Tag Archives: Dekh Tamasha Dekh

Streaming Video News and Site Guide: March 18, 2020

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With an increased amount of traffic to my website in the last couple of weeks, I thought I should give a quick explainer of how Access Bollywood operates for anyone new to the site. First of all, welcome newcomers! I update my lists of Indian movies on Netflix and Indian movies on Amazon Prime every day with new additions to the catalogs and info on upcoming releases and expiration dates, when available. I used to take weekends off, but I’m switching to a 7-day-a-week schedule for the foreseeable future. We need something to keep our spirits up these days, and if I can help alert folks to new movies to watch, I’m gonna do it.

The “Newly Added” section at the top of my Netflix page has all of the Indian movies and series that have been added in the last month, plus international projects that feature prominent Indian actors, like Netflix’s April release Extraction, starring Randeep Hooda and Manoj Bajpayee. Because Amazon Prime adds so many more titles than Netflix every month (75 in the last week alone), all of the new additions from the last seven days are at the top of the “Newly Added” section of my Prime page. Below that are all the 2020 releases added in the last month.

In happy news, Eros Now is offering two free months of streaming if you sign up using the code STAYSAFE. I haven’t used Eros Now in a while, but their catalog is massive, with content across multiple languages as well as original films and series. The only sort option is “Most Popular” — though you can winnow results down by “Language” and “Decade” — so it can be hard to find what you’re looking for. Here are some of my favorite films in the Eros Now catalog (the title links to the movie’s Eros Now page, the star-ranking to my review). Stay safe! — Kathy

Best Bollywood Movies of 2014

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2014 delivered a bunch of well-crafted films aimed at a savvy audience. Here are my ten best of the year. (Click on the title of each movie to read my original review.)

Films with budgets large and small took aim at social issues affecting ordinary citizens.  Siddharth powerfully explores poverty through the experience of a man searching for his missing child. The divisive intersection of politics and religion is skewered both by indies — Filmistaan and Dekh Tamasha Dekh — and the year’s biggest hit, PK.

Other films put creative spins on existing formulas. Highway turns a typical damsel-in-distress scenario into a young woman’s journey of self-discovery. Dedh Ishqiya features a budding romance between a middle-aged couple, played by Madhuri Dixit-Nene and Naseeruddin Shah. I thought I’d seen enough gangster movies for a lifetime until Kill Dil revitalized the genre in stylish fashion.

Ankhon Dekhi challenges the notion that a movie has to be “about” a specific theme, instead presenting itself as a movie to simply experience.

My sentimental favorite film of 2014 is Queen. Watching Kangana Ranuat as charming small-town girl Rani gallivanting about Europe on her solo honeymoon is a joyous experience. It’s a movie I look forward to revisiting.

Yet one movie stood out from the rest because of its riveting story and immaculate direction. The best Hindi movie of 2014 is Haider.

I’m a huge fan of director Vishal Bhardwaj, and even with high expectations going in, I was still blown away by Haider. It’s gorgeous, thanks both to the natural beauty of Kashmir and Bhardwaj’s use of a bold color palette against a snowy backdrop. Kudos to cinematographer Pankaj Kumar as well.

Bhardwaj — who also wrote the film’s music — maximizes the potential for song as a narrative device in a sequence in which Haider (a modern Hamlet, played by Shahid Kapoor) publicly implicates his uncle in his father’s disappearance. The scene is much more effective as a musical performance than it would have been as a speech.

Bhardwaj also deserves credit for placing his version of Hamlet in such a politically and emotionally charged environment. Notes at the end of the movie highlight how ongoing tension between India and Pakistan have cut off a beautiful place like Kashmir from the rest of the world, to the detriment of regular people simply trying to exist. Placing a 400-year-old story within the context of a modern conflict emphasizes that quelling the dangerous temptations that come with political ambition is a problem humans haven’t yet solved. Haider is a magnificent piece of visual storytelling.

Best Bollywood Movies of 2014

    1. Haider — Buy/rent at Amazon or iTunes
    2. Queen — Buy/rent at Amazon
    3. Siddharth — Buy/rent at Amazon or iTunes
    4. Ankhon Dekhi — Buy/rent at Amazon or iTunes
    5. Highway — Buy/rent at Amazon or iTunes
    6. Dedh Ishqiya — Buy/rent at Amazon or iTunes
    7. PK — Buy/rent at Amazon or iTunes
    8. Dekh Tamasha Dekh — Buy/rent at Amazon or iTunes
    9. Kill Dil — Buy/rent at Amazon or iTunes
    10. Filmistaan — Buy/rent at Amazon or iTunes

Previous Best Movies Lists

Movie Review: Dekh Tamasha Dekh (2014)

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dekhTamashaDekh3.5 Stars (out of 4)

Buy or rent the movie at iTunes
Buy the DVD at Amazon

Dekh Tamasha Dekh is a satire of modern India, but its relevance is universal. Director Feroz Abbas Khan and writer Shafaat Khan present an insightful, funny story about the dangers of sectarianism and intellectual laziness.

The town of Canda functions under an uneasy balance between the local Hindu and Muslim communities. The town’s most prominent politician, Mutha Seth (Satish Kaushik), also owns the local newspaper, and he bemoans the declining readership. The marketing guru he brings in pushes local gossip: “What people wish to read is more important.”

Mutha Seth gets his wish when a billboard depicting his likeness falls over, killing Hamid (Satish Tare), the local horse cart driver. Hamid’s body is already in the grave when members of the Hindu community demand that the Muslims turn the body over to them. Hamid was born as a Hindu named Kishen, although he converted to Islam more than twenty years earlier.

This sparks a protracted legal battle over the dead man’s body, and both sides become increasingly militant. The new chief of police, Sawant (Ganesh Yadav), struggles to quell a feud he doesn’t really understand, as he’s reminded by the local historian, Professor Shastri (Satish Alekar).

Though the ideas of corrupt politics and violent religious tension are large in scale, they are exacerbated by small acts. For example: Kulkarni (Dhiresh Joshi), the editor of the local paper, feels his career threatened by the new marketing guy, so he publishes an inflammatory story that sparks a riot. When the paper’s lone reporter, Rafiq (Angad Mhaskar), asks a visiting imam to promote peace instead of war, Rafiq is forced to flee for his life as the city burns.

Khan constantly reminds the audience that fights driven by fanaticism have dire consequences for people who want no part in them, especially the poor. Cinematographer Hemant Chaturvedi’s shots capture characters framed in doorways or windows. We are invited into their homes to see their suffering.

The people who suffer the most in the fight for Hamid/Kishen’s body are his own family. His widow, Fatima (Tanvi Azmi), doesn’t care what happens to the body. He’s dead, and she and her children are still poor. She tolerates the mournful wailing of the women who’ve taken over her house, vowing to pray continuously for Hamid’s soul until he’s buried. Then the water turns back on for the day, and they abandon their prayers to fill up their buckets.

Even worse off is Hamid’s daughter, Shabbo (Apoorva Arora), who’s in love with a Hindu man named Prashant (Alok Rajwade). Shabbo’s pragmatism and worries are mitigated by Prashant’s relentless optimism. He stares at her as though she’s the only thing that exists in the world. In another place, their future happiness would be a given, but not in Canda, where their very relationship is tantamount to treason.

Grounding the story so firmly in one town highlights the way such problems could manifest in any town in any country. Substitute two other religions — or races or political parties — and the mania that overtakes Canda could happen anywhere. It’s a chilling lesson told in an amusing, moving way. Dekh Tamasha Dekh is terrific.

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