Book Review: The Master at Work, by Rahul Rawail, a Masterly Work How many 15 somethings would be offered chances to work as assistants to legendary directors like Raj Kapoor (RK)? Rahul Rawail was 15 going on 16 when he came on board with the master, who was then making Mera Naam Joker, and stayed on to assist him in Bobby. Over the next few years, Rahul earned his spurs the hard way, for RK was a genius who did not use conventional teaching methods, did not suffer fools and was not easy to ...

RIFF 8, 2022, 06: Rahul Rawail is Best Author, for Raj Kapoor, the Master at Work Somendra Harsh, Founder & Festival Director of the Rajasthan International Film Festival (RIFF), stated that "Film director Rahul Rawail will be honoured with the Best Author Award for the book ‘Raj Kapoor - The Master at Work’ at this year's Rajasthan International Film Festival (RIFF). In the 8th edition of the Rajasthan International Film Festival, a talk show will be organised under...

IFFI 51, 16-24 January 2021, 20: Rahul Rawail retraces Hindi film history, ‘In-Conversation’, online The 1970s saw influx of new ideas, new experiments and a new genre of action films in Hindi cinema. Those were also the golden years for unconventional films and emergence of new techniques, said acclaimed film-maker Rahul Rawail, in an online ‘In-Conversation’ session on “Film-making in 50s, 60s and 70s”, at the 51st International Film Festival of India (I...

Dabangg 3, Review: A Bad Dab at Bangg 3 theory There must be a theory that if the first two instalments of Dabangg have worked, a third one must be attempted. The theory probably stipulates that this will work even if it has a skeleton in place of a story, that a host of insider jokes, tongue-in-cheek references to another superstar, repetition of dialogue and the smash hit song of the earlier two Bangs, will replicate box-office magic, that the directorial abilities of Prabhudeva will stitch...

The Body, Review: No soul A murder mystery that moves slickly and logically is a rarity, and The Body initially engages you on both counts. You don’t mind the apparent red herrings that it throws along the way, as you wait with bated breath to see it all unravel. There is a terrible sense of disappointment, though, for the herrings are not herrings, and, moreover, only one of them is red. The film unravels some five of the twenty knots it ties, leaving the remaining fifteen knots not un...

Manto, Review: Man to man, rediscovering the Urdu writer, who died a pauper, at 42 Before the film, the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) displayed categorises the language of the film as Hindi/Urdu. Saadat Hasan Manto wrote short stories and films in Urdu and there is some Hindi in the film, mainly spoken by others. Among the most controversial of Urdu writers, Manto has been the subject of rediscovery over the last decade or so for reasons unknown. Whatever the reasons, Nandita Das...

Mulk, Review: Half-baked attempt at addressing a burning national issue Right in the beginning, the makers tell you that the film is inspired by real-life incidents, as reported in Indian media, and that they have no intention of suggesting that some acts of some persons are representative of the entire community. Mulk addresses the burning issue of terrorism and tries to convey the triple messages that perpetrators of terror should not be identified on the basis of their religion, that terr...

102 Not Out, Review: One run short In India, cricket is a religion and most filmgoers will need no explanation about the title of this movie. But for those who are unfamiliar with the game, in India and abroad, this is what the title means: when a batsman scores 102 runs, which is a major landmark, being two more than a hundred, and continues to play after reaching the milestone, he is said to be 102 not out. Now that you got the context, you need to be told that the film has nothing whatsoev...

Aamir, Nasir, Tahir, Tariq, Mansoor, Amjad: Movies, Masti, Modernity, Flashback 6 To remind you, Aamir is indeed Aamir Khan, Amjad is definitely Gabbar Singh, and the triple M above is to acknowledge that it was Akshay Manwani’s biographical book on the cinema of Nasir Hussain that got me delving into the period of about 15 years, when I interacted with the Hussain Khans (first five) and the bare Khan (last, but the most imposing personality). Actually, Mansoor did not use his middle na...