Dilli Kaand, Review: Those that rape and those that gape When a film is delayed six years in its release, its fate is more or less sealed. Dilli Kaand was launched in August 2015 and sees the light of day on 24 September 2021. Of course, the delay of the last 18 months can be attributed to the Covid 19 Coronavirus pandemic, when cinema-halls remained shut, but the six-year delay cannot be explained by Covid. Even now, cinema halls have only opened in some states of India, with conditions impo...

Chhapaak, Review: Aesthetic and prosthetic Laxmi Agarwal had acid thrown on her face and body in 2005. She survived, and lived to identify the attackers. What’s more, she succeeded in getting amendments made in the Indian Penal Code that recognise acid attacks as a separate category, and increasing the maximum penalty for the crime from seven years to ten years. India’s Supreme Court also ruled that the sale of acid should be regulated. So why has Meghna Gulzar made a film on her ...

Chhapaak song released with a splash bash Exactly a week before the film’s release, the makers of Chhapaak released the title track at a media get-together held on Friday afternoon, at the JW Marriott Hotel, Juhu, Mumbai. Present on the occasion were Gulzar, Meghna Gulzar, Deepika Padukone, Vikrant Massey, Shankar Mahadevan, Ehsaan Noorani and Loy Mendonca. Chhapaak, the word, means the sound created when a liquid is splashed, is a film about a woman who had acid splashed on her face, ...

IFFI 50: Meghna Gulzar is a very lazy writer Film-maker Meghna Gulzar, screenwriters Juhi Chaturvedi, Pooja Ladha Surti, cinematographer, Modhura Palit and columnist Sumedha Verma Ojha spoke on Nuances and Process of Filmmaking at the In-conversation session in the International Film Festival of India (IFFI) Goa. The session was moderated by Indian film journalist and critic Madhureeta Mukherjee. Writer Juhi Chaturvedi, who has written films like Vicky Donor, Piku and October among others s...

Raazi, Review: Lying and spying, willing and killing As spy thrillers go, Raazi is, at best, average fare. During the first half, it runs the risk of becoming a pedestrian assemblage of trope followed by trope followed by trope. Then, just in time, the writers and the director took booster shots and shaped out the human dilemma, counterpoising it with murder and mayhem. In scale and mounting, Raazi can pass off as a modest Spielberg vehicle, but the total experience remains just about watchab...

Talvar, Review: Whodunit? Doesn’t matter! Like the 1950 Japanese cult film Rashomon, directed by Akira Kurosawa and often rated as one of the greatest films ever made, remade n number of times in India, Meghna Gulzar’s Talvar (sword) presents three contradictory accounts of a nation-rocking real life double murder, which variously portray the prime accused as guilty or innocent. It fictionalises names and dates, amalgamates some characters into a single entity and does not take a ...