exquisite delight. A zig-zag flight of fancy into the eerie corners of exotic Romania, a gritty, genre-defying mash-up of surreal spiritualism, requited love, quirky humour and vicious violence. The chemistry between Shia LeBouf and Evan Rachel Wood is electrifying and magical, with an elemental force of mysticism. Stuck in a brooding limbo of grief and memory, trying to cope with the loss of parents, they discover each other, within and without. What really works is the spontaneous impulsiveness of the characters despite the incoherent incongruity of the narrative. From the visual intrigue of the trippy LSD ride, the story moves into violent action centering around the propulsive, Heathcliff-like underworld crime lord. Intensely ruthless and unpredictable, Mads Mikkelsen is outstanding with the chilling efficiency of a methodical terroriser and an agent of disruption. The soundtrack is arguably the best of this year, woozy, haunting and techno-classic-melodious.

The Way, Way Back

The storyline of The Way, Way Back is a predictable ride, and yet, it manages to survive the trappings of a typical coming-of-age comedy/drama, emerging a triumphant winner in the end. It is heartfelt, moving, honest and most importantly, uplifting. All the characters are sketched beautifully, dallying between exuberant profundity and poignant authencity. Comprising an enviable supporting cast of Steve Carell, Toni Collette, Allisson Janney and Maya Rudolph, the one who stands out is Sam Rockwell, with his charming wackiness and irresistible comic timing, winning hearts rather than splashing a bravado. This marks the directorial debut of the talented writer duo of Nat Faxon and Jim Rash, the ones who gave us the heartwarming George Clooney starrer, The Descendants. The soundtrack is implausibly delectable, playing the role of another riveting supporting actor in the film. One of the best feel-good entertainers of this year.

Krrish 3

We grew up in the 90s when CDs were unaffordable and cassettes reasonably costly. So we used to wait for Greatest Hits compilations of international artists rather than buying the individual albums. Papa Roshan and his gang of 5 scriptwriters have done exactly that, concoct an unoriginal tale with select scenes from all the possible superhero flicks in the last 10 years. Chacha Roshan is not far behind, engaged in a healthy competition with his brother, lifts scores from two Hollywood blockbusters. A Marvel and DC mutant, Krrish is the First World's envy and Third World's pride. Herculean in built, he suffers from chronic mask-gasms though, his facial muscles shivering and quivering everytime he puts on that damned mask. With countless ad placements in the film, you are convinced that: with great power, comes greater brand value. As a parent, if you're encouraging your kids to push retail trade of discover-the-Krrish-in-you wristbands, be warned that they might end up being a waiter or a security guard, sacrificing their lofty ambitions of medicine or engineering. Some of the dazzling special effects do manage to laboriously razzle but they're intertwined with heavy dose of 70s melodrama. Kyunki Superhero Bhi Insaan Hote Hain. Krrish Senior, after playing a precognitive computer genius in the last film, finds cures for deadly viruses and even plays God bringing back the dead to life with his light experiment mumbo-jumbo. Virologist, geneticist, physicist, computer geek - all rolled into one. A man-child multifacético, thanks to Jadoo. Kaal, the vampire robed Prof X-meets-Magneto SuperBaddie, transmutes into a junk-metal suited RoboCop with an ill-fitting baseball helmet. He leads an army of minion-mutant fashionistas, and makes a compelling case for participation in Halloween-themed ramp shows in the future. There's also another battle within the epic battle: who is hotter than the tropics? Krissh's exotic wifey who loves to booty-shake to bhajans at midnight or Desi Mystique a la Femme Fatale in black leather tights?

Wara no Tate (Shield of Straw)

Takashi Miike's latest, Shield of Straw is inadequately non-zany and adequately disappointing. It's an entertaining thriller nonetheless with the regular dose of Miike's signature styled set-piece action and large scale shootouts but not engrossing enough. Uncharacteristically sedated offering from the otherwise outre and maverick director, (perhaps) to accommodate the conventional elements of commercial filmmaking. Tatsuya Fujiwara is the most uninspiring, unmenacing, unintimidating villain in any Miike film I have laid my eyes on. Takao Osawa's retrained intensity is commendable. But the biggest gain from this film is the cinematographer, Nobuyasu Kita with literally breathtaking widescreen and overhead shots, mixing the colour gradients with perfection.

As I Lay Dying

Just like two of my favourite films this year, the terrifyingly beautiful Stoker and spiritually violent Only God Forgives, James Franco's eighth directorial venture, As I Lay Dying, has garnered mostly negative reviews from the critics. Franco manages to transcend the self-constraining question of 'unfilmability' of the obliquely splintered novel by Faulkner. He uses diverse cinematic techniques, like split-screen and face-on camera address to portray the multi-voiced narratives and fragmented monologues of the characters. The overuse of split-screen is not distracting or jarring, rather it effectively highlights the eerie ambiance of the brooding tragedy, the isolation of characters connected by blood, sense of loss and desire for rebellion, and the constant role reversal of identities. However, he fails to stimulate the comedic undercurrents of the novel in the otherwise fairly admirable effort at adapting one of the most difficult 20th century novels.

