Anurag Kashyap’s Monkey In A Cage: A Thorny Post-MeToo Drama
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This is the filmmaker’s big swing to be the enfant terrible of Hindi cinema, but he (still) comes across as an agent provocateur, writes Ishita Sengupta from TIFF 2025.
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IN ANURAG KASHYAP'S Monkey in a Cage (Bandar), provocations arrive early. When a man held in custody is asked to sign papers, he refuses because he cannot read the document. “It’s in Marathi”. The cop’s retort flies back: “If you want to stay in Maharashtra, you have to know Marathi”. Later, there is an elaborate jail song, condemning everything from religion to caste-based divides. Kashyap has been angry for a while. The filmmaker’s rage has been so palpable that it percolates from social media posts to his films. His last couple of original works have been topical indictments — each more incensed than the other, and defined and undone by fury. At this point, his anger is a knotty glaze on his films — impossible to ignore but also distracting. The pattern has been so consistent that baiting seems to be the intent and the whole point. His latest, Monkey in a Cage, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival, is a more obvious step towards that direction. Stream live sports, films and shows with an OTTplay Power Play pack for only Rs 149 per month. Grab this offer now! With this, he is still underlining the brokenness of the system, but doing so through the contentious premise of a man falsely implicated in a rape case. This is tricky because, set in a country like India where sexual abuse is rampant, Monkey in a Cage chooses to focus entirely on the other side and thereby runs the risk of undermining a serious issue. Written by Sudip Sharma and Abhishek Banerjee (the team behind Pataal Lok ), the film insists that being accused of rape is no less serious (the film does not draw an equivalence but also never addresses it), and this single-eyed approach espouses a thorny post-MeToo film that assumes to be more nuanced than what it really is. Continue Reading. |
At The Kumbh, Between Love & Sin
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From TIFF, a conversation with In Search Of The Sky makers, Jitank Singh Gurjar & Pooja Vishal Sharma. |
IN JITANK SINGH GURJAR'S short film Baasan (2023), rural folklore assumes the centrality of a protagonist. Characters are lured in by mystical forces as they get wrapped in greed and confront a fatal outcome. His feature debut, In Search Of The Sky, is more sobering in comparison, but the preoccupation with the human psyche remains intact. Written by Pooja Vishal Sharma, In Search Of The Sky is a tender exposition of a family caught between survival and love. Jasrath and Vidya, a married couple living in a village in Madhya Pradesh, struggle to make ends meet. Their grown-up son, however, is oblivious. He plays in the field, climbs trees with abandon and brings home a piglet, mistaking it for a puppy. Naran is specially-abled, and his condition evokes distinct reactions in his parents: the mother is concerned, but the father is ashamed. People in the village are convinced that it is a manifestation of Jasrath’s past sins. The concept of sin looms large in In Search Of The Sky, not as a question hurtling towards an answer but as a philosophical strand waiting to be unspooled. As the film unfolds, the idea continues to shapeshift, and so does the face of the sinner(s). Setting the second half of the film against the spiritual backdrop of Kumbh Mela, a famed Hindu pilgrimage site, the makers raise queries that move from binarised culpability and halt at the multiplicity of perspectives, lending In Search Of The Sky an existential core in keeping with the title. The film has been selected in the Centrepiece program at the ongoing Toronto International Film Festival, and ahead of the premiere, the writer and filmmaker spoke to me. Continue Reading. — I.S. |
Asia Cup 2025, India vs UAE: Favourites Set to Flex
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Karan Pradhan sets the stage for India’s tourney opener — a match that promises a showcase of form, finesse, and strategic tinkering more than a true test from the hosts. |
AND WE’RE UNDERWAY! The opening match of the tournament saw Afghanistan steamroll Hong Kong by 94 runs, with Sediqullah Atal, Azmatullah Omarzai and Co laying down a marker for what their rivals can expect in the coming days. Further, a mature and intelligent performance with the ball saw the Afghan team make short work of Hong Kong’s run chase. On Wednesday, the action moves swiftly to Group A where it’s time for Suryakumar Yadav to lead his charges into the Dubai International Cricket Stadium to take on hosts, the UAE. The two countries have faced each other on the cricket field on a total of four occasions: Three of these were ODIs and there was a solitary T20 game played in Bangladesh’s Mirpur during the first-ever T20 Asia Cup back in 2016. For fans of random trivia, this match that India won by nine wickets saw Pawan Negi make his one and only appearance in Indian colours. Needless to say, India won all four of these matches at a canter. Interestingly, Jasprit Bumrah is the only member of that 2016 Asia Cup side to still be in the Indian side. While the UAE team is also full of new faces, there is one member of the setup who will be all too familiar to their opponents: Coach Lalchand Rajput. Readers may recall Rajput as India’s coach when the team won the inaugural T20 World Cup in 2007. Continue Reading. |
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