A CINEPHILE’S QUEST

cerebral writing on art, cinema and culture, Feature Essay 6 Minutes

Here is this cinephile sharing the joy, emotional terrains of multifaceted humanity through tales committed to the screen over a landscape of decades.

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THE 400 BLOWS(1959)

Antoine Donel as envisioned by the auteur Francois Truffaut presents a timeless compression of autobiography and social commentary.

In a world like ours where adults make us creatures of habit and bad influences, project their deepest and darkest frustrations at us, adolescence gets hindered by a lack of commitment from those meant to look out for us.

By employing detachment from sentiments and presenting raw stakes for Doinel and his ilk, it’s a miracle how timely THE 400 BLOWS always will be. It doesn’t always take much to know that we are more often abandoned at an intersection of curiosity and little joys. Genetic markers cannot always offer an explanation for our miseries.



THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE(1962)

Always clinically detached from human warmth and a commitment to mental health, purveyors of the establishment abandon us by turning a blind eye to what, in time, becomes generational misery.

Compressed emotional stakes, governmental manipulation add diabolical layers of complexity to a post War saga where mind control and parental pressures make marionettes out of recovering servicemen.

It’s a harrowing, haunting wasteland treated with a detached, hypnotic spell; a political intrigue cooked in nationalist backyards.



ARE YOU THERE GOD? IT’S ME, MARGARET (2023)

A twelve year old, her mother and her grandmother all find a profound sense of displacement in the world around them. Locations, cities, new faces and an environment of actual change gives them the space to alter perspectives about what’s to come.

This is a tale about the very real challenges of being female while stricken by an empty nest in one’s advanced years,  exposure to impending identity crises of adolescence and the emotional lacuna of rejection by overzealous guardians.

Like THE EDGE OF SEVENTEEN, Kelly Fremon Craig adapts the natural cadences of American life and makes them wholly universal to a collective being. The comical and the emotional all come from a place of inspired innocence and guilelessness regarding self-discovery.




THREE OF US(2022)

That bittersweet lull of middle class life where something extraordinary evades us and yet the company of decent individuals around us softens the blows of advancing years and dwindling mental faculties is at the heart of Avinash Arun’s excellent, marvelously subtle THE THREE OF US.

Little touches like a smile exchanged between childhood best friends when the formal manner of addressing them as adults gets in the way, the kindness of unknown persons who let you explore your childhood home, the casual charm of another friend saying that nobody leaves Konkan, marking your own homecoming with her unintentional warmth, a meeting with your school’s headstrong teacher, a beautiful dance recital invoking a vocational gift once cherished and the memory of a lost sibling attached with a well make this a work of true, unforced empathy.



Like his previously helmed, beloved KILLA, Mr. Arun knows the Konkan landscape and people like a lifeline. His masterful touch animates every scene, even the ones where the difficulty of communicating one’s insecurities, trauma and regrets hang like barely uttered whispers around individual memory. This is a tribute to the longevity of decent, empathetic individuals. It’s utterly naturalistic, a pure beacon of the cinematic form. Its composition is enduring.

PAIN AND GLORY(2019)

Pedro Almodovar’s dramatic heft is always centred around and threatened by the opague surfaces of family bonds and memory.

It is memorably registered here, in a screenplay imprinted with autobiographical details. Single takes, long conversations abound here. The preponderance of words, physical movement and stasis pervade. So do fragile artistic egos and workings of a prolific, brilliant mind.

The flashbacks to a bright and unique childhood stay with us while the present allows us to look at labours of love and melancholy that hardly warp the mind’s long, winding journey. The meta references are particularly clever and effusive.



AVATAR: THE WAY OF WATER(2022)

There’s a reason this long-awaited sequel to a cultural behemoth hits home.

Its childlike innocence and guilelessness are ostensible counters to the relentless rampage of human greed bringing long-standing ecological and cultural erasure.

Buoyed by gripping special effects and immersive world-building, its parallels feel dangerously close to our current historic churn in legions of war and international relations.




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GOOD THANKS, YOU? (2020)

It’s the same old story where the sociological burdens around physical assault gets to fall on the shoulders of the survivor.

In this short from rising filmmaker Molly Manning Walker, the editing choices mimic the rigmarole of interrogation and moral policing. The woman survivor is the hapless bystander who transitions to a victim owing to the same recycled concepts of when and where demanded from her.



