Lijomol Jose as Sengani shines through in a star-driven slyly take on the class divide, justice and politics.

It doesn’t happen very often when a film tackles issues that are plaguing our society in a very unapologetic manner that it lays bare all its cards in the very first scene and what you know, it’s just the start.

The nearly three-hour film begins with the headcount of prisoners leaving that day, being asked which caste they belong to and police separate the ones of — Koravar, Ottar and Irular tribes — possibly to be charged with some other made-up cases, while others are let go of.

Then and there the director lets you know, what we are in for even though it was just the tip of the iceberg.

The film with a genius title is based on the true incident that took place in 1993. Falsely accused in a theft case, a man named Rajankannu of the Irular tribe was tortured to death in custody and his wife came to the lawyer for help. It ended up being a landmark case in the history of Tamil Nadu state as it was habeas corpus heard in the High Court.

In an era where education about BLM (Black Lives Matter) is becoming as important as breathing and eating and in the era of ACAB (All Cops Are Bastards), Jai Bhim is a pivotal cog in the wheel of today’s reality.

Since it’s inspired by a true incident, the centre figure is taken by the former advocate and justice K Chandru, who was very active in student politics and an important member of the Left movement.

Naturally, Suriya as Chandru gets the bulk of screen time and is the saviour for Sengeni (Lijomol Jose), who gives her everything to get the truth out.

Chandru in Jai Bhim is introduced with a sequence where he is leading a protest at a police station against police brutality and asking for the arrest of one of the cops and hence justice. Chandru is presented as a hero, and from the first scene you know he will win the case and he will get the job done, the only question was how.

The subject here was the cause and the pregnant tribal woman’s fight, courage but it slowly turns into a fight of that woman led by the Good Samaritan.

When he gets a breakthrough, the background score lets us know, he is a big deal. The judges, the prosecutor, the victim everyone seems to be indebted to him from some past deed.

This was one of the big reasons why I had reservations with movies such as Pink and Article 15 wherein the former the deep baritone and towering figure of Amitabh Bachchan enters and the story becomes about him fighting the case and not the case and the latter where it is about the high-class police officer and not the three dead Dalit girls (saviour complex).

Yes, the star, the saviour is required to make the audience believe that he can do it, he is trustworthy if that person is at the helm, he will be able to get to the root of the cause and deliver justice but it almost feels like hero worship here.

The camera angles, the score takes you away from the gravity of the situation as 28 minutes before his entry, Tha Se Gnanavel is successful in showing how tribal communities are exploited and how the rich caste member treat them as untouchables.

The film is about the systematic and normalised oppression against the unprivileged. The framing, the blaming and the accusation and the brutality in custody that follows in the grab of interrogation. Jai Bhim does not just tell you how common it is, it also tells you how deep it runs and so many hierarchies it goes through without any objection.

It was easy for the minister to make a scapegoat of Rajakannu (K Manikandan), who visited his house a few days ago to catch a snake. The senior police officer is under immense pressure from the minister and it just flows through the ranks and the ones handling the case go on outright hooliganism.

The one suffering from all this is Rajakannu and his wife, with one child and another on the way. Denied basic human rights and identity, Sengeni’s dream of living in a house made of bricks, not the ones with thatched rooftops, who can’t stand an overnight rain.

The odds are stacked against her in every way and form. She is alone as Rajakannu went outstation to earn a living when the accusation is made. She pleads, yells, gets tortured till the search for her husband comes to an end.

The screenplay naturally makes you root for her and could/should have been the ideal protagonist but it wasn’t to be. It is as emotional a performance as it is physical. She roams around with her daughter Alli and the unborn child, asking for help, to let her know what is happening.

It is a gut-wrenching act because you are witness to the absolute disturbing torture which her husband, Rajakannu’s nephew and sister are going through and she is helpless. She is howling, crying and almost dies inside seeing her husband getting dragged into the station and the inhumane treatment.

Like Mythra (Vijayan), the lawyer’s role should have been restricted to helping in her rebirth, the catalyst to help her dream and believe that the monsters can be put to their place. However, the latter becomes the driving force, which is unfortunate…

Sengeni has a beautiful character arc as the story progresses, the tribal character has a supposed “mass scene” where the policemen are pleading her to sit in the jeep and not create a scene as the orders are from higher authority. She has started believing, she knows, now the ball is in her court. It’s a magnificent scene and equally well-performed.
She is vulnerable yet brave because she knows if she gives up, the atrocities are only going to line up furthermore. The anger, the pain are felt and Lijomol embodies all of that.

Sengani is the protagonist of this story, the cause and the film should have had as ultimately it is he, who wins it for her and not her win, as it should have been.

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The misplaced protagonist in Jai Bhim was originally published in AlternateTake on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Frank Herbert’s 1965 novel Dune is often regarded to be a pioneering science-fiction novel of the 20th century. After a shelved attempt and a shoddy adaptation by David Lynch, Denis Villeneuve’s film finally does justice to Herbert’s massive world-building ability.

Like most stories that transcend generations to remain loved, Dune can also be read in different ways. But as its cinematic adaptation ran in front of my eyes, I found a clear, deliberate theme of colonialism that seems integral to the idea of the story. But more than that, I found the film — made in 2021 — to be catering to the colonial and not the colonized, making it a questionable film politically (at least as it stands at the end of part one).

A lot of the film is invested in exposition, and yet the narrative continues to be riddled with ideas, phrases and allegiance lines that remain confusing. To sum it in short, the story is about two beings — Atreidus, who hold control over Arrakis, a desert planet that is home to the local tribe Fremen.

What interests the Atreidus in Arrakis is the vegetation of a special spice in this desert-land that helps in intergalactic travel. This means that a part of Atreidus population in the desert world continues to dig in search of these spices until a creature called desert-worm is tantalized by the rhythmic sound of machines to launch an attack.

It is a classic colonial versus colonized narrative, the kind we have seen in a film like Avatar years ago. The problem, though, behind the visual extravagance, Villeneuve’s knack for bigger-than-humans storytelling, and Hans Zimmer’s fantastic score, is that the film (not going into the novel) has a protagonist who is a colonizer. Paul (Chalamet) is a white man in a country that is not his, to begin with.

The narrative, in trying to be authentic to the novel, seems to forget that 1965 was still a time when the idea of a white man’s burden was as ripe as the brewing thought of a white man’s transformation. The latter was a more liberal idea of looking at colonialism, a more comfortable gaze than the more criticized former.

But in Dune we are given a narrative dominated by white people, and the natives — the blue-eyed Fremen — are only given a compromised screen presence. This goes deeper, of course. It is a problem with previous Villeneuve films, too. His films are quite easily on the side of the white majority, probably the reason why he is so successful.

Arrival was as much about showing China as the wrathful, impatient beast against the gentle, helpful aliens as it was about a woman — a white woman — and a white man being calm, and composed, trying to find humanity in those alien beings, a comment on how there were some “good” whites who always saw the human in the “other”.

With Dune, the theme of colonialism is too obvious, and the film’s white-centric politics too easily visible. The second part promises more of Fremen, and Paul’s transition into a life of Arrakis, but the question remains. Why? Why are we still paying service to a plot where a bland, white man is our protagonist when far more interesting characters are around? And more urgently, why can’t we tinker with the perspective and choice of protagonists in adapting a work of literature? Why?

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Colonialism and Culture in Cinema: Looking at Villeneuve’s Dune: Part One was originally published in AlternateTake on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Debanjan Dhar

The prologue of Pieces of a Woman — a prolonged one take, that spills over thirty minutes, unfolds in the cinema verite tradition. Kornel Mundruczo pushes the camera to a nearly suffocating point of proximity to the crisis the woman at the centre of the film is undergoing. Martha’s labour pain is conveyed to the viewer in punishingly intense detail. A series of grunts and belches and bellows and huffs, performed in awe inducing minuteness of expression by Vanessa Kirby interpolate the auditory composition of the unbroken sequence. Martha’s husband Sean cracks be Dad jokes to cheer her up and a replacement midwife , Eva, arrives , adequately warm and sufficiently glowing in her endearments to Martha. Molly Parker’s inherent softness of disposition is instantly convincing, and the entire process of birth giving is tracked almost methodically, beat by beat, from extreme agony to relief to the sheer blossoming of love that washes over Martha’s face as she holds her baby. The fleeting of intimate association lingers over the film, rippling across the various characters’ lives in the manifestation of what could have been, the loss engendered by the eventual miscarriage.

