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Showing posts from April, 2018

Breaking ‘Black’

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The Auteur and his themes Revenge clearly has been Anurag’s most trusted weapon. For all the rage that resides within the confines of one's mind, revenge seems to be the most obvious and handy and justified option present in front of any oppressed. Revenge is a huge element of popular genre storytelling and in fact was one of the main subjects for the ‘western’ genre in Hollywood [1] . Innumerable Bollywood formula films are based on revenge. But ‘revenge’ here may also be looked at with more depth besides being a popular formula to tell a story. Not to make a simplistic reading of personal life and its relationship to his films but Anurag has been the underdog and a lot of his films have this unrelenting spirit of revolt as a rebel, maybe even an involute revenge of sort. His films though, do not glorify revenge; but mostly rise above to question its very existence.          The 1993 Bombay blasts shook the nation to its core. The battl...

Paanch and the ‘Yuva’ Kashyap

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  The Auteur and the influence of his own life The system has made them hopeless and left them helpless. There is only so much that an individual can do to mend the age-old, bourgeois mechanical system in place. And even with the changes taking place [1] , will the conservative Indian society support the roaring ambitions of the ever-so high strung youth? The 90’s was a tough time for India- t he poor had found another way to retain their poverty and the rich were getting even richer  [2] .  40 years into its independence and the country was tasting its first real wave of modernization. The youth, the carriers of raw-energy, were eager to make a mark. But not everyone gets the same opportunities.  What about their dreams then? Released in the wake of this situation, Anurag Kashyap’s Paanch forms an apt social commentary about the extent of destruction these unsatisfied kids can cause. Luke (Kay Kay Menon) has this excruciating rage within him, this ...

Understanding the labyrinth that Anurag Kashyap is

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Introduction Inspiration  is pivotal to transforming a young musician from a mere instrumentalist to a true  artist expressing a unique voice. And where do these roots stem? The central unequivocal source of rejuvenating and endlessly contributing inspiration and ideas is what we see around us: the people, the society. Having said that, cinema unlike the other arts like poetry, painting etc. is a collective art and includes contributions from other artists to make it a completed film and is not the work of a sole artist. Surely however, there are oppositions to this postulate. Francoise Truffaut (one of the fathers of French New Wave) argues that ‘there is one prime force that leads to the creation of the film and that individual guides all the processes of filmmaking’ [1] . This creates a central demand of respect for the director who is to be treated as an independent artist, thus enabling her/him to create a body of work and developing her/his own style. When...