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Every year I get to see some really interesting independent Indian films at the London Indian Film Festival. This year I saw Rima Das’ “Bulbul Can Sing” which later won the national award of the Best Assamese film.

The story is very simple. A group of teenage friends are leading their lives in a small town, or a big village, in Assam, trying to understand life. They divide their time between school and helping out their parents with their work. Teenage brings its own share of intense life experiences. The two main characters fall in love and discover the beginnings of adult life. They finally face the hard realities and Bulbul, the heroine, grows up through the passage of suffering.

Rima Das wrote the script but could not find the finance to make the film so she decided to make the film herself. Since she could not raise much money she has herself done the editing and the sound. Rima has directed the film in such a way that you feel as if it was shot without a script because the actors don’t seem to act. They live freely before the camera and are most unselfconscious.

The film is made almost by Rima Das single-handedly. She is the script-writer, director, producer, editor and the sound recordist. What does it show? We have reached a point where one can produce a film with a very low budget. The technology which has come into being is allowing us to make a film by handling many departments together. It is humanly possible now to make a film almost without a crew.

Rima Das went toMumbai in the hope of becoming an actress. You might say, “With a strong North-East look how did she hope to become a mainstream actress?” But we have had actresses like Mala Sinha once upon a time so everything is possible. After finding it difficult to get roles she decided to make films. And then she started focusing on her own territory, Assam. That is how she started writing her own scripts and started off making films about what she had observed around her.

“Bulbul Can Sing” has a marvellous cast. There is only one professional actress, the one who plays the role of the mother of Boni. If you see the film you will understand why Rima chose a professional actress for that role. This way of working with non-professional can be very difficult but in this case it has worked out very well because we see how comfortable the three actors are in their roles because they are practically playing themselves. They belong to the milieu which is being portrayed. They don’t have to try and learn about it.

This film shows us that a new phase has begun in Indian cinema where we see how the aim is to show the truth rather than to show an imitation of it. The priority is not a beautiful actress but an actress who is true to that role. The story is the most important part of the process, not the choice of stars.

Another important point the film makes is that the more local you get the more global appreciation you will get. We all live in urban spaces and have no idea any more how villages look or how villagers live. For us this is something we will never get access to: the day to day life of a village. This is why Rima Das’ films are so successful. They show us what can never see. Moreover, this is something the young adults of the cities have no idea about. It’s almost fantasy land.

One of the scenes that touched me most was the way people are listening to a discourse of a religious man who is talking about love, giving examples of the love between Krishna and Radha. The village women who have no time to sit and listen to discourses are busy with their work and say, “What is there to talk so much about love? Just get on with it, because it is the most natural thing in the world.”

There are many brilliant moments in this film and many sharp observations. This is what makes this film so special because the story is told through moments which are so touching. There are parts where the viewer is only an observer who is being led through places. After all, cinema is basically moments of true observation and feelings which are caught by the camera. From that point of view this is a very well-made film.

Bulbul is played by Arnali Das

This is a film that was waiting to be made and C. Prem Kumar was the man who actually went ahead and thought of writing this script and directing the film as well. The difficult part about writing this review is having to say so much without giving anything away. In this film everything is in the details. And one cannot describe those details without talking of the events that unfold. And that will kill the surprise element. So I will only talk about the quality of the work.

Made in 2018, “96” is the story of a man, Ramchandra, played by Vijay Sethupati, and a woman, Janaki played by Trisha, who had been in love in their teens and who now meet 22 years later in a high school reunion. They have less than 12 hours in Chennai before she has to fly back to Singapore. The second half of the film is about how they catch up on all that has happened in their lives in those 22 years and why they could not be a couple. The name of the film comes from the fact that this high school reunion is for the class of 96 of that school.

In order to show how poignant this meeting is for Ram and Janaki, after two decades, the filmmaker shows us what had happened in their high school days. The 17 year-old Ram is intensely in love with Janaki but he cannot express all his emotions for her in words. She on the other hand is more brave and outspoken and shows her love for him in many different ways. After their school holidays when they finish their 10th Standard Ram doesn’t come back to the high school and Janaki finds out that it is because of his family’s problems that they have had to move out of the town where they had been living. This is how they are separated.