The loss jolts the couple widely apart, violently rupturing the relationship the husband and wife share. The drifting apart happens not over a gradual period but a near immediate repercussion of the fatal episode. Martha becomes withdrawn into her innermost recesses, impassive and stubbornly aloof. Sean looks for some mutual sliver of solace. Defeated, at one point , he even tried to coerce her into sex which she staunchly resists. These lead into his falling back on his old addiction issues, and an illicit angle with a lawyer who represents the couple in their civil suit against the midwife.

There is a subtle ache in her gaze when she looks at or watches kids with their parents on the subway, or at the departmental store. But director Kornel isn’t content to just let this unrealised yearning and the deep seated ramifications of trauma be the primary fulcrum of the narrative. He bungs in dementia, Holocaust survivorship, the resentments that run through families, the difficulties of a recovering addict, and the complexity of Martha’s mother who’s not the prototypical ideal comfort couch mother; she might seem calculating and downright manipulative in places.

The problem is Kata Weber’s writing doesn’t rise to the challenge posed by these several tangents the team is interested in tackling. The dialogue gets almost confoundingly pointless frequently, incapable of adding any dramatic weight of articulation to the various quandaries the characters are trapped in. There are these verbose scenes of a family gathering where the people chat at length about The Strokes, and the poor dialogue severely diminishes any actual semblance of convivial conversation that characterises such gatherings. The toggling between the various subplots is conspicuously clumsy and the peripheral narrative angles only serve to detract from the infinitely more watchable potential of Martha’s coping with her tragedy. They strain terribly on the central conceit, though I get the intention of the director and writer to portray the far reaching effects of such a circumstance. Sean himself spells it out, equating it to a resonance, a concept from his vocation as a bridge construction worker, a sort of vibration that can bring an entire house down.

The symbolisms are too overt and heavy handed be it the apple that Martha constantly nibbles or the bridge that Sean is close to finishing building while destroying the emotional bridges in his own life. The characters too have little depth, and the observation of trauma strikes the viewer as specious, and you don’t really gain a textured understanding of Martha’s inner reality. She is mostly always stolid, inaccessible behind an impenetrable veneer of opacity and unexpressed emotions. Kornel’s direction is impatient and jagged and unfocused, which is why Kirby is frequently impeded from portraying a much varied processing of her situation. You want to stay by her side but Kornel yanks attention away to some other angle. Her conviction and commitment is complete but the narrative enquiry into her mental spaces are staggeringly vacuous. There are some inexplicably silly shots of throat muscles quavering or backsides of neck and closeups of the eyes in the courtroom scene, designed to little effect whatsoever. Ellen Burstyn channels all her singular ferocity in a three minute monologue as exhorts her daughter to move on, citing an episode from her own past.

Howard Shore’s music is tailored to aid the melodrama on display, and there are some genuinely bafflingly fatuous manipulative background use purposefully nudging at our heartstrings. Unfortunately, you sense the effort of being emotionally wheedled. Though there’s an lovely apposite bit when Martha and Sean share an intimate caress and look in the bathtub right before her delivery.

Societal projections towards Martha are also something that Kornel desperately attempts to rail against, explicitly enumerated in multiple scenes but the insight is ill-founded.

Everyone, the sister or her mother or her acquaintances, desires Martha to act or mourn in a certain way which she refuses to adhere to.

For all its empathy, the perspective towards a woman dealing with the damaging emotional and physical toll of a miscarriage someone doesn’t develop to any degree of intelligent , nuanced commentary. We don’t really get to inhabit the frayed ties and her psychological terrain. All of it winds towards a courtroom scene that doesn’t earn any emotional gravitas it aspires for, and the final moments are especially at odds with the tonality the film had previously been poised in.

Had Kata Weber not zoomed out from a character study to give a wider look ,perhaps the film would have retained some of its initial scabrous intimacy. Ultimately ,however Pieces of a Woman morphs into an erratic, garbled mess and all the jumbled energies of the many plot angles turn out to be largely ineffectual.

You can watch Pieces of A Woman on Netflix.

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Pieces of a Woman Review: Vanessa’s Kirby’s fierce conviction can’t rescue this soapy, haphazard… was originally published in AlternateTake on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

I don’t want to offend classical movie lovers by the choice of this title, however I just can’t help but juxtapose this impassioned musical with what it inspired — La La Land.

When I saw La La Land for the first time I was dumbstruck by how perfect the film was. I wanted to speak so much about it but cautiously chose not to, for I found myself unable to articulate the utter perfection of the film. HOW? — That’s the first question that I encountered every time I watched it. “How did they pull it off? How did they make it happen?” This piece though, isn’t about La La Land. There are multiple reasons for it to not be about La La Land; one being I still am at a loss of words to articulate myself in a manner which would do justice to the film and I still don’t have any answer for the ‘how’ being another. I figured however that the answer to this ‘how’ might become a little less obscure if I follow the ‘what’. What galvanized Chazelle to make this musical? It is this ‘what’ which took me from the extroverted streets of Los Angeles to the shy suburbs of Cherbourg.

The twentieth century was a dreadful period for the human civilization. Humanity inflicted upon itself some of the most dastardly deeds ever in ths epoch. 1960s France had a very clear image of what diabolic cruelty looked like — it had come out of The Second World War and was still a combatant in The Cold War. It was to this somberness that Jacques Demy decided to add colors. The Umbrellas of Cherbourg is colorful in its appearance and has contrast at its heart. It is charming but not wholesome. It is sacrificial but not disloyal.

The film begins with a montage which shows Guy (Nino Castelnuovo) hastily leaving the mechanic shop where he works to meet his love Genevieve (Catherine Deneuve) who works at her mother’s umbrella shop. They sing and dance and make vows. Both actors embody these characters perfectly. You don’t need subtitles to understand what they say and feel. Language is a distraction not a barrier. It is their innocence that you fall in love with first, their love second. It is also because of this innocence that Genevieve listens to her mother’s taunts and Guy takes care of his sick aunt. No matter how righteous you are, life questions your integrity. Guy gets drafted and Genevieve becomes pregnant. Both of them are pulled out of their shades, forcefully, to see the world for what it actually is — Cruel. Guy sees how humans quench their blood-thirst by killing one-another, Genevieve discovers the embarrassment that comes forth with social stigmas. It is this reality-check that Guy’s aunt wanted to give to him, it is this society that Genevieve’s mother talked ill about. Eventually both of them come to terms with their realities, but the price they pay is their innocence. Rationality dwells over them way more than morality ever did. After all “People only die of love in the movies”.

Celebrated music director Michel Legrand composed the music of this film and he is as good as they come. No matter how trying times get in Cherbourg, the music never feels forced. There are in total seventeen songs in the film with none of them lasting for more than five minutes. It is no small feat to compose these songs keeping in mind that each is a different conversation but it is even more difficult to interconnect all of them. Such is the craft of Legrand that he does both of these things perfectly. Every song has a different piquancy to it while also being consistent with the overall theme. A certain Hurwitz, who was born 20 years from the release of this film, would take these cues and create some gems of jazz in another much lauded film. But that is, as I said, a story of some other time.

Demy should also be praised for the way he frames and blocks a scene. Framing and Blocking are important aspects of any kind of film-making but they are even more valuable for musicals. In musicals there is not as much reacting as there is performing — Hence your job as a director is also that of a show-runner. There isn’t a single scene in this film that doesn’t flow smoothly, not a single scene in which the performance suffers.

Even though Genevieve and Guy go their separate ways, but this by-no-means mean that the film doesn’t believe in the alchemy of love. It is because of this belief that Ronald (Marc Michel) doesn’t pay heed to societal norms, it is because of this belief that Madeleine (Ellen Farner) truly wants to curb Guy’s addiction. People might die of love only in the movies, but they surely get revived by it in reality. Love might not be anybody’s last option, but it surely is everybody’s second chance. The thing about incomplete romances is that they leave you with a one-of-a-kind bittersweet after taste. Genevieve and Guy would tell you that, and so would Mia and Sebastian.

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“The Umbrellas of Cherbourg” — A Worthy Antecedent was originally published in AlternateTake on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Srijit Mukherji’s Feluda Pherot is a smartly executed adaptation of an outstandingly written material. The story for this very first season of the series is based on Satyajit Ray’s original story Chinnomastwar Obhishap. Unlike his previous two films, Mukherji (both the writer and the filmmaker) has lived up to my expectations.