Mishawr Rahasya

Mishawr Rawhoshyo is an extravagant manifestation of the much hyped terminology, 'bhinno dharar Bangla Cinema'. Born out of a mediocre director's mediocre vision of a misplaced sense of tribute to Sunil Babu, it's an epic misadventure of epic proportions. Prosenjit's desperate attempts to salvage some positives for this dreadful film is floundered by the clumsy narrative, shoddy editing, deafening background score and miserably inadequate punchlines, bordering on juvenile humour and moralising pedantry. Aryan as the wise-ass History Channel addict, Santu, is a terrible miscast. He mumbles, rumbles, fumbles and tumbles with agonising unease. Just as SRK's grandad cockblocks him in Chennai Express, Kakababu lipblocks his nephew's anticipated liplock. dustu Santu and misti Rini's dustu-misti prem is extraneously pointless but not as annoying as the product placements in the film, ranging from achaar to pain balms. Don't miss Santu's London-lettered Union Jack t-shirt as he breezes past a radical AISA poster at JNU. Neel and Swastika appear as disposable and utterly dispensable vestigial organs throughout the film. Rajit Kapoor, one of the finest actors back in the 90s, is reduced to a babbling, redundantly unmenacing caricature of a lamebrain dolt. Indraneil, despite his enraged snarls and growls, remains exasperatingly stone-faced expressionless. The VFX in certain scenes are strongly reminiscent of Chandrakanta and Alif Laila, and the slow-mo face-off between Joyraj and Bumba Da is so painfully superslow that, for a moment, it gives the impression of a video cassette stuck in a VCR. A tour-de-farce with alarming Orientalist stereotyping and potentially dangerous historical concoction.

Phoring

Phoring is the best Bengali film I have watched this year. Yes, detractors will try and unnecessarily intellectualise the demerits of the film. There are minor hiccups, especially the propensity towards emotional manipulation towards the end, but I choose to ignore them. The refreshing honesty of the film with its non-cerebral simplicity makes inroads into your heart, yet at the same time, explores certain complex themes with a nuanced candor. A gawky young adult caught between the two intersecting, permeable realms of the 'age of innocence' and 'age of experience' embarks on a journey from depersonalisation to self-realisation. The flight-graph of Phoring or the metaphorical dragonfly is beautifully narrated by the director through the prism of spiritual secularisation, starting with his naive conversations with God which finally culminates in the final act of dismissive arrogance where he denounces and disowns 'his' God.

Bakita Byaktigoto

Bakita Byaktigoto (Rest is Personal) is standout film because of its endearing and lucid simplicity. Most of the new-age Bengali films these days overuse and abuse the term surreal. However, Bakita Byaktigoto is rooted very much in the real, wrapped in a fairy tale bubble, with its fascinating docu-narrative blurring the boundaries between fantasy and reality. Riwtik, the lead protagonist, on an incredible quest for a seemingly intangible pursuit of love, steers the story on his able shoulders with a remarkable sense of economy in effortless acting and infectious honesty. Amit Saha and Aparajita Ghosh Das also play out their roles with astounding competence. Sumptuous camera-work, bearing the director's stamp of innate effective minimalism, and the score by Anindya Sundar Chakraborty, transiting from earthy notes to modern sound, are also worth mentioning. A laudable, stellar debut feature by Pradipta Bhattacharyya.

Satyagraha

Satyagraha is a migraine-inducing, wholesome lump of shit. A preachy overdose of lousy dialogues straight out of the Aastha Channel morning sermons. The grand daddy of Bollywood is a strict disciplinarian who loathes three things in life: corporates, alcoholic beverages and corruption. Like father, like son. Gold medalist engineer working for the 'aam admi' of his district, like the doting son shares his daddy's abhorrence for corporate greed and consumerism, ends up saying [after a flyover designed by him collapses] - "Yeh kharab quality ka cement hain; maine toh kaha tha Ultratech Cement use karne ke liye!" Later we would see Daddy Ji's followers wearing Anna caps and Rupa Frontline vests, screaming out fancy slogans. Apart from a sluggish item number and a quirky 'Raghupati Raghava', there's also a ludicrous youth-anthem called 'Janta Rocks'. Seriously, Prasoon Joshi? Mr. Richie Rich-turned-activist donates his billions, a noble gesture indeed. Or maybe a new strain of untreated bipolar disorder? A TV scribe who has fans cutting across social milieu, from chaiwalas, corrupt cops to bigwig politicos and biz honchos, suddenly takes a month-long sabbatical to participate in the Janta-Revolution, braving the lathicharge and water-canons, yet managing to maintain her perfect make-up and blow-dried hair. Oh I forgot, she was [still is?] a newsperson. And finally, the crafty and fraudulent politician, with a strong affinity for theatrics and half-baked English idioms, apparently has more say in Cabinet decisions than the seemingly toothless CM. Just one more thing, Prakash Jha - since when does the main Opposition leader take part in Cabinet meetings? Overall verdict: race for the 2013 Best Film on National Integration just got tighter.