The girl is named Janaki by her parents because they were fans of the singer S. Janaki so evidently they encourage her to take up singing and she sings very well. This special capacity makes her stand out among the students. Much of the communication between ram and Janaki is through their eyes or through others, as it happens in real life when one is a teenager.

This part of the film, which is the flash back, is so well made that you forget it is a film. It has a realism that is rarely seen in Indian films and with absolute new comers acting the roles of the young Ram and Janaki. You completely buy their story and feel for them. They are part of a group of friends and their conversation is straight out of real life.

When the film begins Ram has become a travel photographer and lives like a nomad. He teaches photography to youngsters and we see that he is strict and exacting. When he meets Janaki in the get together he finds out that she is married and has a daughter. Their first awkward moments are very well captured as their friends just leave them and they just sit and eat together. But their feelings, that they still consider themselves a couple, are beautifully shown when she eats half the plate and he eats the other half which she has left.

The second half shows us how they slowly express their thoughts to each other and decide where this relationship will go. I will not give away the story by telling all the details because then you will not discover things the way the director would want you to. But all I can say is that the script does not shy away from reality and totally avoids melodrama.

This kind of story must happen a thousand times every year, at every alumni get together, at every re-union of old friends. Men and women must end up meeting their first love and thanks to social media must find it easy to communicate. If one or both are married then do they feel they are being unfaithful to their spouse? Do they communicate regularly? Do they meet again? Do they suffer or are they happy about this arrangement?

The name of the film tells us that Ram and Janaki belong to that generation which was born in the 1980s and their mindset comes from that era. Someone born 20 years ago will behave in a completely different way. Perhaps the millenials will not be able to understand why two people give so much importance to their first love and are still so much attached. The story is deeply rooted in India and in South India in particular where you just could not go against your parents’ wishes when it came to the subject of marriage. Janaki is married but she had no choice in that. Ram has remained unmarried but Janaki absolutely wants him to get married and not remain single because of his love for her.

The film deals with the subject in a matured and realistic way. Prem Kumar the writer-director says he knows a few people who are like the ones he has portrayed. There are many who are married to someone but who remain emotionally bound to the first person they had fallen in love with. The way Prem Kumar tells the story is admirable. You see how observant he is and how he has seen the little details of life.

Trisha and Vijay Sethupathi get under the skin of the characters they play. They find the right note of never overdoing anything. The entire second part is a series of dialogues and they hold the attention of the audience with their presence. Prem Kumar has said that he chose Trisha over other actresses because she is a Tamil woman and she would understand the subtext of the dialogue where sometimes the characters say very ordinary things but actually mean so much more.

What I particularly liked is the way the characters are named Ram and Janaki but never is there any reference to the divine couple Ram and Sita to underline that they are destined to be a couple. It is left to the subconscious level of the mind to do its job. Rather there is a scene where Ram tells Janaki, “If I marry you you will become ‘Janaki Ramachandra’ (the name of MGR’s wife after she married him)” which I found very funny.

I highly recommend this film to everyone but I don’t know how you can see it. I saw it on a flight. But please don’t watch it on a fight because, as I discovered, they often delete scenes or dialogues in order not to shock their aged and conventional-minded passengers.

This film was appreciated at Cannes last year and received many good reviews. So I knew that if I got a chance I would surely watch it. The London Indian Film festival gave me this opportunity. The screening theatre was packed and there was not an empty seat.

The story of the film is a very simple one. Ashwin, a young wealthy Indian man has just broken up with his fiancee, apparently just before the wedding was to take place. He is now alone in his flat. He is not really alone as there is also the maid servant who looks after everything. Ratna is a live-in servant so they share this closed space.

They are both from the two opposite ends of the social ladder. He is wealthy, probably did his higher studies in the USA and worked there for a while. His father is in the real estate business in Mumbai. She is poor, barely educated and a widow. But they both have something in common: an unfulfilled dream. He has a half finished novel and she wants to be a fashion designer. And both are single. She is a widow and is therefore as lonely as he is.

This is where the story begins but gradually it shows us how the two lonely souls thrown together by destiny get drawn to each other. He allows her to go for her tailoring classes while she tells him that he should not think that his life is finished because of a broken engagement.

