I have already written on the the strange political economy of media in Tamil Nadu in several of my earlier posts. Pl. read them before going through the present post.

In a state where every major political party, barring the CPI (M) and CPI, owns one or several channels, depending on their political and financial prowess, the first casualty in the short term appears to be truthful accounts of local, national and international events. [Read more →]

While we are on the topic of critics and criticism, here is a woeful, yet interesting piece by Roger Ebert. He manages to mention evey newspaper and all their very real short-comings when it comes to the state of film criticism, and yet there is a haunting silence on the word limit he manages to follow week after week, film after film.

The article, however, is a great read, and precisely puts down the problems most critics with any love for cinema face. To read more, click here.

One of the founder members of The Independent, UK, David Lister offers a frank description of the state of apple polishing, er film criticism, which could perhaps be now called a universal affliction — journalists who truckle at the sight of film stars and producers. A sample:

I will never forget the press conference given by Charlton Heston a few years ago, when the late actor was still performing. This was the first “question” from a Lebanese film critic: “Mr Heston, you are a god in my country. You are my father, my mother, my sister and my brother.”

For more read here (link)

Never far from conrtoversy, Indian filmmaker Ram Gopal Verma announced on Wednesday that the title track of his upcoming film Rann is a reworked version of the Indian national anthem.

The tune remains the same, and the lyrics take off from the original in a way that instead of praising the country, they speak of the current divided reality of India. [Read more →]

These are indeed sad times in the land (TN) where political propaganda of several hues got their expositions and teeming audiences through political films, plays and newspapers since the late 1940s. In the face of the gripping tragedies that are befalling innocent Tamils in the war-torn Srilanka every day, what one encounters in Tamil Nadu is a sordid propaganda game where truths about the goings on in Srilanka have become the casualty. [Read more →]

Cao Hamburger’s film O Ano em Que Meus Pais Saíram de Férias (The Year My Parents Went on Vacation) is set in Brazil in 1970. A 12-year-old Mauro’s parents hurriedly leave him at the doorstep of his grandfather’s house, taking off for a ‘vacation’. Soon after the parents speed away, the boy realizes that his grandfather is dead, and he is all alone in a Jewish neighbourhood without any idea of when his parents will return or where they are. [Read more →]

The chaste Tamil word Ayan is made to suspend its real aura3 and enact a performative and false aura for the sake of lending a unique flavour to a film which is not unique and which is of a run-of-the mill kind. The word Ayan has its aura fixed in the realism of the Sangam age. Not long ago, Zizek remarked that the “the fetish is the embodiment of a lie that enables us to endure an unbearable truth.4 Invoking the Zizekian notion of fetish, one can come closer to the post-colonial problematic of Ayan as the title of a masala Tamil film. The film Ayan has its unrealistic grandeur as the real (the truth) and claims to be realistic in terms of the title and plot as the fetish (the lie). [Read more →]

Ayan is the name of a popular Tamil film doing the rounds in theatres in India and abroad (one Tamil diasporic site talks proudly that Ayan is the first Tamil film to have its posters inside an American railway station)1. It is starred by Surya, one of the current star favourites, as Ayan. Ayan (rhymes as Iron in English) opens up immense possibilities to serve as a fit case to apply a host of theoretical perspectives to Tamil cinema as a site of post-colonial markers. [Read more →]

With the advent of Paruthiveeran (2007) and Subramanyapuram (2008), there have been renewed hopes of optimism among members of the discerning lovers of Tamil cinema that all has not been lost and departures from the mainstream narrative practices are not only a possibility, but can also be sure winners at the box office. Both Paruthiveeran (Dir.Ameer) and Subramanyapuram (Dir.Sasikumar) have also been labelled as exemplars of violent narratives. [Read more →]

We are happy to announce that the first issue of Wide Screen is now online.

Click here to access.