Film Impressions

ESSAY: Mid Year Best of 2011

THE INDIE SOUL OF BOLLYWOOD

Before the onslaught of out-sized holiday blockbusters, it's always quieter in the first half of the year. The first six months of 2011 has been privy to films that aren't usually the kind of fare that our cinema is associated with (and we’ll be back to overblown gaudiness soon enough). After last year's middling mid-year harvest, this year has been a revelation, with some truly worthy efforts, very often by first-time film-makers, who represent a new brat pack of upstarts and rule-changers. Here's a look at the very best of the lot.

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REVIEW: Shor In The City

YEH HAI BOMBAY MERI JAAN

Raj Nidimoru and Krishna DK's Shor In The City opens with the line, 'The city is just an excuse to be good or bad' and closes with a startling admission, 'All the events in this film were inspired by newspaper articles'. What happens in between is the craziest, wittiest, most pulsating Mumbai narrative you've seen in years. It's a befitting paean to the metropolis, a true reflection of its madness—sights, sounds, stink and unflagging spirit—unlike the touristy take in Kiran Rao's Dhobi Ghat earlier this year. Both films have been shot equally brilliantly by Tushar Kanti Ray, a man who clearly knows his Mumbai inside out.