The story which is set at Hazaribagh in the 1970s begins when the iconic sleuth Feluda (Tota Roy Chowdhury) goes on a vacation to the enchanting hills of Hazaraibagh along with his sidekicks Jatayu (Anirban Chakraborty) and Topshe (Kalpan Mitra). And like all the other Feluda novels, the mystery follows his ways and this time, it knocks the door of the private investigator when Feluda and company encounter the family of a famous elderly lawyer, Mahesh Chowdhury (Dhritiman Chatterji) and come to know about the escape of a Royal Bengal Tiger named Sultan.

Feluda is not only one of the most iconic characters in the rich history of Bengali literature, but also an unabated part of the Bengali emotions. And whenever one, specifically a Bengali thinks of watching an audiovisual presentation of Feluda, the immortal persona of Soumitra Chatterjee or the sparkling debonair of Sabyasachi Chakraborty automatically appears on his/her mind. Being a millennial, I have been grown up watching the Sandip Ray’s Feluda films and liked it as it used to provide genuine delectation. But Srijit Mukherji has done something what Vishal Bharadwaj does with the Shakespearean dramas. Mukherji has invented a new style by following the minute details of the core text and pouring cinematic colors to the pencil sketches. The fantastic performances from the outstanding primary cast have concreted his vision of an authentic adaptation. Tota Roy Chowdhury who is vastly overexposed in the television due to his daily- soap has done a wonderful work as Feluda through adapting the mannerisms and most importantly the use of eyes of the character. Sometimes, too much preparation and cautiousness of the actor may diminish the intensity and spontaneity of the performance. And it is quite evident from Tota Roy Chowdhury’s taut looks and strongly pronounced dialogues. Anirban Chakraborty as Jatayu has done a decent job without caricaturing anything. The most important trait of Topshe’s character is his innocence and Kalpan Mitra who exactly looks like Ray’s first illustration of the character has this natural innocence both in his looks and in his performance. Dhritiman Chatterji as Mahesh Chowdhury has not got the deserved balls to hit a big score. None from the rest of the cast has brought anything unique on the table except Rishi Kaushik. He has done a fantastic job as the tough reticent yet brooding ringmaster.

It is not at all easy to make a screenplay adaptation out of a Ray story as it has so many broad scenarios to be covered. But Mukherji has done a commendable job as he has treated the whole project from the perspective of an avid lover of the story, of the characters, of the book. He has taken a lot of the dialogues directly from the original story. The story itself is so powerful and engaging that it keeps the audiences’ attention throughout all the six episodes but it is Mukherji’s execution that makes the visuals so charming. Supriyo Dutta’s lenses have made the landscapes, drone-shots and other sequences picturesque and Debojyoti Ghosh’s beautiful grading has given them the authentic period look. My favorite shot of the film is when Rishi Kaushik raises the curtain and walks in the central stage of the circus following by his multiple shadows and we see the whole scene from a long drone-shot. These threads of well composed shots have been aptly knotted by Editor, Pronoy Dasgupta. Srijit Mukherji has even taken long shots of conversions to showcase the intricate details in Tanmoy Chakraborty’s impeccable production designing. Mukherji has left no stone unturned to get the ‘look and feel’ right. Sabarni Das’s precise costumes and Moloy Mukherjee’s accurate make up have helped Srijit to recreate the illustrations perfectly from the book. When you are watching a cinema on a silent movie theater, you are compelled to listen to every single meaningful silence and sounds of the sequences in the film because a dark and silent theatre is capable of doing that magic. And that magic cannot be recreated by the screens of your Laptops, Smart TVs, and Mobiles. That’s why Joy Sarkar’s soothing background score which has been used almost in each and every sequence tries to create a dramatic effect which may trigger the audiences’ attention and Anindit Roy’s and Adeep Singh Manki’s sound designing makes all of the dialogues more clear and loud rather artificially to lessen the natural noise outside. I have not felt uncomfortable watching the use of the VFX in the series as I have found it far better than the visual effects of the Bengali film which had the biggest budget.

Comparison in art is done to trace out the similarities and disparities between two different artistic works which have been originated from the same source. Cinematic presentation of Feluda has been done and will be done by various filmmakers in various platforms. In the first season of Feluda Pherot, Srijit Mukherji has equally used his ‘MOGOJ’ (intellect) and his ‘ASTRO’ (technical brilliance) to capture the delicate innocence of the literary work.

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Fedula Pherot Season 1 Review: A tribute to the heritage of Feluda from an ardent Feluda fan! was originally published in AlternateTake on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Here’s our list of what we consider to be the absolute best of Indian and International Web series. (Please note we are only considering series that have been officially released in India this year.)

TOP 5 INDIAN WEB SERIES

1. Scam 1992 (Dir: Hansal Mehta, Jay Mehta) (ALT’s Choice)

Technically slick and riding on pure kinetic storytelling thanks to a razor sharp screenplay and bolstered by an extraordinary Pratik Gandhi, Scam 1992 tracks the meteoric rise and eventual fall of Harshad Mehta with compelling nuance. Director Hansal Mehta assembles the finest ensemble cast in years and stages a superbly riveting exploration of the price of ambition, refuses to dumb down financial jargon, and delivers a fascinating look at a man undone by his hubris.

Scam 1992 is now streaming on Sony Liv.

2. Pushpavalli Season 2 ( Dir: Debbie Rao)

Standup comic and creator, Sumukhi Suresh peerlessly plays a character that isn’t your average garden-variety sociopath. The show mirrors her mantra in how it uses humour whether it is cultural, situational or observational to camouflage a well-crafted dark tale. Though it may not be the perfect portrayal of an imperfect character, the performance by Sumukhi Suresh makes the journey of her messy character sumptuously unapologetic.

Pushpavalli Season 2 is now streaming on Amazon Prime Video.

3. Pataal Lok (Dir: Avinash Arun, Prosit Roy)

Disguised as a police procedural, Sudip Sharma’s show presents a bracing skewering of the many sociopolitical spheres and fault lines of the nation, cutting across class, power corridors, religious bigotry and racism, and the origin of violence. Front lined by a career defining performance from Jaideep Ahlawat, the show succinctly captures the current vitiated political moment in India.

4. Panchayat (Dir: Deepak Kumar Mishra )

Deepak Kumar Mishra’s miniseries starring an earnest Jitendra Kumar and a very fine Raghubir Yadav is full of simple, gentle delights. This tale about a fresh out of college guy who finds himself in rural UP with his govt job does gaze at some bitter issues but with a light-footedness, it’s more interested in the minute joys of everyday moments.

Panchayat is now streaming on Amazon Prime Video.

5. Special Ops ( Dir: Neeraj Pandey)

Director Neeraj Pandey’s debut web series is an edge-of-the-seat thriller that has the same amount of charm as his previous feature films, making this amazing series, too, a nail-biting one. Most of the action scenes are well-choreographed and the actors performing them are at the top of their game. However, it all wouldn’t have worked had it not been for the good writing by the trio(Neeraj Pandey, Deepak Kingrani, Benazir Ali Fida) that makes the series gripping.

Special Ops is now streaming on Hotstar.

TOP 5 INTERNATIONAL WEB SERIES

1. The Crown Season 4 ( Creator : Peter Morgan) (ALT’s Favourite)

While the show occasionally underlines it’s symbolisms, it remains a triumphant, scintillating piece of storytelling, as it finally gets even more audacious in revealing the cruelties and coldness of the Royal Family. The new season’s charting of various events is almost seamlessly brilliant, and Emma Corrin’s impeccably agile performance as Diana takes the show to thrilling new heights.

The Crown is streaming on Netflix.

2.The Queen’s Gambit ( Creators- Scott Frank , Allan Scott)

Scott Frank’s miniseries is a perfect marriage of the cerebral associations of chess, sensual style and troubled emotional exigencies. Anya Taylor Joy is hypnotic, Marielle Heller as her mother is quietly heartbreaking, and the series is ultimately about the loneliness of genius, trauma, nurturing and finding a support system to cushion one’s growth.

The Queen’s Gambit is streaming on Netflix.

3. The Mandalorian Season 2 (Creator : Jon Favreau)

Creator Jon Favreau’s The Mandalorian was always a breath of fresh air for star wars as it was everything that the much more hyped Rise of the Skywalker was too afraid to be. The Mandalorian made the most out of its format of episodic tales in season 2. Episodes took on a range of genres which brought about varied styles and helped to ensure that the episodes didn’t feel the same even though structurally they are. However, if season 1 was bringing in new fans to star wars, season 2 was much more about rewarding old fans which did mean a fair bit of homework for newer fans to truly appreciate what was being shown onscreen.

