The Journal
Essays & Dispatches
Long reads on the films, filmmakers and movements of meaningful Indian cinema.
15 Park Avenue (2005)
15 Park Avenue (2005) is Aparna Sen’s English-language film about a young woman with schizophrenia who inhabits a private reality centered on a home and family that don’t exist, and the older half-sister who devotedly cares for her, a compassionate exploration of mental illness, perception, and the boundaries of what we call real.
Ek Hota Vidushak (1992)
Ek Hota Vidushak (1992) is Jabbar Patel’s Marathi film about a folk artist (Vidushak) who rises from rural obscurity to fame and political power, only to lose his artistic soul and personal moorings in the process.
Paanch (2003)
Anurag Kashyap’s Paanch is a gritty, controversial 2003 crime drama—his directorial debut—about five reckless friends in a rock band whose lives spiral into violence, drugs, and murder, a film that remained unreleased due to censorship battles over its dark themes.
Tahaan (2008)
Tahaan (2008) is a Hindi drama film by Santosh Sivan about a young Kashmiri boy who embarks on a journey to recover his beloved donkey after it’s taken away to settle a family debt.
Elippathayam (1981)
Elippathayam, directed by Adoor Gopalakrishnan, is a 1981 film, that chronicles, with extraordinary restraint and formal control, the extinction of an entire social order through the fate of one thoroughly unremarkable man.
Anantaram (1987)
Anantaram, directed by Adoor Gopalakrishnan, is a 1987 psychological drama that is considered one of Indian cinema’s most sophisticated meditations on the relationship between storytelling, memory, and psychological disintegration
Kodiyettam (1977)
Kodiyettam, released in 1977 and directed by Adoor Gopalakrishnan, stands as one of the defining works of the Malayalam New Wave cinema.