They care for each other and exchange gifts. The more they get attached to each other the more you start wondering how they will get out of this situation.

The story has a very realist end and even though it looks as if it doesn’t have a happy one the script actually leaves it open to many possibilities. The interesting point is that the man is more swept away with his emotions while the woman is more level headed and practical. Then he listens to his friend who can see what is going on in his mind and acts on that advice.

The script and direction are by Rohena Gera herself but the end credits show that there is collaboration from the French in many departments such as camera, sound, editing and perhaps also in marketing and distribution. I think there may also be some collaboration in the script. At this point we have to mention that Rohena Gera is married to a Frenchman who is a co-producer too in this film.

The film has been released in France and has had a good commercial success. The French public has given it a lot of critical appreciation. The film has also been screened in the USA where the director has attended many Q and A sessions. And finally, at long last, it is going to be released in India.

The story idea and the script have a ring of authenticity which comes from Rohena’s own observations. She is an Indian who went to the USA for her higher studies and on her return found people’s attitude towards their servants difficult to accept. Those who have never left India cannot see that this feudal attitude is not in synch with the times in which we live. In Europe as in America there is an underlying sense of equality that has yet to enter the Indian life.

What struck me as remarkable was the body language of the actors. Tillotama Shome and Vivek Gomber have the right gait, way of standing and moving. Rohena mentioned that the actors went through a workshop and special focus was given to this aspect of their acting. Their voice intonations are just as it should be. Tillotama has shown great skills in portraying the quiet yet ambitious maid. It is a fine balance to keep. She has managed to show how a servant keeps her social position yet doesn’t stop from showing compassion for a man who is evidently suffering. Vivek on his part has the right expressions of someone who is locked inside his suffering.

The script is tight and the audience is engaged throughout without losing interest. The progression of the relationship is a very delicate one and is handled very well. Rohena manages very well to set up the end by including a scene where Ratna spills a glass of drink on the dress of one of the friends who come to Ashwin’s house. This scene looks like it was written to show us how the man’s wealthy friends look down on the poor maid but it serves the double purpose of preparing the end.

I would like to make a special mention about Gitanjali Kulkarni who plays the role of the servant who works in the next flat. Gitanjali is a very well-known stage actress, seen recently in Atul Kumar’s production “Piya Behrupiya”. To see her play the role of the servant so convincingly is to witness the range of this actress.

This is where lies the strength of the film. Even the smallest roles have been very well drawn out and executed. There is a great attention to details on the part of the director. Much of the back story is told in the dialogues that take place between Ashwin and his mother or between the employees of the building. This helps the story to go forward without wasting time in telling us all that happened before.

I am particularly happy to see how Tillotama Shome has grown in her art and in fame. I always felt that she had not been given the opportunity to show her talent. And don’t think that because she played the role of the maid servant in Mira Nair’s “Monsoon Wedding” she has nothing new to offer. There is so much to discover and in the way she performs this role.

This film celebrates the Indian woman scientist who has remained largely unknown. While we were all admiring the movie stars the Indian scientist remained in the shadows doing her work quietly. She is an expert in rocket science but she is also that woman in a beautiful sari and with a bunch of flowers in her hair. She is trying to figure out the life problems that every woman has to deal with while she also tackles complicated scientific problems. She is thinking on several tracks at the same time – the home, the problems of bringing up children, relationship problems, cooking, cleaning and everything that comes in between.

“Mission Mangal” could not have come at a more appropriate moment. The Chandrayaan 2 lander missed its soft landing but there must have been thousands of Indians who had at least a rough idea of just what goes on in the preparation of a space mission. All those who saw the film have realised how the simple people who are behind these extraordinary feats of the human mind are so humble and so unassuming.

Vidya Balan was born to play the role of Tara Shinde. She is the woman next door, the lady who has to run a home and handle teenage children. She is the average Indian woman who has to use her common sense to survive. I was thrilled to see her on screen because although she is overweight she looks lovely in her saris. She carries this role which has no glamour in a way that allows you to focus only on what she has to say rather than what she is wearing. We believe in this character because we can all relate to her because she looks like the average Indian woman.