The Mandalorian is streaming on Disney+Hotstar.

4. The Boys Season 2 ( Developed by Eric Kripke)

Eric Kripke’s The Boys Season 2 continues its excellent form of balancing its comedy, over-the-top violence, and character development into a cohesive force of awesomeness. The second season fires on all cylinders right from the outset. Despite getting a lot bigger, the writers do a great job of keeping the writing streamlined and never losing focus of their true goal thereby ensuring that the story doesn’t get messy. Utterly preposterous, extremely violent and insanely fun- the boys does a great job of being one of the best shows out there at portraying satire.

You can read our full review of the series:

The Boys(Season 2):- Utterly preposterous, extremely violent and insanely fun- the second season…

The Boys Season 2 is streaming on Amazon Prime Video.

5. The Good Place Season 4 (Creator: Michael Schur)

In season 4, The Good Place goes back to its strengths. The return to familiar turf works beautifully as the show moves into its fourth and final season, setting up plenty of funny and sweet callbacks. It also shows how much the characters have grown, and how far they’ll still have to go to achieve their goals. Putting the characters back in their old neighborhood lets them revisit earlier plots and behaviours from a new perspective. The writers clearly thought through all the easy ways out of the problem of writing for the final season, building a conflict that explores the ethics of lying and the potential for redemption, while also leaving plenty of room for hilarious gags.

The Good Place is streaming on Netflix.

BEST CREATORS OF INDIAN WEB SERIES

1. Sudip Sharma ( Pataal Lok) (ALT’s Favourite)

In the skillful hands of show runner Sudip Sharma and the directors Prosit Roy and Avinash Arun, Pataal Lok emerged as a scalding examination of the contemporary Indian sociopolitical reality. In many ways , Sudip coalesced his interests which had manifested in his former projects Sonchiriya, NH10 and Udta Punjab into a convergent whole in Pataal Lok.

2. Sumukhi Sukesh (Pushapavalli Season 2)

Known for her work as a stand-up comedian, Sumukhi Suresh goes out of her element in Pushpavalli season 2 whilst also retaining a familiar charm that makes you want to root for her character. She skillfully creates a dark tale that uses humour to portray the exploits of an imperfect character. She sticks to her strengths while writing for the second season and makes the wonderfully messy journey of her character deliciously obdurate.

3. The Viral Fever (Panchayat)

Over the past few years, TVF(The Viral Fever) have become synonymous with providing stories that people find relatable and entertaining. The writers at TVF make a perfect example that what you really need to make a series sing is a solid script. They ensure that the writing is punchy and the characters are relatable, thereby delivering a compelling village drama that is high on humour but also never shies away from social issues that are far quirkier than your average land disputes or child marriages.

4. Sandeep Modi, Ram Madhvani (Aarya)

In Aarya, creators Sandeep Modi and Ram Madhvani manage to conjure up a slickly designed drama, sucking us into the posh echelons of Rajasthan, and the world of narcotics. Modi and Madhvani explore power and family dynamics in compelling ways and there’s never a dull moment.

5. Hansal Mehta (Scam 1992)

Hansal Mehta triumphs in several capacities in his show Scam 1992. He captures a snapshot of a time in our history, with terrific writing, wholly persuasive production design and manages to somehow imbue his protagonist Harshad with just the right amount of humanness, never being swept by any impulse of adulation.

BEST CREATORS OF INTERNATIONAL WEB SERIES

1. Scott Frank , Allan Scott ( The Queen’s Gambit ) (ALT’s Favourite)

Director and co writer Scott Frank brings in acute emotional intelligence and meticulous visual precision, and a seamless blend of a distinct visual language with nuanced writing into a consummate pinnacle in The Queen’s Gambit. Besides his much talked about thematic explorations, what Scott also scores highly and breaks new ground is his depiction of the mother daughter relationship between Beth and Alma, two intelligent, jaded women who accept each other’s flaws over their occasionally rough journey of knowing and ultimately loving each other.

2. Peter Morgan (The Crown)

In season 4, creator Peter Morgan finally evokes the most trenchant, abrasive portrait of deep blind spots running through the Royal family, the price of the formidable effect of the Queen, and casts a biting, sharp look at her relationship with her children, along with adeptly representing the implications of Diana’s entry into the fold.

3. Micheal Schur (The Good Place)

As the writer of the previously beloved series, The Office, Creator Michael Schur sets a new bar for what could be achieved with comedy series in the final season of The Good Place. He sets up plenty of sweet callbacks to previous seasons and also beautifully depicts how far each character has grown and their motivations have changed. Through comedy, he explores the concept of redemption and doing something worthwhile in your life whilst also giving providing immense time for hilarious gags.

4. Eric Kripke (The Boys)

Known as the creator of the hit fantasy drama series, Supernatural, Creator Eric Kripke proves that he has a flair for creating and adapting fictional series. In the second season of The Boys, even though the stakes are much more bigger than the first, he never gets carried away or too self-indulgent. He streamlines the writing and prevents it from getting messy which could have easily occurred with regards to the subject matter that the second season tackles. He is great at depicting satire and also takes some really funny jabs at the corporate world and the entertainment industry.

5. Daniel Levy, Eugene Levy (Schitt’s Creek)

The father-son duo of Daniel Levy and Eugene Levy (known for creating the American Pie series) took the world by storm in the final season of Schitt’s Creek, winning awards in all four major disciplines in a single year at the Primetime Emmys. Witty, warm, and with just the right blend of wisdom and wisecracks, in Schitt’s Creek’s final season, both Daniel Levy and Eugene Levy, give the perfect farewell to the Roses and the town that changed their lives.

Schitt’s Creek is now streaming on Netflix.

Copyright ©2020 AlternateTake. This article should not be reproduced in its entirety without permission. A link to this URL instead, would be appreciated.

BEST OF 2020 (Web series) was originally published in AlternateTake on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Here’s our list of what we consider to be the absolute best of Indian films and the most sterling performances there in, which riveted and had us spellbound in equal measure. (Please note we are only considering films that have been officially released in India this year.)

TOP 5 INDIAN FILMS

1. Eeb Allay Ooo! ( Dir: Prateek Vats ) (ALT’s Favourite)

Eeb Allay Ooo! tells the story of Anjani Prasad (Shardul Bharadwaj) as he gets an odd job of shooing monkeys away from the high-profile areas of Delhi. It is an odd, absurd premise and this becomes the basis for director Prateek Vats to churn one of the year’s most intelligent, brave films. Eeb Allay Ooo! is a fantastic indie, a well-thought satire in a country where artistic voice is harder to hold. Vats handles the film with care and bravado, letting Bharadwaj give one of the year’s most understated, appreciable central performance in a film that found its political potency wrapped under a wonderful story.

2. AK vs AK ( Dir: Vikramditya Motwane )

The final release of the year also turned out to be one of the best. Vikramaditya Motwane creates a mad mayhem in his latest mockumentary by pitting Anurag Kashyap, and Anil Kapoor against each other in a one-of-its-kind thriller that dives deep into the fractured, fraudulent nature of the business and the people who breathe on the opposite spectrum of the industry.

In one of the most audacious imitations of life on screen, Kapoor, and Kashyap bring their worst selves on screen to give us a crackling film that almost seems like testing its own ability to find a deeper, more gruesome face-off between the two, as they are in a televised ticking-bomb situation.

You can read our full review of the film:

AK vs AK Review: A cheeky insider joke transformed into a meta experience about art, society…

AK vs AK is now streaming on Netflix.

3. Thappad ( Dir: Anubhav Sinha )

Probably the best film of the year, this Anubhav Sinha directorial starring Tapsee Pannu in a career-defining role was one of the fortunate films to come out before the pandemic hit us. The film was by far the strongest work by Sinha after the wonderful Article 15. The film was an honest, incredible representation of a subdued, resolved army of women who find their voice against institutionalized patriarchy.

At the core is Amrita (Pannu) a conditioned housewife who is jolted into an individual rebel after her husband (Pavail Gulati) slaps her in public. The film was the most introspective, conversational work of the year, seeing patriarchy for what it is — an institution — and not anything else. A few terrific performances along with Pannu further helped in making this the most memorable cinematic experience of the year.

Thappad is now streaming on Amazon Prime Video.

