Azmi | Pradyot

Photo source: Amazon.in

In a country obsessed with politics and religion, it is quite rare to see any movie paying attention to science and scientists — that too fine attention. 15 Park Avenue (2005) by Aparna Sen is one such movie, which had received the National Film Award for best feature film in English.

I liked this movie for several reasons besides its screenplay and artistic merit. The foremost reason is that it brings nearly all my favourite actors and actresses under one roof — Shabana Azmi, Konkona Sen Sharma, Waheeda Rehman, Soumitra Chatterjee, Kanwaljit Singh, Rahul Bose, Dhritiman Chatterjee to mention only a few. And all of them performing under the expert direction of Aparna Sen who has shown her calibre more than once with movies such as 36 Chowringhee Lane (1981), Yugant (1995), Paromitar Ek Din (2000) and Mr and Mrs Iyer (2002). What more could one ask for? Continue reading →

Shabana Azmi and Smita Patil with Soni Razdan in a scene from Mandi (1983), a yet another Shyam Benegal masterpiece. Photo source: TheQuint.

I will continue with my discussion on film appreciation based on onscreen depiction of conflicts. In the previous two parts of this series, I highlighted the different styles employed by actors to portray the characters they were playing. In the second part, I discussed geometry, inclination and orientation in a scene. I also mentioned importance of the 1/3 rule and the leading lines. Hope you remember those details. Otherwise it is a good idea to brush up your memory by revisiting those articles because discussion in this article and all forthcoming articles depends heavily on the concepts outlined in previous articles. Continue reading →