(According to Susanta Behera Titli is a 0 star movie)

indian cinema nowadays is comprised of so much more than bollywood, and the rest of the world is starting to recognise it. the inclusion of kanu behl’s first feature film titli in this year’s un certain regard suggests so, anyway – a gritty and honest family drama that feels worlds away from the glitz and glamour of the more famous side of the country’s film industry, and all the better for it. titled after the name of the lead character, titli centres on a young man and his desperation to escape from his environment. ‘titli’ literally translates to mean ‘butterfly’, and he too dreams of flying to freedom, away from the poverty of the slum in which he lives and the oppressive family he shares it with. in need of money so that he can invest in a new business venture, titli convinces his older brothers to lend him some under the pretence of it being the fee for a college class. but the family’s source of income comes from criminality, and when a carjacking goes wrong and the money is lost, titli must find another way. so when he is forced to marry neelu, a girl with her own plans for freedom, the two decide to work together for liberation. while it may be behl’s first feature, he’s an experienced documentary maker and evidence of this shines through in the film’s style. he certainly knows how to create a naturalistic atmosphere, to the extent that it almost feels as though we could be watching a real household: frequent family meals and arguments play out to a soundtrack of traffic and children playing on the streets, not to mention a repetitive (and cringe-inducing) shot of the men spitting loudly – which is about as intimate as anyone wants to get. the sense of realism is also heightened by the use of seemingly natural light and colours that aren’t over-processed. this makes the recurrent scenes of violence even more shocking, feeling less like a piece of art and more like images from a news channel. and when the weapon of choice is often a hammer, it
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(According to Susanta Behera Main Aur Mr. Riight is a 4 star movie)

the plot revolves around ms perfectionist aliya raj (shenaz treasurywala) who is a casting director in search of her mr right. aliya is single and her friends constantly keep pressurising her to get hitched by shoving their ‘perfect’ relationships under her nose. fed up of the constant pressure, she blindly picks a photograph of an aspiring actors from her purse and shows it to her friends as her boyfriend – who is her supposed mr right. enter sukhi (barun sobti) who in reality is the complete opposite of what aliya is looking for in her man. nonetheless, aliya trains sukhi to walk, sit, talk, eat and behave in public. when her friends meet him, they are impressed by sukhi, who is now called hredhaan from london. the end is quite predictable. what’s good barun sobti delivers an earnest performance. if he picks the right project, i am sure he will be taken seriously and be offered good roles. every phase in the story is showcased by actors auditioning and narrating what will happen next – which is something that kept me in splits.shenaz treasurywala may not be a great actress, but is well styled. keeping the relationships between all the couples as real as possible was one of the other things that i liked. at least the director – adeeb rais didn’t sugarcoat the truth of relationships in the current times.
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(According to Susanta Behera Pk is a 4 star movie)

after an entire year of being subjected to unalloyed trash generated by box office sharks that cannot see beyond their weekend collections, bollywood enthusiasts who value their intelligence - and their hard-earned money - finally have reason to rejoice. pk is here. rajkumar hirani's first film in five years is a warm, funny and piercingly provocative satire that should blow the blues away. it is the kind of full-blooded but genteel entertainer that should get us all into just the right frame of mind to usher in christmas and bid adieu to a year that has seen us celebrate ugly excess on all fronts with unseemly glee. pk, buoyed by a magnificent script and outstanding acting all around, is an uplifting fantasy that springs a surprise at every turn but never overplays its hand. it comes as close to storytelling perfection as any mainstream hindi movie has done in living memory. it has great songs, beautifully filmed musical set pieces, brilliant pacing and nary a moment that flags. as a cinematic send-up on gods true and fake, pk pulls no punches at all and speaks its mind like a carefree child that has just learnt to talk and make sense of the world. but this hard-hitting critique of all that ails a nation that seems to have lost its human moorings and is in blind pursuit of false panaceas remains good-natured all the way through.
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