There are other women characters who are all dealing with some sort of personal problems. Sonakshi Sinha plays the role of the young scientist who wants to go away to the USA rather than live in India, she is more free-thinking, more “cool”. But she is very much an Indian woman. All the other women embody some aspect or the other of the average woman and bring home the point that we have no idea what each one is dealing with internally as they grapple with responsibilities that concern the whole nation.

The script is very well-balanced. You never feel the weight of the scientific matters as you watch this film. It has been made accessible to the common man who otherwise would not be able to get into that world. Such stories could not have been told before but now Indian cinema has changed so much that now we can talk of real stories of courage surmounting difficulties. Now we look back at those extravagant loves stories and think “How could we have gone on with that for so long?”

Of course, it is an Akshay Kumar film so he gets all the punch lines. But his bravado and intense talk balances the story and drives it forward. There has to be someone crazy to balance the story of these reasonable women. This kind of film will do much more to teach Indians about gender equality and mutual respect between genders than any amount of propaganda. The silent message is louder than any sentence that can be pronounced with shouting and dramatic music. Example is all we want. When the image of the item girl will be replaced with the woman scientist then we will have a better society.

The photo that went viral in 2014 when the Mars Mission was successful remains in everyone’s mind. It showed a group of women in bright saris and jasmine flowers in their hair. “Can they really be scientists?” everyone wondered, but only for a brief while. Suddenly the Indian public knew how many women were involved in our space research work. It was only a matter of time before that simple photo could be expanded into a full-fledged film.

I just saw “His Father’s Voice” and it fills me with hope for the future because it shows that Indian cinema is now closer to being global cinema in its content and expression. There are all kinds of viewers in this world so there should be all kinds of films, for all different types of sensibilities. Refreshingly different from anything I have seen in the past few years, it is a tale told with simplicity and gentleness.

This is the kind of film that one has to watch with an attentive mind because it brings up so many subjects. Kaarthikeyan Kirubhakaran, the writer, director and cinematographer of this film, sets out to talk about the suffering of children whose parents separate and who then miss out on the love and companionship of one of their parents, but in telling this story he also touches on many other themes. It is an East-meets-West story in which the West is reaching out to the East and discovering her cultural depth.

The film is about a young man, Kris, who comes back to the place where he had lived in South India as a child in order to find his father. His parents had separated 12 years earlier when his mother had left their home, taking him with her. His return also reunites him with his childhood friend, Valli, who is now an adult like himself. As the scenes unfold before he reunites with his father, the young man understands the circumstances which had led to his parents’ separation and also why his father had not contacted him.

Kris is not just another young man. He is a dancer who is unable to dance because of this trauma which continues to have a grip on him. As things resolve themselves he finds the dancer in himself once again while at the same time he comes closer to Valli.

The entire story is set in an environment of creative artists and that is one of the elements that makes this film so special. We see here a group of artists, dancers, singers, choreographers, teachers. But their lives have a certain purity which is often missing in such groups.

The film brings up the subject of abandonment several times. There is the abandonment of Sita and her children by Rama which is a theme that the dancers are working on for their next performance. Then Parvathi speaks of how her father had abandoned her mother before she was born. The story takes the help of dance and music to show us other stories in the mythical past.

Kaarthikeyan has created this unusual situation where a human drama unfolds in the middle of the beauty of nature. During the whole film we rarely go out of the nurturing presence of nature. We see shaded groves, the open sea under the sun, a wild garden and a deep forest. It is as if human nature is a part of this nature. Isolated from the din and noise of the world we focus sharply on the feelings and thoughts. Everything is in its essential form.

We are also led to think about the very nature of love, the man-woman love, the parent-child love and the love one feels for all those who are interconnected through love with us. Here we see how the most fulfilling kind of love is when two people are united in their common love of something else, as it is in this story with music and dance.

It is difficult to put this film into any category as it straddles several genres. While the main genre is drama there is also an important element of romance and all this is woven together with the notes of music. There is poetry in the style and in the images. Visually it is a feast, as the beauty of the places and people, the attractive colours and the graceful lines of the dances light up the screen. Particularly beautiful are the scenes shot at night with the skillfully controlled lighting. At the same time there is a great deal of substance in the thoughts and ideas.