Tasher Desh

Tasher Desh is a psychotomimetic vision of Qaushiq Mukherjee's unapologetic experiment that goes beyond the professed acid trip. A madcap versifier, with almost fanatical obsession for the outré, conjures up compelling and bizarre images in a non-linear, dual narrative that slowly seduces the audience into a hypnotic psychedelic ride. The inertia of the chimeric first half explodes into a volatile kinetic force as we are introduced to the restless motley of Card soldiers in the fascist dystopo-neverland. The very Q-esque split-screen shots, hyperstylised edginess of hand-held camera movements, skip-edits and jump-cuts trigger the hallucinatory surreal eeriness of a grungy meta-reality. But everything goes downhill from then on. Our Mr. Infant Terrible suddenly turns into a glorified music video director haplessly resorting to deliberate abstractness as an escape route for his fizzling out self-indulgences. The sensory and visual striptease becomes clumsier in the amorous exchanges which reduces the prophesied sexual liberation into a libidinous exercise with an unsuspecting abrupt climax. Zany, techno-funk pagan Rabindrasangeet and Manu Dacosse's flamboyantly sumptuous cinematography are the two biggest gains from this discordant and floundering amorphous fantasy drama. And, a special mention for the subtitling which is impeccably apt and incredibly germane.

Chennai Express

A sadistic grandfather deliberately robs his adorable grandson of a normal, leave alone healthy, sex life. We get a sneak-peek into the damaged psyche of this horny 40 year old when he says: "I am not Angelina Jolie. I am a boy." Much to the surprise of an unsuspecting audience, he sets on a debauchery mission to Goa. However he ends up in a train with a South Indian babe and her rogue cousins. They compose limericks at the drop of a hat and even set them to the tunes of popular Hindi chartbusters. An extended Chitrahar without commercial breaks, and then he suddenly turns into an Aam Admi Party spokesperson, mouthing: "Don't underestimate the power of a common man." From a DDLJ tribute, the film transforms into an elopement drama at breakneck speed. Then one fine night, he manages to share a bed with her. As soon as his sex-starved mind does a high-5 with his Little Johnny, he encounters her split personality, a demonic rant-spouting possessed witch. And there goes his sex drive, kaboom. However he doesn't give up. Relentless in his pursuit, what follows are wild chases and epic badassery on display. He's beaten into a pulp, yet does a Karan Arjun-meets-Rocky Balboa act and beats the shit out of her gangstah dad's desi Hulks. So much for love. And sex. Moral of the story? Don't underestimate the libido of a common man.

Meghe Dhaka Tara

When one decides to make a film on the First Citizen of Indian Cinema, it is bound to polarise the audience. If you expected that a certain doctor-cum-film enthusiast-turned-director will demystify and defictionalise the man and his legend, dismantling all the cliches and myths surrounding him, you were living in a fool's paradise. Initially, to garner media-hype, he proudly proclaimed 'Meghe Dhaka Tara' to be a biopic, only to disassociate himself from his previous claims, stating that it's a fictional work 'inspired' by Ghatak's life. Why the sudden and desperate face-saver? The positives first. Spectacular set designs, excellent use of light and shadow, Soumik Halder's stunning camera work, Debojyoti Mishra's brilliant score. Although the first half is barely watchable, the second half gets better with breathtaking visual imagery of Partition-affected immigrants, converging confluence of various characters from Ghatak's films, and of course, the superlative performances of Ananya and Subhasish. Kamaleswar chooses a very convenient and escapist medium to depict the master auteur's life: that of dreams and hallucinations. It works as a perfect alibi to (mis)represent Ghatak's thoughtscape as envisioned by him. Ghatak, audaciously self-indulgent and non-conformist to the core, quite paradoxically finds himself trapped in the flawed vision of a director who conforms to all the possible parameters of a sensationalist crowd-pleaser, almost like a footnoted historical and personal narrative. I do feel sorry for Shaswata. He is such a gifted actor and does justice to his role in parts, but one can't blame him for the director's myopic perception of Ghatak, and his life and times. All the ingredients are present, albeit in haphazard and erratic proportions in an already half-baked recipe, like - Jung's 'mother archetype', his swaying beliefs between revisionist and radical politics, the deep pangs of Partition, etc. But look at the banality of certain misplaced grandiose excesses (all in the name of passionately adhering to Ghatak's penchant for melodrama) - Shaswata, who almost lives on and swears by hooch or 'cholai', indiscriminately delivers hyperbolic punchlines with expletives, reminiscent of the 'angry young man' prototype during the Emergency rather than the Red Book-quoting generation of the 70s; he carries Bongobala in his arms with shrieking, angst-filled outcries of 'Suorer Bachha!' evoking Dilip Kumar's 'Ae bhai, koi hain?' act from 'Mashaal'; or even the salivating Shaswata during the enactment of his play at the mental asylum and the just-about-clinching-and-then-relaxing-of-fists-moment during the shock therapy session akin to a car's clutch-and-gear functioning, etc. Amplified exaggeration with playing-to-the-gallery-moments' galore, just enough to earn accolades and thundering applause from a generation, living in a joyless dungeon of failed ambitions and shattered dreams, finally being able to relate to the tragic story of a 'mad genius' who was a 'failure' in his lifetime. But Ghatak is much beyond the platitudes of the stereotypical portrait of an underdog. No, his life cannot be trivialised into a tragedy inhibited by dejection, pain, self-destruction and failure. On the contrary, it is a celebration of hope, of unwavering human spirit, of survival, of joy and optimism - boundless and unrestrained.

