reviews of Indian films

What I most enjoy about Indian cinema is the many levels — social, political, mythic — on which it functions simultaneously, placing mythic narratives in the service of social and political agendas. This was especially true of the immediate post-independence golden age of Indian cinema, when there was so much to be done and so many people to be simultaneously exhorted and entertained, but it remains true of the best of Indian film today.

Some time after my friend Bhisma began feeding me Indian films, I began writing up notes on a few of them as time allowed (which was, alas, not often). Here are some few of those notes: