Opinion

The story behind the holi festival is as old as our mythologies. When son Prahlad couldn't be destroyed after every attempt of King Hiranyakashapu, Prahlad's aunt and the king's sister Holika blessed to immortality, offered to sit on the pyre with her nephew on her lap. Holika was certain that the flames wouldn't perish her. To everybody's surprise she was reduced to ashes. "I had to take back my blessings," proclaimed the Lord, "Because you misused my powers".

I thought there was much discussion going on about the depiction of slums in Slumdog Millionaire. I was wrong. There is much more than that. Much more than what is necessary. I spent the whole evening reading blogs of people in the US about the film. Blogs because I wanted to know what the audience thought about the film and not the critics. US because it looks like USA is being pulled into every other argument nowadays (including the British film Slumdog Millionaire). And almost everyone mentioned how they loved the film because it shows true love and not because of the slums....

What I find unusual about "Slumdog Millionaire" is the euphoria in India. To begin with, except for A.R. Rahman's three Oscar nods - with at least one newspaper calling him, much to his own embarrassment, ‘˜Mozart of Madras' - its Mumbai setting, and a few Indian actors, there is nothing Indian about this film. Certainly not the treatment. And there have been hundreds of Indian movies shot in Switzerland or Japan or Holland, sometimes with foreign actors. Can we call them Swiss, Japanese or Dutch films?

What is it about Slumdog Millionaire that stirs up extreme reactions! From cravings such as ‘˜why can't an Indian filmmaker make such a film" to snide remarks like "Slumdog Millionaire could only have been made by a westerner", reactions to the film encompasses a entire rainbow of emotions. ....

Following their excellent debut "Half-Nelson", Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck present a story about a Dominican baseball player trying to adjust to life in America. This looks to be a very touching portrait of immigrant life told from a different perspective. Boden and Fleck's ability to play with genre expectations, in this case the sports movie, should make for a very intriguing viewing experience.

Hindi cinema has for years projected the catholic community as a stereotype. All the characters irrespective of their status or style speak the same dialect-Bombaiya Hindi. If rich their heir homes have Victorian furniture like Michelle Mcnally in Black and if poor there are large sofas and dinning table and sometimes a secret desire to own a piano like the family in Khamoshi.

Almost always they are portrayed as God fearing and even if they are not on the screen their every second gesture is marked by a sign of cross....

Many Indians will be surprised to know that the International Film Festival of India (IFFI) once belonged to that august group and was recognized as a major event worldwide, in the late Fifties, Sixties and Seventies. Directors like the Italian maestro Luchino Visconti sent his film "The damned" and won the 1969 Golden Peacock in New Delhi. Luminaries decked various IFFI juries-directors Elia Kazan, Antonioni, Kurosawa, Bertrand Tavernier, Satyajit Ray, Ousmane Sembene, Lindsay Anderson, Humberto Solas Grigory Chukrai and actress Jeanne Moreau. It truly once enjoyed the prestige of a major world event.

Few films have exerted such profound and lasting influence on viewers the world over as The Bicycle Thieves, which was made sixty years ago. Its maker, the legendary master of Italian neo-realism, Vittorio de Sica (1901-1974), directed a series of outstanding films, but none with a greater impact on the connoisseur and commoner alike than The Bicycle Thieves.

The Iranian cinema is unusual for being free of violence, immorality, insults and discourtesy. It's mixture of entertainment and spirituality prevents the families and the youth from being offended by watching a 90-minute Iranian movie. That is why Iranian films are popular in countries with traditional customs and noble cultures, such as South Korea, Japan, Bulgaria, Russia, Azerbaijan, Turkey, Venezuela and other Persian Gulf countries.