Stoker

Stoker is the most twisted, subverted, outrageous adaptation of Hamlet (with juxtaposed elements of Macbeth as well) you'll ever see. The eeriness and perversity of the deeply menacing sinisterness, cocooned in a sensuous and provocative atmosphere of disquieting tension, brings out a more evolved phase of Park Chan Wook's filmmaking. The violence is more internal, stripped of the spectacular grandiosity, deliberately restrained to fit into the lyricism of the breathtakingly stylized imagery and visually stunning frames. Compelling fetishization of the psycho-sexual broodings makes the film a poetry of violence rather than a ritual of the obviousness of this genre.

Shobdo

Mixed emotions after watching Shobdo. The film had so much potential and promise - a sort of experimentation in an unexplored domain of Indian Cinema. Sadly enough, it ends up being an educational telefilm. Kaushik Ganguly plays it too safe; he does not go beyond the uniqueness of the story and push the boundaries of conventionality like other celebrated maverick filmmakers would have done. Technically, the film is near-flawless. The sound designer duo of Anirban Sengupta and Dipankar Chaki create an ambiance of surreal magic. Mainak Bhoumik's editing deserves a special mention too. The camera work of Sirsha Ray is spectacular in some scenes, especially the haunting dreamscape where Ritwik is confronted by Victor, which is so European in its treatment. The acting is a huge let-down. Victor Banerjee is completely wasted. Ritwik is quite impressive as long as he keeps his mouth shut, in fact his blank stares and maniacal intensity with the sound-props are his only redemptive qualities in the film. Raima Sen seems to be watching Ekta Kapoor serials too intently these days. Churni Ganguly can boast of being the only actor to outdo Nana Patekar when it comes to mannerisms. The dialogues are extremely amateurish and do not have that killer punch. The screenplay is static with the story progressing in a repetitive loop. And, the climax is so abrupt and out-of-sync, almost like a fake orgasm.

Kai Po Che

Kai Po Che is a winner all the way. Meticulously crafted, it's neither a spellbinding celluloid marvel nor a half-baked Bollywood potboiler. The story of friendship, heartbreak and redemption through a stormy ride of betrayal by fate and history transforms Chetan Bhagat's mediocre work into an honest and heartwarming crowd-pleaser. The three towering aspects of the film are - the casting, cinematography and music. Anay Goswami does a terrific job with the camera. Amit Trivedi, yet again, vindicates his position as the most consistent and bankable music director in the industry. If A.R.Rahman is the Sachin Tendulkar of Bollywood, Amit Trivedi surely is Michael Clarke. Sushant Singh Rajput delivers a stellar performance as Ishan who is mercurial and temperamental, infectiously warm and gullible, trapped in a bubble of naivety. Amit Sadh as Omi is a knockout too, bringing out the complex nuances of his character with a steady transformation from unwavering loyalty towards his friends to a gradual, stuttering descent into murkiness. But, Raj Kumar Yadav as Govind, eclipses his other two equally brilliant co-stars. Ambitious and miserly, hesitant and calculative, yet a quiet intensity amidst the incoherent traits of minimalism adds many shades to his character, and he plays out his role with mathematical precision, complementing and acting as a perfect foil to Ishan's volatility and Omi's vulnerability. With GoW, Nawazuddin Siddiqui has taken the elevator-route to capture the imagination of cinephiles and critics. LSD, Shaitan, Shahid and Kai Po Che - Raj Kumar Yadav prefers a ladder instead, taking slow and assured steps to the rightful place where he belongs.