De De Pyaar De 2: Luv Ranjan’s Film Updates Gender Politics, But Through A Man's Lens |
De De Pyaar De 2 works like two films at once — the one it presents and the one it wishes to be — and the ideological rift is clearest when it returns to Ranjan’s trademark conservatism , writes Ishita Sengupta.
| | | | Cast: Ajay Devgn, Rakul Preet Singh, R Madhavan, Gautami Kapoor | | | | IT MIGHT BE FUN to take a peek inside Luv Ranjan’s head. To find a man-sized hole and witness every emotion hooping through one circle. It ought to be amusing to watch ideas shaped by such a specific outlook — and the stories built around it — with a commitment so absolute that the filmmaker’s default mode of writing assumes a man as the protagonist, the audience, and the gaze. And even when he decides to update his gender politics, he does so through the lens of just one gender: male. These are not conjectures. Ranjan’s filmography subscribes to this. All his directorial features, barring one, are obviously and frustratingly dedicated to a male audience. This bias has leaked into even the stories he has penned. De De Pyaar De (2019) is a telling example. Designed as an age-gap romance, the outing really breaks down to two women, both financially empowered, holding space and making excuses for a man who puts more effort into holding a whiskey glass than keeping them in his life. They talk, he nods. They sob, he nods. Despite his dismal labour, the narrative allows the man to sleep with one and end up with another; the impunity of his actions translated to commercial success and the start of a franchise. Therefore, in De De Pyaar De 2 (Ranjan has furnished the story), the 50-something Ashish (Ajay Devgn) and 26-year-old Ayesha (Rakul Preet Singh) are back and ready to get married. If in the first part it was Ashish’s estranged wife and children who needed convincing, this time it is Ayesha's parents. Your pop culture fix awaits on OTTplay, for only Rs 149 per month. Grab this limited-time offer now! |
| | The Running Man: ‘The Truman Show’ Walks Into A Bar — & Stays There |
For a survival thriller packed with so many moving parts — colourful characters, stylised set pieces, post-truth parables and unbridled violence — The Running Man treads a surprisingly straight line.
Rahul Desai reviews.
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| | | Cast: Glen Powell, Josh Brolin, Lee Pace, Emilia Jones, William H Macy | | | | WHAT IS IT ABOUT Glen Powell and disguises? After Richard Linklater’s Hit Man and the sports comedy Chad Powers, Powell plays another character who must don multiple identities and accents in The Running Man, Edgar Wright’s adaptation of Stephen King’s 1982 novel (which resulted in the kitschy Arnold Schwarzenegger adaptation in 1987 — incidentally the first “sci-fi” saga I had ever seen). Powell is Ben Richards, a working-class hero in a dystopian America ruled by a corporate television network that has weaponised the direness of the land through its murder-happy reality game shows. Ben needs money for his sick daughter (a clunky, hurried setup plays out like the film is almost embarrassed to be soft), so he channels his rage and nihilism to sign up for the deadliest game-show of them all: The Running Man. He is one of the contestants who stands to win a billion dollars if he survives 30 days while trained hunters and ordinary civilians try to kill them; it’s a rigged chase designed by a network boss who sees the explosive Ben as his TRP golden goose. Naturally, this gives Powell the chance to wear more wigs and moustaches. It’s almost as if the famously handsome Tom Cruise-coded actor is doing everything to remind audiences that he’s more than good looks and moviestar charisma. Sometimes he is. Not in this film, though. |
| | Kaantha: A Gorgeous, Ferocious Duel Between Artist & Ego
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As a sophomore effort, Kaantha is the most gorgeous-looking Tamil film of the year. Films about films can be tricky, and by focusing on the personal, Selvamani Selvaraj delivers a memorable if uneven film, Aditya Shrikrishna writes.
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| | | Cast: Dulquer Salmaan, Bhagyashri Bosre, Rana Daggubati | | | |
THE OPENING CREDITS of Selvamani Selvaraj’s Kaantha play over behind-the-scenes photographs of classic South Indian cinema from an era when films were mostly made in Madras and a handful of studios produced all movies. These were Modern Theatres (based in Salem), AVM, Gemini Studios, Vijaya Vauhini and Prasad, and the artists and producers tied to these studios made films across Tamil, Telugu and even Hindi. Kaantha creates the fictitious Modern Studios headed by a young second-generation producer, Martin Prabhakaran (Ravindra Vijay), and borrows the “Thiruchengodu” from the real-life Modern Theatres founder TR Sundaram and gives it to its protagonist TK Mahadevan, played by Dulquer Salmaan. We enter Kaantha in media res, the dramatic stakes already high at the epicentre of the conflict. Ayya (Samuthirakani), a modest filmmaker, is still waiting to make his shelved magnum opus 'Shaantha' — a horror film based on his mother — and the current sensation (and Ayya’s apprentice turned nemesis) TK Mahadevan’s willingness is all it takes to get it back on the floors. After a quick conversation in Martin’s office with Ayya, Kaantha starts off on day one of the shoot with Ayya and Mahadevan’s hostility fresh and glistening. Stream the latest Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and Kannada releases, with OTTplay Premium's Power Play monthly pack, for only Rs 149. Mahadevan renames the film before his first shot — to 'Kaantha' — and directs himself on sets with the ghostly frame of Ayya reduced to an onlooker. But Ayya’s trump card is Kumari ( Bhagyashri Borse), his new apprentice, a Burma extraction (TR Sundaram made Burma Rani with KLV Vasantha in 1945), who is the heroine and, according to the writer, the titular lead. He draws a promise out of her that she will do full justice to the script, her role and his vision, but Mahadaven’s freakish control over the film sends that dream awry. In addition to that, Mahadevan turns on his charms at Kumari and gradually draws her away from Ayya’s shadow and into his starlit galaxy. |
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