Raid The Cage creator Shy Brameli’s travel documentary, India on a Rickshaw, reads rather like a comedy of errors than a profound experience. The auto he buys defines the rest of the film, what with the many mishaps that hound Brameli after buying an auto rickshaw to travel across the country. The film opens with… Continue reading India on a Rickshaw: Documenting The Vagaries Of An Auto Rickshaw
Category: Reviews
Cathartique: Speaking Of Love And Yearning
Deeply nostalgic, Dusan Mrden’s Cathartique writes a love letter to Paris, as a love letter to its protagonist’s ex-lover. Romy, entrenched in the spells of the past, cries out to her beloved over and over – a pained litany to return to something familiar and perhaps even cherished. Mrden says a lot in less than… Continue reading Cathartique: Speaking Of Love And Yearning
Mr. Alan on Saturday: Randomly Coming To Terms With Oneself
The eponymous Alan is a peculiar man, nonchalantly comfortable in his own skin, and yet there is a visible need in him to be seen and thereby, admired. Flora Tennant’s Mr. Alan on Saturday watches Alan, played by Christopher Sherwood, on a momentous Saturday in his life, when his idea of himself is challenged and… Continue reading Mr. Alan on Saturday: Randomly Coming To Terms With Oneself
Basic: A Sharp Critique Of People
Three minutes long, writer-director Chelsea Devantez’s Basic is a very short film. Certainly very short for a film that so effectively demonstrates who its characters are. Basic hits at a primary instinct in people: to come out superior to everyone else, especially a perceived rival (emphasis on perceived). Devantez dives right into it: a beautiful,… Continue reading Basic: A Sharp Critique Of People
A Leg Up: Lesson In Surviving A Rigged System
Playing by the puns in the title, Joe Jennings Jr.’s A Leg Up is a neatly knit together piece on the drug menace in Atlanta, the detrimental capitalistic system of the United States of America and the subordination of the African-American population in one string. If that seems too much, Jennings does a good job… Continue reading A Leg Up: Lesson In Surviving A Rigged System
Chomp: Love Letter To A Good Boy
Navjot Kaur’s animated short Chomp has a very simple look, using only the basics of animation styles. The story it tells is simple too, even a little lost in the “minimal” look, but underneath that, it is heartwarming, a feel-good story through and through. Simran has opened her own pharmacy, away from home in a… Continue reading Chomp: Love Letter To A Good Boy
If I Rise: Allowing Protagonists A Real Choice
One would think a film such as this could not surprise you. For, even if it is moving, what could a writer change in a story whose central question is whether the protagonist would rise? But Ian Stoker-Long’s If I Rise, co-written by Francesca Ling, does offer something new: a protagonist’s real agency in choosing… Continue reading If I Rise: Allowing Protagonists A Real Choice
Bummer: Juxtaposing Family Squabbles In The Larger Scheme Of Mega Asteroids
You are celebrating life and the news of impending, inescapable doom shatters the spell. How do you feel? Barry Worthington’s Bummer comes with a smack-you-in-the-face premise: life, all life, on all of the Earth is about to end in a matter of hours. Worthington keeps the focus of this mammoth catastrophe on a mother-daughter duo,… Continue reading Bummer: Juxtaposing Family Squabbles In The Larger Scheme Of Mega Asteroids
Be Your Own Kind: Three Acts; One Tale
Inspired from a personal experience, Be Your Own Kind is a montage of sorts, an experimental short of 7:57 minutes in duration that brings together three strangers and their star-crossed destiny. That it leaves you clueless by the end of it with its open-ended segment is one thing, but with its honesty, it offers an… Continue reading Be Your Own Kind: Three Acts; One Tale
Boomslang: A Perfect Ensemble For A Dark Comedy
Director Trevor Ryan’s 14:13 minutes long Boomslang is an even-paced, sinisterly comedy of a serial killer and his ambitious venture into a new town. Ryan Vincent is Erik Boomslang, the charming protagonist who doesn’t take a minute to let you into his thoughts. As facinorous as they might be, his soothing voice makes them seem… Continue reading Boomslang: A Perfect Ensemble For A Dark Comedy