4. C U Soon ( Dir: Mahesh Narayanan )

Starring Roshan Mathew, Fahadh Faasil, and Darshana Rajendran, C U Soon was the quintessential lockdown film, shot entirely during the COVID-19 lockdown, with actors shooting from the limitations of their homes. The film focuses solely on the laptop/mobile of the three characters as we see a love-story brewing between a romantic Jimmy (Mathew), and a somber, reluctant Anumol (Rajendran) while Faasil plays Jimmy’s best-friend and ally Kevin, as they embark on an unlikely journey of discovering mysteries behind the opaque identity of Anumol.

The film, directed by Mahesh Narayanan, was a fascinating experiment that worked both, as a cinematic representation of the lockdown, and a story of life, relationships, and an entire generation locked in boxes of their screens.

You can read our full review of the film:

C U Soon Review: A taut ‘on-screen’ thriller about socializing and horrors of flesh trade.

C U Soon is now streaming on Amazon Prime Video.

5. Raat Akeli Hai ( Dir : Honey Trehan )

In this grim, investigative murder mystery, director Honey Trehan blends the complex image of a dysfunctional Indian family with an Agatha Christie-esque whodunit. Starring Nawazuddin Siddique, Radhika Apte, and a host of other talented actors, the film was a rare story of a cop who was bruised, and frustrated, stuck in an arc that was more desperate to be heroic, than anything else.

Like most good movies Raat Akeli Hai had a wonderful climax, with a fantastic critique on the Indian men, and their assumed predatory nature that is hidden under the garb of normalcy, and a united, functional family.

You can read our review of the film:

𝐑𝐚𝐚𝐭 𝐀𝐤𝐞𝐥𝐢 𝐇𝐚𝐢 𝐑𝐞𝐯𝐢𝐞𝐰: A mostly promising, nail-biting premise falls prey to its…

Raat Akeli Hai is now streaming on Netflix.

Honourable Mentions : Gamak Ghar, Kadakh, Chippa.

BEST INDIAN ACTOR ( Male)

1. Shardul Bharadwaj ( Eeb Allay Ooo! ) (ALT’s Choice)

On paper, Shardul Bharadwaj’s role in Eeb Allay Ooo! seems simplistic, but a closer scrutiny of his performance shows a dedication to explore layers upon layers that contribute in making the film one of the best of the year. He carried the role of a forgettable man with a ridiculed job perfectly, bringing the right amount of innocence, and angst in a role that was designed to be an understated performance.

2. Anil Kapoor (AK vs AK)

On paper, playing yourself on screen sounds like the easiest job that exists. And yet, in AK vs AK Anil Kapoor does something extraordinary. He gives voice to his worst perception, giving a performance so unhinged and powerful, that it makes everything about the character Anil Kapoor disdainfully likable.

He emotes from a worried father, to a pretentious, yesteryear actor, and a man out on vengeance with ease, having great fun in company of Anurag Kashyap and direction Vikramaditya Motwane. There is an honest dedication to extract his most inhibited performance yet, making for some wonderful cinematic moments.

3. Manoj Bajpayee (Bhonsle )

For a film that hinged on its leading man’s outing as an expressionless, quiet, lonely man, Manoj Bajpayee conveyed the arc of his titular role in Bhonsle brilliantly. As a retired man who stands by his ethics in times of hate, and divisive politics, Bajpayee was a presence of poise, and strength in this portrayal of a man vulnerable in his sixties.

They say the toughest thing to do as an actor is to economize your expressions, and Bajpayee in Bhonsle epitomized that quality.

You can read our review of the film:

Bhonsle Review : The Quiet in the Chaos

Bhonsle is now streaming on Sony LIV.

4. Roshan Mathews ( C U Soon)

Imagine giving a performance sitting in front of an electronic device all along. Roshan Mathews did this brilliantly in the lockdown movie C U Soon, doing a wonderful job as a man in love, and his increasing concern and anxiety around her erratic behaviour. Mathews brought a great sense of honesty, and vulnerability to the role, doing a great deal in giving the film its emotional core, that it hugely benefitted from.

5. Adil Hussian (Nirvana Inn)

Adil is unsurprisingly excellent. He physicalizes the persistent damage of his deeds in a performance that is both loose-limbed in its execution and in full cognizance of the soberness of the situation. The gravity of the circumstance isn’t translated into convenient overbearing acting flashiness to stress it. Watch him closely in the scene where he breaks down and confesses to his acts, contrite. The camera’s tight on his face and his visage reflect a gradually unfolding plethora of heartbreaking regret, uncertainty that he had once grappled with, and the ultimate grasp of the overarching fatal implications and repercussions of his actions. It is absolutely breathtaking in its naked, unvarnished honesty and easily among the finest acting. It is unadulterated, wholly transparent and a spectacle of conviction.

BEST INDIAN ACTOR ( FEMALE)

1. Tillotama Shome ( Sir ) (ALT’s Choice)

A film like Sir breathes in its subtlety. This subtlety makes the art of acting a tricky preposition. This is precisely why Tilotama Shome’s presence in this delicate study of love, and companionship is a fascinating outing for her. Shome, a seasoned performer, finds a delicate innocence with a great understanding of the film’s socio-cultural context to power the film with a silenced, but unforgettable performance.

You can read our review of the film:

Sir Review- 𝗔 𝗱𝗲𝗹𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁𝗳𝘂𝗹 𝘁𝗮𝗹𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗯𝗶𝗱𝗱𝗲𝗻 𝗹𝗼𝘃𝗲, 𝗲𝗻𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗲𝗱…

2. Darshana Rajendran (C U Soon)

In one of her first major roles in a film, Darshana Rajendran championed a role with an elusive arc that ranged from a damsel in distress to a victim of a sex racket. Like Mathews, Rajendran found a valiant emotional core to give the film a realistic sense of anxiety, and intrigue, matching the brilliance of Rajendran, and Faasil beat-by-beat.

3. Konkona Sen Sharma (Dolly Kitty Aur Woh Chamakte Sitare)

The moral ambiguity of Dolly Kitty Aur Woh Chamakte Sitare was quite opaque, and it needed a convincing central performance to ensure the politics of the film does not hinder the narrative flow. Konkana Sen Sharma comes in handy here, giving a restrained, mature performance as a wife stuck in a marriage, and taking the first few steps in the realm of an extramarital affair. Sen brought a relatable vulnerability to an act of moral ambiguity, making Dolly a character we empathized with while we critiqued her choices in the film.

You can read the full review of the film:

Dolly Kitty Aur Woh Chamakte Sitare Review: Once Again, The Politics in Alankrita Shrivastava’s…

Dolly Kitty Aur Woh Chamakte Sitare is now streaming on Netflix.

4. Sobhita Dhulipala (Ghost Stories)

Ghost Stories was generally a disappointing anthology, but Anurag Kashyap’s short was a testament of his artistic grasp on the medium. Shobhita Dhulipala starred in this as a mentally unstable pregnant woman, giving the film a terrifying central performance, that was eerie, but not over-the-top.

Ghost Stories is now streaming on Netflix.

5. Rajshri Deshpande (Nirvana Inn)

Rajshri is compelling and she locates something unknowable and inaccessible about Mohini. Despite her character having little breadth, Rajshri has a charismatic presence and plays her with a subtly inviting air.

BEST INDIAN SUPPORTING ACTOR (Male)

1. Anurag Kashyap (AK vs AK) (ALT’s Choice)
2. Pankaj Tripathi (Gunjan Saxena: The Kargil Girl)
3. Fahaad Faasil (C U Soon)
4. Santosh Juvekar (Bhonsle)
5. Kumud Mishra (Thappad)

BEST INDIAN SUPPORTING ACTOR (Female)

1. Geetika Ohlyan (Thappad) (ALT’s Choice)
2. Amruta Subhash (Choked)
3. Ila Arun (Raat Akeli Hai)
4. Tanvi Azmi (Thappad)
5. Seema Pahwa ( Chintu Ka Birthday)

BEST DIRECTOR (INDIAN)

1. Prateek Vats (Eeb Allay Ooo!) (ALT’s Choice)

A story of a monkey-repeller, who is given the job to keep our supreme leaders and the various ‘Bhawans’ in the capital city away from the monkeys. Prateek Vats tackles a satire about employment, faith and class divide in the brilliant ‘Eeb Allay Ooo’ with astute knowledge about the current politics and detailing of Delhi.

