Lounge
Moments in Hindi cinema: 2024
Summary
Our favourite moments in Hindi films this year, from editing choices to stunts, musical bribes to a tapestry of moths
‘Amar Singh Chamkila’: Pieces of a life
All films are made during the edit, but rarely is this as evident as with Imtiaz Ali’s Amar Singh Chamkila. Editor Aarti Bajaj’s work is key is to its feverish energy, turning this biopic of Punjabi folk singer Chamkila (played by Diljit Dosanjh) into an incendiary collage. A musical montage around the halfway mark offers a particularly thrilling cascade of images. A split-screen shows crowds at a Chamkila concert, one half archival footage, the other dramatized scenes. A diamond appears in the middle of the screen, within it an emcee on stage. Two more split screens. An argument between Chamkila’s wife and manager, quickened with two jump cuts. Still images of the group on stage. Animation of crowds surrounding Chamkila’s car. Twelve identical thumbnail videos of the duo performing, arranged in three rows. More animation, then a split screen with animation and live action. Blurry archival footage of the real Chamkila on stage. All of this lasts just three minutes. The sequence ends with the intertitle “1984": a tumultuous year for Punjab. The jangled editing has already shown us a febrile, flustered world.
‘Girls Will Be Girls’: Key
“People also have keys." When Srinivas (Kesav Binoy Kiron) says this to his girlfriend, 18-year-old Mira (Preeti Panigrahi), in school, she doesn’t question him. But it stays with her, and later, at home, she asks him what he meant. “It’s just understanding how people work," he says. “What they really want." Mira asks what her key is, and is pleased with the answer (“No bullshit"). Then her mother, Anila (Kani Kusruti)—who’s been charmed by Sri over the course of the film, and has become fond of him in return—asks the same question. Sri says it’s praising her cooking, and Anila seems happy with that too. But once she leaves the room, Mira asks him what Anila’s actual key is. “You know her…she needs attention," he admits. “That works in our favour though." It’s a quietly devastating moment, beautifully written and staged by director Shuchi Talati. Sri knows he’s probably letting on more than he should. But he can’t help but be proud of his gift, and you can see Mira finally understand him.
‘Kill’: Dacoits and a demon
There’s never been an Indian film like Kill. It was advertised, cannily, as “Raid on a train", but Nikhil Nagesh Bhat’s actioner—about a gang of dacoits who board a Delhi-bound train and the NSG commando Amrit (Lakshya) who takes them on—is more like the savage Indonesian film The Night Comes for Us (2018). There’s more gore here than all the Hindi films this decade put together. But Kill really tips into horror territory around the one-hour mark, when the depleted band of dacoits finds the bodies of their dead compatriots strung up and hanging from the ceiling of a compartment. Their devastated reaction is played as seriously as those of bereaved passengers—the men cry, call the dead by their names, struggle to get them down. It’s little wrinkles like these that make Kill such a fascinating film. The dacoits are certainly the villains of the piece, but their grief isn’t trivialised. Most films would focus on the losses incurred by Amrit. Instead, this symbol of the Indian state, with his Dharma hero looks, spends the second half of the film unhinged, looking to spread as much fear and pain as possible, ending up being called raakshas (demon). “Aise kaun maarta hai be (who kills like this)?" gangster Fani (Raghav Juyal) asks in wonderment. It’s a reasonable question.
‘CTRL’: Chronically online
Indian films have struggled to depict our online lives in ways that aren’t facile or alarmist. Vikramaditya Motwane’s CTRL is a timely exception, a film in which all the action is mediated via screens: laptop, phone, CCTV. After breaking up publicly with her boyfriend, influencer Nella (Ananya Panday) begins to suspect he’s in trouble. She starts looking into the secret cybersecurity project he was involved with, combing emails and chats and social media for clues. For about seven minutes, all we see is what’s on Nella’s laptop screen and, intermittently, her increasingly worried face. The routines of everyday digital life are transformed into the stuff of classic paranoid thriller—a password recovery attempt feels like safe-cracking, a switch of laptop like a dash down a dark street. It’s a stunning action sequence, and yet Panday only moves a few paces during the whole thing.
‘Laapataa Ladies’: Manohar's cut
When Rick tells Captain Renault in Casablanca (1942) that a gun is pointed at his heart, the chief of police calmly responds: “That is my least vulnerable spot." Inspector Manohar, played with paan-chewing relish by Ravi Kishan, would concur. His function in Kiran Rao’s Laapataa Ladies in much the same as Renault’s in Casablanca—to blithely accept bribes and keep an eye on the comings and goings in his village precinct. He’s introduced sitting at his desk, counting his money as the middle-aged mother of an imprisoned boy serenades him with ‘Rang Saari’. “I’ve reduced 10,000 rupees for the song," Manohar tells her, prompting her to launch gratefully into another verse. It’s a tamer version of Renault accepting sexual favours in return for exit visas. And, like Renault, Manohar will grow a heart just in the nick of time, providing an exit for a woman in need.
