Life is Good, Review: Is it? A sweeping statement, to be sure. Life has its ups and down and is good to some people while not so good to others. To the central character in Life is Good, Rameshwar, played by Jackie Shroff, life has been rather bad, on the whole. So, bad, in fact, that he contemplates committing suicide at least twice. Yes, there is a long period in between when he finds love in an unlikely quarter, but like the tagline of LG (Lucky Goldstar) Electronics, ‘Life’s G...

18th Third Eye Asian Film Festival, I Organised by the Asian Film Foundation and P.L. Deshpande Maharashtra Kala Academy, the 18th Third Eye Asian Film Festival (TEAFF) has just concluded. Held during March 1-6, at the Mini-Theatre, located on the third floor of the Ravindra Natya Mandir Complex, Prabhadevi, Mumbai, the festival screened films in six slots each day. Paani, in Marathi language, directed by Adinath Kothare, was the inaugural film while Mai Ghaat, also in Marathi, directed by An...

Gour Hari Dastaan/The Freedom File, Review: His-story Described in the press as a Kafkaesque black comedy when it was launched in 2011, Gour Hari Dastaan is based on a true story, of Gour Hari Das (now 85), with some Kafkaesque undertones, but very little or no black comedy. It cannot afford to be a comedy, let alone a black one, since it deals with the sensitive subject of the neglect and disregard suffered by those who participated in the struggle to rid India of British colonial rule. Brit...