2. Vikramaditya Motwane (AK vs AK)

Motwane who co-wrote the film AK vs AK uses all the mainstream tropes and brews it like a fine stew of both mainstream and arthouse sensibilities. Motwane is probably the only director working in the film industry who has such a varied and equally brilliant filmography. He for once isn’t scared of embarking on this risky endeavor.

3. Devashish Makhija (Bhonsle)

Another normalization in our country — the othering — has been tackled by Devashish Makhija in Bhonsle. Through Manoj Bajpayee, Makhija finds a character via whom the audience enters the Mumbai chawl the film is set in. The sense of — someone is different from us — has been deep-rooted in minds that if we see someone different from us, the first thought comes is of the difference and not of the sameness — of being a human being. The Bihari-Marathi divide depicted by Makhija through its four principal characters and a mind-bending performance by Bajpayee, makes it worth a watch.

4. Anubhav Sinha (Thappad)

Apart from various other things that have been normalized in this country, domestic violence against women probably tops the list. It has become so normal that whenever it takes place, the man is asked if he is okay and is all blamed on his temper, his problems but no one asks, why did it happen in the first place. And, how did it creep into his mind that it was okay to do so in the first place? The Anubhav Sinha version 2.0, after addressing Islamophobia, Casteism in his last two films, attacks patriarchy this time in his usual verbose manner and passes with flying colours. He addressed every, basic minute details that have been ingrained into us living in a patriarchal society, in such a measured way, it’s hard-hitting and a gripping drama at the same time.

5. Mahesh Narayanan (C U Soon)

Mahesh Narayanan in the on-screen screen film ‘C U Soon’. Narayanan and his team has utilized all those aspects and used various screens (laptops, CCTV, mobiles, etc.) to give us a gripping tale of fickle nature of technology, relationships formed within moments and horrors of young women being coaxed into prostitution.

Honourable Mention: Achal Mishra.

Copyright ©2020 AlternateTake. This article should not be reproduced in its entirety without permission. A link to this URL instead, would be appreciated.

BEST OF 2020 (Indian Films) was originally published in AlternateTake on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Here’s our list of what we consider to be the absolute best of international films and the most sterling performances there in, which riveted and had us spellbound in equal measure. (Please note we are only considering films that have been officially released in India this year.)

TOP 5 INTERNATIONAL FILMS

1. SOUND OF METAL ( Dir : Darius Marder) (ALT’s Favourite )

“…Darius Marder’s ‘Sound of Metal’ is an unusual and authentic film about the usual life with a profoundly intricate sound design. The usual films about specially able persons depict their stories in a typical way by showing the triumph of spirit over body. But Marder has broken this conventional style of storytelling with an exceptionally immersive screenplay.”

Read our full review of the film :

𝗦𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗱 𝗼𝗳 𝗠𝗲𝘁𝗮𝗹 𝗥𝗲𝘃𝗶𝗲𝘄: 𝗔𝗻 𝘂𝗻𝘂𝘀𝘂𝗮𝗹 𝗱𝗿𝗮𝗺𝗮 𝗮𝗯𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲…

2. The Trial of Chicago 7 ( Dir : Aaron Sorkin )

“…This film will stand out from its contemporary courtroom dramas because of its sheer timeless relevance and the masterful treatment of the craft. The film is a quintessential courtroom drama with a wonderfully tear-jerking climax which in it itself is very powerful and its effect is amplified by the chants of “The whole world is watching.” This film is a journey through the angst and the psyche of a revolutionary wonderfully captured by Sorkin in a balanced manner. The film reminds us once again how time and history cyclically repeats itself until and unless we start to recognize and learn from our past.”

Read our full review of the film :

The Trail of the Chicago 7 Review: The new Aaron Sorkin film redefines the word engaging by…

3. Da 5 Bloods ( Dir : Spike Lee )

Spearheaded by Delroy Lindo’s towering, unforgettable performance, Spike Lee’s masterfully orchestrated drama about African American vets who return to Vietnam for treasure and remains of their leader but also find themselves haunted by old demons, is a blistering study of race relations, crime and salvation, Black patriotism. The film effortlessly mixes action spectacle with doses of wry humor.

Now Streaming on Netflix.

4. Mank ( Dir : David Fincher )

“…Mank is a lot of things, but at its core it is a character study of a man who felt out-of-place, and voiceless, even as he worked on not only the best work of his life, but one of the most celebrated films of Hollywood. And yet, the film is little about Citizen Kane, and even lesser about Orson Welles, the man who controversially shared the screenplay credits of the film with Herman J. Mankiewicz (for which they won an Academy Award).”

Read our full review of the film:

Mank Review : 𝐀 𝐒𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐆𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐚𝐭 𝐚 𝐒𝐡𝐚𝐤𝐞𝐬𝐩𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐧 𝐇𝐞𝐫𝐨 𝐢𝐧…

Now Streaming on Netflix.

5. Boys State ( Dir : Amanda McBaine , Jesse Moss )

“…Boys State provides a chance to learn from each other and hear from the opposite side, without screaming and yelling on a Facebook post.” And, unfortunately, this has become the reality of today’s politics, where social media has become the battleground of ideologies with loud mouths and without ears and Boys State (or Girls State), gives the American teeangers a chance to delve themselves into politics at an early age and groom themselves into future politicians later, but informed citizens of the world’s ‘greatest’ democracies.”

Read your full review of the film:

Boys State Review: A compelling drama on the politics of a state and the state of politics

Now streaming on Apple TV+.

BEST ACTOR (MALE)

1. Chadwick Boseman (Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom) (ALT’s Favourite )

“Chadwick performance in the role of an aspiring and emotionally damaged trumpet player is subdued and measured, even though it is theatrical in its approach. Chadwick shows his skill as an able co-star as he doesn’t hog for the limelight and feeds of his costars. There is an innate ease and likeability that Chadwick brings to this role and his final performance stands out to be his best.”

2. Riz Ahmed (Sound of Metal)

“…The star of ‘The Night Of’, Riz plays the character of a punk-metal drummer who is forced to look at his life differently as he goes deaf. And that’s the only thing Riz does too. He observes both the suffocating and surreal silences. His expressive eyes, confused body language paint the arch of his character and offer glimpses into his complex inner world. It conveys his pain and despair as the world around him moves on. He doesn’t only react but respond to each and every beat of his sequences. Ahmed plays it subtle, conveying the quietness that often comes with fear and denial.”

3. Delyroy Lindo ( Da 5 Bloods)

As Paul, a PTSD suffering former solider who’s full of fury with the way his life shaped out, Delroy Lindo is magnificently incendiary, The destructive breadth of his conflicts is captured with sheer career defining mastery, and he is the film’s unshakeably ferocious centre. The charged intense soliloquy which he delivers as he says he will decide his own fate, not the war nor the government, slips from comedy to anger to gutwrenching pain.

4. Gary Oldman (Mank)

“…Oldman is brilliant here, giving Mankviewicz the physicality of a Shakespearean tragic hero, bound to be lost in the glitz of Hollywood, for a blend of his flaws, and a corrupt, money-minting industry. Citizen Kane, then, is simply the final attempt by him to leave a mark on the industry. His way of telling the world that he is more than his worst, self-destructive self. That he is an artist before anything else.”

5. Jim Parsons (The Boys in the Band )

“…Parsons stands out from the rest of the cast with his electric performance displaying his full range of acting prowess by jumping from one emotion to another effortlessly but earnestly. A trained theatre actor that he is, he instantly grabs your attention whenever he is on screen with his unique body language and dialogue delivery. Though he might be overlooked in the award circuit, this stands out as one of the strongest performances of the year.”

Read our full review of the film:

The Boys in the Band Review: Jim Parsons leads a terrific ensemble in a gripping rendition of the…

The Boys in the Band is now streaming on Netflix.

BEST ACTOR (FEMALE )

1. Haley Bennett (Swallow ) (ALT’s Favourite )

In Carlo Mirabella Davis’s superbly smart, subversive parable of male control and patriarchal aggressions, Haley Bennett puts in a star-making physically alert performance, both fierce and breathtaking. As a homemaker trapped in a stifling marriage where the husband dictates everything and who wrestles with her habit of ingesting sharp objects and slowly tries to reassert herself, Bennett’s performance has an astonishing audacity that one marvels at. Haley won the best actress award at Tribeca Film festival for this performance.

Swallow is now streaming on MUBI.

2. Viola Davis (Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom)

Viola Davis plays the role of Ma Rainey or the Mother of Blues. She maintains a dominating screen presence while playing a beautifully layered character who is at the same time kind and decisive, full of herself and submerged in pathos. She prevents the character from being over the top and carefully channelizes her experience in hitting the perfect note.