Turbulence in ‘Yodha’
Save for Stree 2, popular Hindi cinema in 2024 showed no sign of rediscovering the pulse of the people. In only one respect was there steady progress. The average quality of action continued to improve, visible across actioners (Kill, Vedaa, Yudhra, Jigra), sports films (Chandu Champion, Maidaan) and dramas (Article 370). My pick is Sagar Ambre and Pushkar Ojha’s Yodha. It’s a straightforward, flag-waving, Pakistan-bashing mid-budget thriller, elevated by a series of crunching action scenes, several of them on a plane hijacked by terrorists. The craziest moment is when Sidharth Malhotra’s special ops commando is grappling with Ahmed (Mikhail Yawalkar), only for the plane, on autopilot, to sway alarmingly and then roll 360 degrees. That the action remains clear and concise despite the chaos of flying bodies is a tribute to Ambre and Ojha’s control, and also the care taken by action directors Craig Macrae and Sunil Rodrigues and fight coordinator Ian Williamson.
‘Berlin’: Dancing about architecture
Atul Sabharwal has always found creative ways to suggest entire worlds on a tight budget. In his 2021 film, Class of ’83, he used shots from old Films Division documentaries to stand in for the Bombay of the 1980s. In Berlin, his third film as writer-director, he uses architecture to telling effect. The title refers to a Delhi restaurant frequented by Indian, Russian and East German spies. In an early scene, Pushkin (Aparshakti Khurana)—named for the Russian poet—is framed as a small figure against a massive concrete structure. This kind of Brutalist building, examples of which are seen through the film, evokes the Soviet architecture of the 1970s and ‘80s, and is perfect for a rare Cold War film set in India. But there’s another reason Sabharwal uses this architecture. A little later, Pushkin, a schoolteacher dragged into a murky game of espionage, is again dwarfed by a looming, dour building. Then he’s in a cavernous room. The implication is clear. He will soon find himself adrift, a Kafka protagonist arrayed against a vast and impenetrable system.
Blessings in ‘Bhakshak’ and ‘Jigra’
Two very different woman-on-a-mission films released this year: Pulkit’s Bhakshak, with journalist Vaishali (Bhumi Pednekar) battling to report on a shelter where girls are being abused, and Vasan Bala’s Jigra, in which Satya (Alia Bhatt) is trying to break her brother out of a South-East Asian prison. Though they’re fighting practically alone—Satya is an orphan, Vaishali’s husband is ineffectual and her parents aren’t in the picture—each is supported by a kindly, slightly bumbling older man. Both films have a touching scene where a surrogate father-daughter relationship is suggested. In Jigra, just before Satya puts her plan in action, she faces Bhatia (Manoj Pahwa) and points to her head. He’s confused for a second, then realises she wants his blessings. In Bhakshak, the gesture is less dramatic. Vaishali and her cameraperson, Baskar (Sanjay Mishra), are on a bridge at night. She’s tired and dejected, but says she won’t give up. As they ready to leave, he fastens the buckle of her helmet, as a father would for a child, and grips her shoulders encouragingly.
‘Nocturnes’: Slow down
Unlike the other films on this list, Nocturnes is a calming experience, a chance to absorb and reflect without being bombarded with images or ideas. Anupama Srinivasan and Anirban Dutta’s Sundance documentary, made over five years, follows lepidopterist Mansi Mungee as she researches moths in the forests of Arunachal Pradesh. There are stunning images of moths drawn to Mansi’s lighted screen, both in close up and as a tapestry of whirring bodies. But Satya Rai Nagpaul’s camera finds beauty in other places too: the ghostly silhouette of trees illuminated by lightning flashes, or the faces of Mansi’s local assistants, upturned to the light like someone gazing at a cinema screen. One unbroken scene tracks the progress of a caterpillar down a stem and across a leaf. It lasts 80 seconds, and it’s as memorable a shot as I’ve seen this year.
Repetition in ‘Fairy Folk’
Karan Gour’s Fairy Folk makes a virtue of repetition. New humanoid beings keep turning up to complicate the already fractious marriage of Mohit (Mukul Chadda) and Ritika (Rasika Dugal). We see the same card games and house parties through the film, the same confused trips to the magical forest. Though primarily a comedy (one which reached out to viewers with a unique pay-as-you-like model), there’s a growing melancholy to the film, especially Chadda’s performance. At his lowest point, Mohit tells the fairy who says they're Ritika: “I have no life. I have no life. I don’t even know what life I have. I don’t even know what I am. I don’t know." It’s a deft bit of writing, using the repetition that’s built into the film’s story as part of its language. We see this again later in the scene, when Mohit goes through nine variations on “I’m sorry" in the space of a minute.
