As with most years, the most stimulating cinema, for me, happened elsewhere—in the turmoil behind the tranquillity of Gurvinder Singh’s frames in Chauthi Koot (Punjabi) set in post Operation Bluestar Punjab, in the madness and disruptive power of love in Nagraj Manjule’s Sairat (Marathi), in the radical interpretation of motherhood in Bhaskar Hazarika’s Kothanodi (Assamese) and in the audacious, independent spirit of Sudhanshu Saria’s LOEV and Kranti Kanade’s CRD. Then there were two debuts that will hopefully find a release, and space in the 2017 top 10—Konkona Sen Sharma’s A Death In The Gun, a beautifully measured slice of family life and a haunting tale of tragic dissipation and Shanker Raman’s Gurgaon, about male entitlement and cultural flashpoints that define the NCR (national capital region).
In a year of sequels and biopics and of films built around the themes of feminism and patriotism, the first three (rather two and a half films) had me absorbed. The rest are selected in alphabetical order.
Kapoor and Sons
Director: Shakun Batra
A deliberately frenzied and well mapped out script that builds from one family squabble to another, an ensemble in tune while playing off against each other and a director in control of the on-screen chaos. Loving your dysfunctional family could not have been better. Read the review
Waiting
Director: Anu Menon
Sensitive, dignified look at two individuals, who are on the cusp of a possible bereavement. Despite grief and loss looming large it isn’t sappy or depressing thanks to some heart-warming writing and acting. About the essential stoicism and continuities beyond the pauses in life, Waiting reaches out with its poignancy. Read the review
Island City
Director: Ruchika Oberoi
There might be reservations about the film in its entirety but the second film in the triptych— The Ghost In The Machine —about a family’s revolt against the domineering head by bringing home a TV set (banned by him) as he rests on life support in hospital is a wonderfully realised short. Contradictions in relationships dealt with delicious dark humour and Uttara Baokar and Amruta Subhash at their conspiratorial best.
And then there were films that came with a few conditions attached. Here they are in alphabetical order. Read more
Aligarh
Director: Hansal Mehta
Manoj Bajpayee in a great jugalbandi (of sorts) with Lata Mangeshkar’s Aap ki nazron ne samjha and Betaab dil ki tamanna yehi hai and the big question about a man’s right to his sexuality. Opened at Mami in 2015, resonated with aam aadmi in 2016. Read the review
Budhia Singh: Born To Run
Director: Soumendra Padhi
For a change a sports film that is not about winning a gold medal for India but prefers to dwell on a grey zone—whether it is ethical to dream of a champion in a five year old. Bajpayee in fine balance yet again as coach Biranchi Das, caught between ambition and obsession. Read more...
Dangal
Director: Nitesh Tiwari
Great casting, superb acting, rousing bouts but am still tied up in knots over its sanskaari feminism and wasting the uber talented Girish Kulkarni as the wicked coach to prop up the father. Read more
M.S. Dhoni: The Untold Story
Director: Neeraj Pandey
Controversies side-stepped, problems sanitised but the film packs in an emotional wallop, especially the early Ranchi sequences of the middle class family life and that last six to victory. Sushant Singh Rajput bats well on a tough wicket. Read the review
Nil Battey Sannata
Director: Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari
Pankaj Tripathi alone is worth the price of ticket. Also, in retrospect the Tiwari couple seem to have been focused on parenting in their 2016 films. Like Dangal , Nil… too is about parents’ dreams and does tend to get preachy in parts but the mother-daughter relationship feels more on an even ground and is explored more in depth and detail here. Read more
Pink
Director: Aniruddh Roy Chowdhury
The vulnerability that goes hand in hand with empowerment for single working women in cities, the ugly male entitlement one has to contend with almost everyday and an attempt to make men stakeholders in women’s issues rather than letting it remain a woman’s thing—all of it reached out. The heavy-handed courtroom drama and that “thank you” is another issue. Review
Phobia
Director: Pawan Kripalani
Nothing is what it appears to be. A consistent sense of anxiety and fear lurks in us like the protagonist herself, a smart twist in the climax and Radhika Apte as the perfect scream queen. All the “what ifs” and “buts” and horror clichés are forgotten while being in persistent panic mode. Read more
Raman Raghav 2.0
Director: Anurag Kashyap
Nawazuddin Siddiqui’s relentlessly brutal portrayal of the serial killer Ramanna is the kind of stuff fear and loathing are made of. On top of it his cat and mouse game with the cop Raghuvendra Ubbi (Vicky Kaushal) puts the law against crime binary under scanner. Is the cop here chasing his own shadow?
Special mention
Udta Punjab
Director: Abhishek Chaubey
Great on-screen recreation of the havoc that drugs are wreaking in Punjab, marred later by allegations of plagiarism. If only the makers had negotiated the rights for Ben Elton’s High Society . Read more