The performance of the actors is commendable as most of them are first-time actors although not first time performers. There is a lot of sincerity in their effort and the story touches us because it feels real, without any artificiality, precisely because these are unknown faces. The music and the dances are of a high order, bringing to the screen these classical forms rarely seen in feature films.

The poignancy of the love between the father and the son is the core of the film. Many emotions drive the story forward but it is this central theme which Kaarthikeyan keeps at the forefront. The script which moves back and forth in time sometimes slows down the intensity of the drama but the main focus is always before our eyes.

Each viewer will find something different to connect with as there are many layers to the narration, but the truth that Kaarthikeyan wants to communicate will touch everyone.

“His Father’s Voice” is available on Vimeo on Demand in India and on Amazon Prime in the UK, USA, Canada and Australia.

WEBSITE: www.hisfathersvoice.film
VIMEO ON DEMAND: https://vimeo.com/ondemand/hisfathersvoice
FACEBOOK PAGE: https://www.facebook.com/hisfathersvoice/
AMAZON PRIME LINK: https://tinyurl.com/y2em7mgu

I am not at all familiar with the rap culture so I started watching the movie without any expectations. But hardly had I been ten minutes into the story I realised this wasn’t only about the Indian rap scene but about class, aspiration, about the tough life of those who live in the margins and also about women. I was blown away by the script which is solid…I am tempted to say …solid gold.

The story revolves around a young man called Murad who lives in Dharavi, Mumbai’s slum, and is still at college. He is in love with a girl who is studying to be a doctor and who comes from a better off family. Both are from the Muslim community. This detail is important because they both have very little freedom and can’t do many things that they would like to do. The young man, played by Ranveer Singh, writes lyrics for rap songs and one day he gets the opportunity to sing his own songs and becomes recognised and famous. His girlfriend, played by Alia Bhatt, shares that struggle and supports him.

The whole film has a “slice of life” feel. You are in the middle of a gripping story which is so real that you feel you have to duck when Murad’s father swings his arm to slap Murad’s mother. The story takes us into the world of the Mumbai rappers and you can almost smell the sweat on their bodies. The progression takes time and there are many hurdles to cross but each one is real. The language that these characters speak belongs to the milieu from which they come. The film is authentic to the smallest detail.

Ranveer is just outstanding as Murad. It is a role which asks him to tone himself down, to be meek, to be hurt. But he gets that so perfectly that you forget he is Ranveer. This is the strength of the film – the two big stars of the film, Alia and Ranveer, make us forget who they are. Alia has worked hard to get into the role of Safeena. She gets the right nuances of a woman who has been in a relationship for a long time and also of someone who is completely stifled.

Some critics felt that Kalki’s character was not convincing enough but I thought it was written quite well. She was not the superficial “showbiz” type which is what you think at first. The woman who feel s attracted to Murad and wants to start a physical relationship is strong enough not to make a police case against Safeena when things get violent. She has more than one layer to her. Her character is brought into the story to make Murad fall and to give the reality of the world that Murad is entering.

What struck me was the fact that this practice of having singer-poets compete with each other was already there in India, in 19th century Bengal. See the film Jatiswar, starring Prosenjit. It is interesting to see how it has come back in another form. It was called “Kobi Gaan” but it had a certain amount of melody in it.

This is Zoya Akhtar’s best film so far. I liked ZNMD but it had its flaws. This film is so well-written and directed that it is difficult to find a mistake. Her research is thorough and she has chosen her actors so well that they have responded to her direction in total harmony. She has found the right flow of sequences. I particularly liked the way she has given each character the time to express himself or herself. Zoya admits that this has resulted in the film becoming very long. It is fantastic to see how she has evolved.

One thing becomes clear when one sees this film that it is easier to write with a co-writer. Reema Katgi has worked with her on the script and that lends strength to the work. Are today’s Reema and Zoya the new Salim-Javed? Perhaps. The film is based on the real life story of two Indian rappers. But that doesn’t mean that writing that script was in way easy. Even when you tell a true story you have to choose between what to keep and what to remove from it.

And as I close I would like to remind my readers that Zoya is not only Javed Akhtar’s daughter she is also Honey Irani’s daughter. She has grown up with films being discussed around her. Honey Irani was not only a child actress but also a screen writer on her own merit.