3. Sophia Loren ( The Life Ahead )

The film follows the relationship between a young Muslim orphan Momo and an old Jewish woman Madame Rosa who takes care of him following the death of his mother. Sophia Lorens’s legendary status is evident from the moment we see her on the screen, with her unparalleled grace combined with her unrivaled technique and restraint as an actor. She masters conviction with her dazzling quiet performance.

The Life Ahead is now streaming on Netflix.

4. Jayme Lawson (Farewell Amor )

Immigration and visa campaigns frequently carry a significant and long-lasting adverse effect on people’s lives, and this appreciation is beautifully communicated in Farewell Amor. Though the film doesn’t live up to its full potential, Jayme Lawson delivers an impressive performance. Her amazing skill of minimalistic approach to acting is really commandable at this early stage of her career.It is her graceful performance that elevates the film. She is an absolute revelation and one to look out for in the future.

Farewell Amor is now streaming on MUBI.

5. Amanda Seyfried (Mank)

In this film, Amanda shares most of her scenes with Gary Oldman and it really takes a lot of skill and expertise to completely overshadow Oldman in not one but all the scenes that they are in together. Amanda has that infectious energy and instant likeability which she brings to this character. The character of Marion Davies is ably written by Jack Fincher and Amanda gives her everything to it. Not to mention she looks breathtaking in every frame.

Best Director

1. Carlo Mirabella Davis (Swallow) (ALT’s Favourite )

Carlo Mirabella Daviswrites and directs his debut feature Swallow with a precocious insight into male repressions, female autonomy and twists the pica disorder into an expert skewering of gender dynamics. He uses atmospheric, intelligent lighting and framing to set up the site of festering entrapment. He shows the different forms and faces of patriarchal institutions, the long-simmering scars, and relies on the creepiness of our abundant imagination, conveying the long shadow of traumas and revolt with great skill. His specialty lies in his ability to insert darker, tragic, unsettling undercurrents to the most seemingly benign scenes.

2. David Fincher (Mank)

In Mank, David Fincher gives a fitting tribute to the man, and his need to own his one true masterpiece. In a selfless act that might even disappoint devout Fincher fans, Fincher almost cloaks himself here, letting his father’s script, and Oldman’s interpretation of the mercurial Mank take over his regular style of filmmaking, and turning this into a film that almost belongs to the era it is set in (in a good, positive way). And yet, it is Fincher’s ability to revel in the grey that makes this greater than a companion piece to the brilliance of Citizen Kane, and a nostalgic, sanitized gaze at what Hollywood was just after the Great Depression.

3. Spike Lee ( Da 5 Bloods )

Spike Lee was back to his absolute best in the Vietnam war epic Da 5 Bloods . As rightfully said by Peter Travers — “ … Lee is just the trailblazer to bring passion and clarity to his presentation of the bloods as patriots who suffered disproportionate combat losses in an immoral war that wasn’t theirs, then came home to a country that denied them civil rights and left them alienated and adrift. It’s the unbroken line of black sacrifice that gives the movie its cumulative, confrontational power. He doesn’t wrap his latest with the outrage sparked by the Floyd killing in Minneapolis. He doesn’t need to.”

4. Darius Marder ( Sound of Metal )

“…Writer-Director Darius Marder has meticulously constructed Ruben’s journey by making it uncomfortable not unbearable. He has compassionately captured the fragility of daily existence by reflecting the ideas of loss and acceptance through the whole film. The film doesn’t jump vigorously into the ideological separation between the consideration of deafness as an identity and the assumption of deeming it as a correctable disability. Rather it leaves a white canvas for questions about the acceptance of reality.”

5. Aaron Sorkin ( The Trial of Chicago 7)

“…Sorkin handles the court drama ( here political trials ) with ease and expertise because it bears too many similarities with the “playwright” kind of writing that Sorkin specializes at. His characters speak eloquently using well worded and sometimes witty dialogues with brooding confidence because that is generally the environment of a courtroom. The screenplay also written by Sorkin himself perfectly brings out the different unprecedented hardships.”

Copyright ©2020 AlternateTake. This article should not be reproduced in its entirety without permission. A link to this URL instead, would be appreciated.

BEST OF 2020 (International Films ) was originally published in AlternateTake on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Sagnik Kumar Gupta

A critically acclaimed director gets involved in a public brawl with a yesteryear superstar and kidnaps the star’s daughter to film his struggle in finding her in order to capture real sweat and blood. A film which may have easily been an insider joke driven by real-life stars making appearances (no to mention it is too enticing and juicy material to resist for both the makers and us Bollywood buffs) Motwane resists that urge and presents us with a moving portrayal of the mad asylum that is the Hindi film industry.

The film aims to be a mockumentary that breaks all barriers and portrays the humane as well as the miserable side of the famous or not so famous celebrities . But does it succeed in breaking aura? I guess that depends on how much you are mentally prepared to go on this journey. Anurag Kashyap plays the first AK- an egotistic director, who can literally do anything for the sake of cinema. It is so much fun to see Anurag play a larger-than-life parody version of himself who often gets called Anurag Basu to Madhur Bhandarkar at traffic jams or police stations, but at MAMI he is a rockstar whose film name is cheered like the lyrics of a very famous song. Anil Kapoor on the other hand plays the other AK — a yesteryear star fighting to keep himself relevant by constantly humming the dialogues and catchphrases of his old films. He is broken and hungry for his former position in the industry but not for once does he forget that he is a star and that is a pedestal that he demands constantly.

Motwane who co-wrote the film uses all the mainstream tropes and brews it like a fine stew of both mainstream and arthouse sensibilities. Motwane is probably the only director working in the film industry who has such a varied and equally brilliant filmography. He for once isn’t scared of embarking on this risky endeavor. A father helplessly looking for his child with a running clock in a cruel heartless city is probably the most cliched subgenre of cinema that has been done to death. It takes a lot of invention and clever writing matched with impeccable character development to actually make this work. Motwane exactly does that. The thrill that persists throughout the length of the film is pitch-perfect. The main themes of the story are pathos, the duality of the audiences ie the country and of course insecurity. Juggling so many angles of the story can be tricky but I can surely say for the maximum time the film maintains this balance. Inspite of all these pros, the screenplay is not exceptionally tight but ideally shouldn’t even be for this kind of film. The fact that we are at the edge of our seats (or our beds ) is a feat in itself.

Anurag, who was for the longest time the blue-eyed boy of alternate cinema in India has of late become particularly vocal in his protest against the undemocratic fascist acts of the political party in power as well as the ill practices in Bollywood. His most recent film Choked saw his activist persona overpower his artist persona. So it was just pure poetic justice to see Anurag chase an elitist figure of Bollywood in an Indian Air Force costume making him bleed or cry for real. The film takes jibes at its characters, mocks them, cracks insider jokes but to its credits doesn’t for once get indulgent. Motwane isn’t here to present a hostage story involving a mad director and an insecure star. The undercurrents are strong with the connotations and symbolic imagery are for each one to discover.

The two AKs are just phenomenal in their respective roles. Anurag is just a natural in front of the camera as he is behind it. Anurag quite easily slips into a role that is quite theatrical in parts and in the process delivering one of the best performances of the year. Anil Kapoor is just perfect in his role. He acts like it is his last chance at attaining his long-lost A list star status and in the process gives his everything to this film. A particular scene where Anil Kapoor dances in Dharavi and calls himself a “bhand”(jester) is particularly painful and at the same time breathtaking. In this particular year when nepotism has taken the center stage and overpowered craft, Kapoor taking constant jibes at himself — his privilege and his lineage is such a welcome change. The two actors enormously feed on each others energy and to emphasize again Anurag going toe to toe with such a veteran is such a pleasant surprise. Anurag mentioned in an interview he doesn’t like acting, but after this role I would love to see Anurag more regularly. Yogita plays an upcoming director who records the whole adventure (she is also credited as one of the DOPs). Sonam Kapoor and Bonney Kapoor make an appearance in the film as themselves with not much consequence. Harshvardhan on the other hand steals the scenes he is in with his electrifying presence. He memorably mentions in the film that “Motwane fucked me with Bhavesh Joshi, Anurag can redeem me!”.

Ak vs Ak is an experiment with extremely favourable results. The climax of the film might evoke varied reactions but for me, it serves justice to the movie which is Bollywood unleashed. After this film, there should be no doubt (if there was any) that Vikramaditya Motwane is indeed the most versatile and exciting filmmaker working in the Hindi film industry and one just wishes and hopes that he doesn’t stop experimenting and amazing us for years to come.

