🧵 #Darlings is a film I loved thoroughly. Apart from the stellar performances by #AliaBhatt, #ShefaliShah and @MrVijayVarma, and the way in which director @djasmeet marries the triggering topic of domestic abuse with dark comedy...
Here are my 12 favourite touches in the film!
1/n Superstition
When we first meet Badru in #Darlings, she's superstitious af (read naive.) Not stamping on discarded lemon-chilli totems, sprinkling salt over her shoulders. But at the story's turning point, she walks off calmly even as a black cat crosses her path. Resolute.
2/n An Open Secret
Everyone in Badru's chawl knows about the horrific abuse. They hear it and turn their music up. They see her scars and flinch. The pharmacy boys automatically hand over an antiseptic liquid when she walks in, with no words exchanged.
Hamza's invariable demeanour every morning after is docile, cajoling. Sickeningly sweet. Sometimes he offers a non-apology, sometimes blames it on the drink, on other days he gaslights. The good cop bad cop routine an endless, frustrating loop.
After a night of particularly bad beating, Badru starts smashing plates after Hamza leaves for work. Her face contorted with rage. And hurt. She jumps when someone suddenly enters. Hamza? Thankfully, not. But the rage has morphed into paralysing fear already
It takes Badru time to realise that the wounds Hamza leaves her with aren't skin deep. They are worse. Even when she has an opportunity to get rid of Hamza for good, she imagines herself with scars and black eyes.
Hamza's gaslighting skills peak, obviously, when he lands in prison. Shrewdly turning around a pivotal moment in his favour, that even Shamsu describes as the only opportunity that Badru will get to start afresh.
In a scene that echoes the iconic bathroom scene from The Shining, Hamza shatters the bathroom door and glares inside at a terrified Badru, trying to hide from a deranged, violent man.
When the boss isn't busy trivialising women winning TV gameshows, or seeking thrill out of 2 women fist-fighting in public, he makes Hamza, a subordinate male employee, clean his toilet. An excellent representation of the culture that breeds Hamzas.
#Darlings opens with Badru at the theatre to watch Badla (2019) with Hamza, as if to foreshadow her subsequent journey. And the story ends with her watching Zero (2018). Alone.
A fresh start from zero.
Fin.
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2014. A 13 year old me watched a new trailer in awe. "Haider mera inteqam lena (#Haider avenge me)", it began. Directed by one Vishal Bhardwaj, it was Hamlet, but set in 90s Kashmir. Little did I know how radically the film would transform me and endure 10 years later!
2/13
Bhardwaj's decision to transpose Hamlet's Elsinore to Kashmir, where #Haider returns to find his father's ghost and his mother entangled with his uncle, turns the valley's beauty (immortalised in infinite retro songs) into hell, bloodied with brutality and militarisation.
3/13
For #Haider, Bhardwaj & co-writer Basharat Peer borrow not just from Peer's lauded 'Curfewed Night', but also headlines and anecdotes collected in Kashmir; seamlessly weaving together and finding parallels with Hamlet's core themes of betrayal, deceit, love, loyalty & death.
Early on in #Jawan, a heavily bandaged #SRK asks a village, "Main kaun hoon?", a rousing brass theme thunders in the background and a title card appears: SHAH RUKH KHAN.
That in a nutshell is this electrifying and mad new Atlee film. It's part saga & part self-aware paean.
2/7
In #Jawan, #Atlee distills the narrative spirit of his guru Shankar, & Manmohan Desai; the anti-establishment rage from Nayak, Indian, Ghayal, & Rang de Basanti; and bottles it all in a dazzling comic book-style vigilante drama that still inexplicably feels inventive & fresh
3/7
#Jawan's clever because it uses references and then flips them on their head. There's a Kaveri amma here, who is NOT the timid Gandhian from #Swades. This Mohan can hold the Agriculture minister hostage in his RV to lift the poor Dalit farmer Haridas' life out of poverty.
20 July 1972 saw the untimely demise of singer-extraordinaire #GeetaDutt at the young age of 41. But her tragically short life hasn't made the slightest dent in her lasting legacy as one of our greatest & most versatile artistes. Let us revisit 12 of her best songs!
1/n
#GeetaDutt made her playback debut under Hanuman Prasad in 1946, but it was #SDBurman whose 'Mera Sundar Sapna Beet Gaya' from Do Bhai (1947) made her an overnight sensation. Notice how her voice ebbs & rises to fit the melancholy & angst of the song. She was barely 17 here!
2/n
In 1951, #GeetaDutt sang 'Tadbeer Se Bigdi Hui', a breezy guitar-led number for #SDBurman in #GuruDutt's directorial debut #Baazi. Geeta's voice, flitting between mischief & flirtation, still sounds unbelievably fresh!
1/n The just-released #DilBechara album finds #ARRahman in his most accessible & fresh-sounding form in recent times! The tracks feature a profusion of intricate vocal harmonies, strings, electronic sounds; & traverse varied genres like ballads, dance-pop & hiphop!
*THREAD*
2/n The funky soundscape & #ARRahman's surprisingly seductive vocals in #DilBechara's insanely catchy title track are offset by a thumping bass & an unexpected trap-rhythm- pizzicato-riff combo in the song's 3rd verse!
Unpredictable, unfettered, heady!
3/n #TaareGinn's opening mandolin riff makes way for @shreyaghoshal & @_MohitChauhan who tackle the staccato-ish lines that blend imperceptibly into flowing melodic passages! #ARRahman backs the tune with lush strings, piano arpeggios, violin solos & counterpoint-ish harmonies!