It is also cognizant of how intimately abuse and consent can blur when the body becomes a source of domination from the men around us. In its quieter moments of unease and the little to no glimpses of the actual situation befalling the young woman here, this becomes an exercise in withholding graphic details in favour of a lingering, universal tryst with the same old binaries of guilt and shame for those seeking justice.

THE FAREWELL(2019)

Shuzhen Zhao and Awkwafina sculpt a bond so natural, so universally beloved here in Lulu Wang’s affecting dramedy that we identify wholly with the rest of the proceedings here.

Autobiographical in the details gleaned and shared here, it’s poised between impending tragedy and the wisdom inherited from our elders that eventually seep into the very core of who we are as individuals.

As THE FAREWELL won several awards in early 2020 and Ms. Zhao was unable to attend those ceremonies in America owing to the Covid outbreak back home in China, a reverse of the geographical distance, mortal apprehensions and a sense of profound longing brought this tale’s personal stakes closer to us.



It’s beautifully realised. Ms. Wang made something she knew. That’s the primary reason why both its immigrant identity and cultural ethos ring absolutely true without losing its sense of empathy at any turn.

CAPOTE(2005)

Philip Seymour Hoffman is so astounding in the breadth of humanity he espouses within one man’s quest for artistic and personal clarity that not one note feels out of place or delivered solely for dramatic effect.

He’s the life of the party, a natural wit, a man of passion and yet remains a vessel of exploration when the intersections of crime and marginalised identity haunt his very soul. What begins as a literary enterprise becomes a voyage into the dark landscapes of a nation divided by miles, class, hierarchies.

Catherine Keener, Clifton Collins, Jr., Chris Cooper and Bruce Greenwood leave their imprints here. Bennett Miller’s compositions and slow burn aesthetic are excellently suited to this tale borne from biographical legacies. Of those who live and die. Of those who recount and observe, write and narrate a society’s decline and complicity in the making of monsters quietly lurking in the shadows.






LILIES OF THE FIELD(1963)

In the unforgettably etched LILIES OF THE FIELD, Sidney Poitier and Lilia Skala build a place of banter, warmth and faith while remaining obstinate in their individual stands regarding who they are. They represent that tug between idealism and practicality.

Never has the pursuit of faith been this charming, joyful and secular than in this tale set in Arizona. It’s mostly about human interaction being the first step in building bridges and facilitating trust.

The building of this miniature family of nuns and a traveling handyman is sans glorious emotional highs or cinematographic flourishes. The collective filmmaking is lucid and classic.

Try singing Amen and not recalling this motley crew reveling in the spirit of camaraderie in that moment here.

https://youtu.be/8aL0ml00S9Q?feature=shared


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NOTE: all clips are courtesy YouTube.

Published by anawadhboyspanorama

I launch myself, with a searing, soaring passion for all domains verging on the writerly and creative with a beginner's appetite here and that's how I believe in adding meaning to each day. A lucky mascot of literature, cinema and culture, I come riding on spirited wings from the emblematic city of Lucknow where all those reside and thrive. My breeding ground and my mindscape all are committed to these three life forces. Cinema. Culture. Literature. But the biggest and all consuming parent to these is life that breeds them . There is the discovery that comes from expressing yourself, clear eyed and even mystical, when you come from a city like this. I am here to expand my worldviews, share my earliest inspirations and evolutions and go with the flow through the most accessible outlet there is : writing. Conventionally, my biography is that of a degree holder in English literature encompassing Undergraduate, Postgraduate and M Phil years and every possible experience of learning finer points of knowledge . I have already taken the plunge of creating a solid base for my works by publishing my poems and articles on the renowned worldwide community/ writing sanctuary Wattpad since 2015, a platform which is a miracle for anyone pursuing so much as a flash of wordplay and thoughts to spare. It has redefined my life and allows me to go strong. You can read my works there under the username MadMenWearingFedora / Prithvijeet. That is the springboard that catapulted me to a confident vocational revival. So here I am. Both originality and novelty are the key words to define this eternal student of life. So with the tip of the pen blessing my head and a new vigor, I welcome you all to my realm. AN AWADH BOY'S PANORAMA beckons.

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