Shubhra Gupta

2 weeks ago | indianexpress.com | Shubhra Gupta

Kelly Reichardt’s The Mastermind is masterly in the way it creates characters with their rhythms and impulses, building on them with one surprise after another, till you have no idea where things are headed — there is only a tiny instance in which the director telegraphs a punch, but that is so fleeting that you barely have time to notice it, and it’s gone. The Competition section began with Mascha Schilinski’s The Sound Of Falling, a beguiling intergenerational saga of female despair and desire.

2 weeks ago | indianexpress.com | Shubhra Gupta

For a long time, Bhool Chuk Maaf looks and feels like the poor man’s Brahmastra (remember that one?). A couple prancing up and down Varanasi’s ghats and gullies, surrounded by gais, gendas, gurus and the Ganga, and few raised eyebrows. Everytime you start to forget that this is supposed to be Benaras, come aerial shots to convince us that it is. And yet, this film need not have been staged in the eternal city at all.

2 weeks ago | indianexpress.com | Shubhra Gupta

Neeraj Ghaywan first came to Cannes in 2012, as part of a huge crew festooned with colourful gamchhas, for the premiere of the Anurag Kashyap’s Gangs Of Wasseypur. In 2015, he was selected in Un Certain Regard for his debut feature, ‘Masaan’, which won the FIPRESCI prize.

2 weeks ago | indianexpress.com | Shubhra Gupta

It’s late in the night, and a family of three, a husband, wife, and their young daughter, is heading back home. Suddenly, there’s a sickening thump, and the car comes to a halt. The man gets out, looks at something on the ground, his face lit by the headlights. We do not see the exact shape or size of the roadkill, but the little girl mentions the death of a dog, the woman justifies it as an act of god, and this little interlude sets the tone for the rest of the film.

2 weeks ago | indianexpress.com | Shubhra Gupta

If there was ever an evening to remember, it was the premiere of Aranyer Din Ratri—screened in a a glowing restored version as part of the Cannes Classics section. On stage were the two ‘survivors’ of the class of the Satyajit Ray classic, as Sharmila Tagore put it so eloquently, with Simi Garewal standing next to her, both resplendent, bringing back memories of an era when cinema was meant for theatres, to be experienced in the dark.