Shashwat

I’m not suggesting that I love horror as a genre. Even when the narratives cohere, the scares tend to exploit. It has an infamous history of utterly laughable duds to mediocre films which only rely on the fact that they make you jump from your seat. However, as the world ascends its steps towards the impending apocalypse, horror genre is witnessing a stream of surprisingly nuanced offerings. These are stories which work well not just as chilling ghost-tales but also as social parables. Perhaps it’s because of the unnatural expansion of medium- due to which even a social parable like The Great Indian Kitchen becomes some kind of a terrifying horror which is an otherwise everyday reality in India’s households, or a quiet Apichatpong Weerasethakul film becomes a conveying medium of the horrors of Spanish cultural amnesia. With the emergence of such stories, the otherwise only competent, more direct ghost tales seem rather comforting as only good ‘genre’ entries which aren’t too mindful ab...

There's always one complaint or the other as far as romantic movies are concerned. Yesterday, they were boring because they didn't have too much of a conflict. Today, they don't work because of being too detached and sentimental. With every phase cinématographique, the hill seems harder to climb.  However, every once in a while comes an engaging piece of film that shatters a part of our regular assumptions from the genre offerings. Mostly, this is all the romance cinema was about this year- altering the worn-out fabric with delectable new patterns. Here are the eight best romantic films that I saw this year.  Special Mention- Madhyantar (Ankahi Kahaniyaan) In a mediocre (but slightly different) anthology about Mumbai as a city and a state of mind constantly flowing like a breeze, Abhishek Chaubey's wonderful short film Madhyantar was not just a solid step out of the well-established comfort zone, but also a truly charming ode to the romances of yore. An adap...