Hindi Movie Reviews

Krish and Meera, form a young Indian couple climbing the ladder of the corporate rate race in a nation hurtling forward at a rate unprecedented in its long history. Stressed, frustrated and unable to come to terms with the sacrifice required for success, they go in search of a legendary magical insect - The Great Indian Butterfly.

Last seen by the unknown Portuguese explorer Carodiguez, in a remote valley located in erstwhile colonial Goa, the butterfly possesses a magical aura, granting immense happiness to the person who catches it. In the journey that takes the couple from the smog filled, concrete jungle of the Megalopolis of Mumbai through the little discovered coastal landscapes of the western Sahyadris, to the sun soaked land of Goa, the couple lose more than what they want to rediscover. It becomes a passage, which seems to travel with a metaphor of its own and an insect as elusive as a fossil trapped in prehistoric resin.

Will they find the Butterfly? Can they survive the journey? Can it cost them their lives? Will the Great Indian Butterfly wreck havoc on their souls? Will there be redemption? Or is it a futile hunt for an answer to their crumbling lives? Is happiness a rare insect? A simple tale in the complex miasma of a changing India.

The story of Baby Kusum is such an intriguing and horrifying tale. It is a story about life imitating art in a grotesque and bizarre way. This film seeks to probe into the mechanism that operates behind the creation of dreams. It highlights a phenomenon that was peculiar and exclusive to the Indian film industry--- the practise of casting children in roles opposite to their natural genders. We have had many instances of young girls being cast as boys in films and vice versa. Their screen names used to be changed to suit the gender they were playing on screen. Interestingly, in Raja Harishchandra, the first narrative film made in India, a man portrayed the heroine's role. It was a common practice in Indian theatre till the middle half of the last century, to cast men in women's roles. In cinema however, verisimilitude was sought to a greater degree and hence the entire persona of the performer had to be changed to suit the screen image. It is difficult to ascertain gender of children by their appearance. Their clothes and hairdos often demarcate them. So the practice of casting perky kids, who could deliver effortless performances, in roles that were not representing their own gender, was widely practiced in Indian films.

This film purports to delve into the psyche of one such person who was forced to assume a gender role other than his natural gender and analyses the disastrous consequences that follow and destroy him in his adulthood. Baby Kusum is the story of a boy burdened with a sexual identity not his own. It is about the brutality of a society that imposes superficial gender codes.

It is a story of human suffering and about the tragedy of human predicament. The film tries to explore the complex maze of relationships: the Oedipal, the homosexual, the exploitative. It tears that veil of shame that covers the face of this glamorous profession. Truth stares naked at the face of an audience bred on and allured by the sham of this life.

Baby Kusum explores various spaces--- the real space, the mind space, the sexual space and the spiritual space. All stand juxtaposed together and often are intermingled to create panoply of gore and blood, of intensity and brutality, of love and shame. Cinematically it confronts the time space continuum. It conjures and jumbles up the time past, the time present and the time operative, all together within the same mental space. It creates a delusion. It provokes and raises several pertinent questions. But it never ignores basic human emotions. That is where it becomes a moral fable, a pious tale. That is where it connects to the common man.

In the world of Armaan and Gehna, life is truly beautiful, yet it's like walking on a tightrope. For Armaan, the fashion photographer, debonair, charmer to the core and loved by all around him life only gets better when he dates Gehna, a High profile fashion magazine editor. Life is picture perfect a doting girlfriend, a job where his expertise with the camera makes him the most wanted photographer in the London fashionista!

Armaan has learnt that his chronic insomnia is however not a function of any sleeping disorder. The truth is that he hears voices; voices that torture him; voices that are disturbing him. More importantly voices that nobody else can hear! Life is less than picture perfect right now!

While his friends sympathize with his problems, his girlfriend Gehna is irritated with his weird behavior. Add to that her father constantly berates him for his fondness for the bottle. No one seems to understand his predicament. What puzzles everyone is the fact that he talks to himself… or rather, he talks to people, who no one can see, simply because they don't live.

Soon, Armaan becomes aware of his special ability to connect with the souls that haven't crossed over. Equipped with a will to fulfill the wishes of these spirits who hound him, Armaan sets out on a mission to help out three souls a child, Ali, an old man, Mr. Kapoor and a young woman, Carol.

In this ensuing journey that follows Armaan discovers the lives of his three special companions and ends up frustrating Gehna. Yet, Armaan is on a journey where he discovers a lot about his own self, his own life for the first time.

Well Done Abba is the story of Armaan Ali, a driver working for a Senior Executive in Mumbai, who goes on leave. He wants to find a match for his teenage daughter, who stays with his brother Rehman Ali and his wife Salma. When Armaan returns to work after 3 months his young employer wants to sack him.

But Armaan Ali has a story to tell. The story he tells is a humorous and often hilarious account of the events and happenings that delayed him from returning after a month. He avails a government scheme to dig a well in his agricultural patch. Things spiral out of control so much so that the Government is about to collapse! The question remains, how true is this compelling story!

Love Sex aur Dhokha is a film about voyeurism. It is essentially about how we have become a generation of voyeurs and flashers simultaneously. This film is about keyhole. On one side of the keyhole is a guy who is peeping in and on other side, there is a person who is hoping that someone is peeping in, and then its us, who are seeing all this. And it is adding bizarre subtext to our society. On television, newspapers, other media, we are obsessed with the most meaningless trivia of what other people are doing about their life.

Directed by Dibakar Banerjee (Khosla Ka Ghosla, Oye Lucky, Lucky Oye) & Produced by ALT Entertainment, LSD explores the human emotions of love, sex & betrayal through very candid points of view.

The film is a roller coaster ride told through the chaos of the camera that has invaded all our lives – through handy cams filming home movies, security cameras shooting every inch of existence, mobile phones transmitting love messages, sting cameras uncovering uncomfortable truths.