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AK vs AK Review: A cheeky insider joke transformed into a meta experience about art, society… was originally published in AlternateTake on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Subhadeep Das

Netflix’s Paava Kadhaigal is a brilliant depiction of how the concept of “honour”, dictated by a community, is often detrimental to the well-being of the people belonging to that community. The anthology consists of four stories concerning four people who somehow, either of their own accord or not, damage the honour of their families and the undeserving repercussions they deal with. In society’s view, they are nothing but deviants who have sinned and the anthology horrifyingly depicts those despicable people who gain from perpetuating this violence against these so-called deviants.

The anthology has structured the four films quite well and none of them ever do anything else except add to the growing resentment to the horrors occurring on screen. The series begins with Sudha Kongara’s, Thangam(My Precious). Set in a small village near the city of Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu, we follow Satthar(played by Kalidas Jayaram), a transgender man who wishes to start afresh by moving to Mumbai, away from the constant abuses and bigotry of the villagers. He also wishes to get a gender reassignment surgery and is saving up for it. His father is tremendously disappointed with him which shows in the regular outbursts of anger towards him. The only person he can confide in, is his childhood friend, Saravanan(played by Shanthnu Bhagyaraj), who seems to be the only one not viewing him as someone different. It is a story of one -sided love that is rightly felt due to the restrained performance by Jayaram. He doesn’t strive for meager empathy, he digs deeper. Although not perfect, it is quite a commendable performance. The movie is not without a few flaws. The comic relief scenes at the beginning feel forced and often are not able to produce a chuckle and the screenplay does take quite a while to establish the main plot getting quite stagnant at times. However, the movie recovers quickly from the fatigued and a bit cliched start and goes on to give a heartfelt ending that did make me tearful.

In Vignesh Shah’s, Love Panna Uttranum (Let Them Love), the story follows twin daughters Aadhi and Jothi(both played by Anjali) whose father, Veerasimman(played by Padam Kumar), is a politician who though promoting inter-caste marriages for his image, is a man to whom honour remains above everything else. Thus, he employs his right-hand man, Narikuttan(played by Jaffer Sadiq) to adhere to their community and makes sure that the parity is met. The main conflict occurs when Aadhi declares her love for their driver who belongs to a lower caste and surprisingly her father agrees to their union. Seeing that her father has truly let go of his age-old beliefs, Jothi comes back to visit her family and check on her sister. She also brings along two of her friends Penelope(played by Kalki Koechlin) and Bad boy Bharani B-Cube(played by Tony Sebastian), who is a rapper from Mumbai but Penelope is the one who soon starts to realize that something is off about Veerasimman. The plot of this short may seem heavy but Vignesh Shah makes a bold creative decision of incorporating humour into the plot. The movie deals with the subject of honour killings and skillfully portrays this through dry humour. Characters often use movie references to justify their gruesome deeds and a character who resembles Kannada actor, Yash is also called KGF. While the premise ventures into borderline absurd, director Vignesh never mocks the situation they are in. Thus, as the story progresses and the situation becomes even more bizarre, you still remain invested due to the sheer gravity of it. The performances here are some of the best. Padam Kumar as the politician and the patriarch, Tony Sebastian and both Anjali and Kalki give faithful performances but it is Jaffer Sadiq who steals the show as one of the most despicable casteists ever seen onscreen. The way he justifies his actions is a treat to watch. The writing however, could have seen improvement as not all the comic scenes stick their landing. Some of the comic scenes feel extremely forced and inappropriate and often are placed at odd points in the narrative that the important scenes start to lose their finesse. Also, in an attempt to give a happy-ever-after, the movie forgives the father’s evil deeds and sort of ends up trampling on its subject matter that had been well-handled up until then. It does become frustratingly confusing at times as to what genre the movie is going for.

The third story, Gautham Vasudev Menon’s Vaanmagal(Daughter of the skies), could have easily surpassed Vetri Maaran’s outing, had it been for a few questionable narrative choices due to which it does come as a close second to being the best out of all three. Vaanmagal is the story that focuses on the theme of honour through a family dealing with a victim of sexual assault, that victim being the youngest daughter of the family. In the early 90’s of Hindi commercial cinema, acts of physical or sexual violence have mostly been used as catalysts of revenge plots with the women immediately committing suicide as the pain of dishonouring the family. Gautham Menon’s narrative heart-wrenchingly portrays the internal dilemmas that each member of the family goes through after such a horrific act is committed. The film also showcases the societal expectations of women as they are trained from birth to live a life that is respectful to the family. In a particular scene, where the mother tells her eldest daughter who has gone through her first periods that she should not touch anything as she will dirty them, really goes to show how controlling our society has been towards women for generations. This movie highlights how the will to preserve the honour of the family, makes the parents oblivious to their child’s pain. They even go so far as to refuse to file a police complaint in fear of their eldest daughter also getting dishonoured. The performances in this short are the best among all the three. Both the performances by Gautham Menon as the father and Simran as the mother will tug at your heartstrings. They feel the most genuine and both of them beautifully portray their internal struggles with the matter of the assault. In an absolutely breathtaking scene, the mother asks the father as to why he wouldn’t talk or face his daughter. To which he replies that it is because he feels naked. This is an immensely powerful scene and the camera remains stationary on him as he goes on to say how he has failed as a father to protect her in her time of need. The one narrative thread which the movie should have avoided would be the physical revenge exacted by the brother. It fails to serve its purpose, feels forced and sticks out immensely like a sore thumb. It also feels petty in comparison to the sort of psychological revenge that the mother exacts on the society by refusing to live by its terms. It is what singlehandedly brings down the overall continued brilliance of the film and keeps it from triumphing over the fourth entry.

Finally to complete the anthology we have the Vetri Maaran directorial, Oor Iravu(That Night). Vetri Maaran has never shied away from narratives featuring the torment of the lower caste people at the hands of the upper caste and it is beautiful to see how a director when armed with an unrestricted canvas(referring to the OTT platforms), is able to make something that gets under your skin so effectively. This movie is a clear example of what a master filmmaker he is. That Night follows the story of the relationship between a father(played by Prakash Raj) and a daughter(played by Sai Pallavi) that gets ruined when the daughter decides to elope with her boyfriend from college, who happens to be from a lower caste. The narrative begins with the arrival of the father at the daughter’s house, who has been pregnant, and asking the couple to host a baby shower at his house. Like all his movies, Vetri Maaran uses the visuals to convey a lot of the internal conflicts. How the father refuses a glass of water at their house and also decides to accompany his daughter to her yoga classes in fear of having to stay back alone with the husband. These subtle cues really hint at how the father still hasn’t been able to accept them completely. Even though her daughter has the most financially stable life, the deeply ingrained caste system in his mind ends up clouding his judgement. The husband picks up on these details and confronts him about it but he ultimately agrees for his wife and makes one request of having the event held at a public venue such that both their families are able to attend the event as equals. A great moment of visual storytelling occurs in a splendid one-take scene when the daughter is back at her home and the father simply goes to bring a glass of water for her from the kitchen. This almost uneventful scene is actually the best in the whole movie as through the visuals the director conveys the unknown horrors that are unfolding offscreen. The camera refuses to go into the kitchen with the father and once he comes out refuses to show his face, quickly conveying that something is really wrong here. Unlike the previous three films, Vetri Maaran refuses to use any songs or background scores and simply lets us feel the intense affair in its absolute raw format. He achieves this great task through both his cinematographer, Suresh Bala and through some careful but genius editing and it just goes to show how well he is able to use the assets at hand. This film was the toughest to watch mainly due to the performances of Sai Pallavi and Prakash Raj, who are magnificent in their roles. It also made me quite happy to see Prakash Raj getting a role that is quite different from the commercial ones that he is used to. This just goes to show his immense range as an actor.

Paava Kadhaigal, from the onset makes it clear that it is not for the faint hearted but one should expose themselves to it regardless, to get an idea about how this concept of honour can harm us. This anthology rightfully overwhelms you with emotions and transports you to the creations of some of the finest directors working in films today. Even though some aspects of it disappoint, they are not overpowering enough to diminish or tarnish the overall image the anthology strives for and hence, one should definitely give it a watch.

Paava Kadhaigal Review: Tactfully depicts how the shallow concept of “honour” chokes the humanity… was originally published in AlternateTake on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.