Posts Tagged ‘Sight and Sound’

Every decade Sight and Sound magazine does this poll to find out the Greatest films of all time. Filmmakers, critics, festival programmers, academics, distributors, writers and other cinephiles are asked to vote for the poll. We are not sure about the criteria on the basis of which the people are asked to vote, but this year five Indian filmmakers are there in the voting list – Adoor Gopalakrishnan, Amit Dutta, Anurag Kashyap, Ashim Ahluwalia and Vidhu Vinod Chopra. And a strange thing caught our eyes – Raqs Media Collective has voted in Director’s category! Can anyone explain that?

Here’s the list of top 10 films that Indian directors voted for…

1. Adoor Gopalkrishnan

400 Blows, The – 1959 –  François Truffaut

Andrei Rublev – 1966 – Andrei Tarkovsky

Boy, The – 1969 – Oshima Nagisa

Pather Panchali – 1955 – Satyajit Ray

Pickpocket – 1959 – Robert Bresson

Puppetmaster, The – 1993 – Hsiao-hsien Hou

Rashomon – 1950 – Akira Kurosawa

Round-Up, The – 1966 – Miklos Jancso

strada, La – 1954 – Federico Fellini

Tokyo Story – 1953 – Ozu Yasujirô

2. Amit Dutta

Andrei Rublev – 1966 – Andrei Tarkovsky

Distant Thunder – 1973 – Satyajit Ray

Lancelot Du Lac – 1974 – Robert Bresson

Late Spring – 1949 – Ozu Yasujirô

My Ain Folk – 1973 – Bill Douglas

My American Uncle – 1980 – Alain Resnais

Arguments and a Story or Reason, Debate and a Tale – 1974 – Ritwik Ghatak

Rikyu – 1989 – Teshigahara Hiroshi

Saint Dnyaneshwar –     XXX – Vishnupant Govind Damle/Sheikh Fattelal

Shadows of Our Forgotten Ancestors – 1964 – Sergei Parajanov

3. Anurag Kashyap

Apocalypse Now – 1979 – Francis Ford Coppola

Bicycle Thieves, The – 1948 – Vittorio de Sica

Breathless – 1960 – Jean-Luc Godard

Fanny and Alexander – 1984 – Ingmar Bergman

Godfather: Part II, The – 1974 – Francis Ford Coppola

Head-On – 2003 – Fatih Akin

Peeping Tom – 1960 – Michael Powell

Pyaasa – 1957 – Guru Dutt

Taxi Driver – 1976 – Martin Scorsese

Trainspotting – 1995 – Danny Boyle

4. Ashim Ahluwalia

Adversary, The – 1971 – Satyajit Ray

Bogey-Man, The – 1980 – Govindan Aravindan

Close-Up – 1989 – Abbas Kiarostami

End of Summer, The – 1961 – Ozu Yasujirô

Golden Thread, The – 1965 – Ritwik Ghatak

Mirror – 1974 – Andrei Tarkovsky

Nanami: Inferno of First Love – 1968 – Hani Susumi

Pale Flower – 1964 – Shinoda Mashiro

Unsere Afrikareise – 1961 – Peter Kubelka

Veronika Voss – 1982 – Rainer Werner Fassbinder

5. Vidhu Vinod Chopra

8½ – 1963 – Federico Fellini

Breathless – 1960 – Jean-Luc Godard

Citizen Kane – 1941 – Orson Welles

Cloud-Capped Star, The – 1960 – Ritwik Ghatak

Emperor of the Mughals, The – 1960 – K. Asif

Lawrence of Arabia – 1962 – David Lean

Mother India – 1957 – Mehboob Khan

Pather Panchali – 1955 – Satyajit Ray

Pyaasa – 1957 – Guru Dutt

Rashomon – 1950 – Akira Kurosawa

– You can click on the filmmakers names to go their voting page and know more about the films.

– To know about the films that other Indian voters voted for, click here. You can go to the individual pages and scroll down to read their notes as well.

– To know more about the poll in details, click here and here.

Ashim Ahluwali’s Miss Lovely and Anurag Kashyap’s two-parter Gangs of Wasseypur premiered at Cannes Un Certain Regard and Directors Fortnight section respectively.

This post is to track all the buzz from the Cannes – reviews, interviews, videos and more. For the Cannes buzz of Vasan Bala’s Peddlers, click here.

Starting with some generic news links.

– Edouard Waintrop, Artistic Director of the Directors’ Fortnight, talks about the new wave of Indian cinema. Click here.

– VIDEO : Tom Brooks’ Cannes edition of Talking Movies starts with Indian films. Click here.

MISS LOVELY

– Review published in the Screen International is here.

– The Hollywood Reporter’s review is here, which describes it as Bollywood meets Boogie Nights in stylized retro-sleazy thriller.

– Variety’s review is here. You need account to read it. But if you are too curious, go close to the screen, squint your eyes and you will be able to read through the black screen.

– A small review in Sight and Sound is here which says the film is mesmerising for the first hour or so, during which, the echoes of Boogie Nights aside, I found myself thinking of Wong Kar-Wai, Scorsese, Matteo Garrone’s Gomorrah and even Irma Vep. Unfortunately the film then palls somewhat – director Ashim Ahluwalia can’t hold onto a story, or develop characters. But while it’s good it’s very good indeed, and had it been that touch better (and shorter) it could have been a game-changer for Indian cinema.

– A french review is here which is not too complimentary. Use Google Translate (GT).

– Ahluwalia makes ‘Lovely’ impact, says Saibal Chatterjee in The Sunday Indian. Click here.

– New York Times piece on the film is here.

– Ashim’s interview in Another mag is here.

– Ad Vitam has picked up the French rights of the film. News link is here.

– VIDEO : Anupama Chopra’s interview of Ashim Ahluwalia is here.

GANGS OF WASSEYPUR

– Review in Screen International is here which says, this Tarantino-tinged Bihari take on The Godfather has what it takes to cross over from the Indian domestic and Diaspora markets to reach out to action-loving, gore-tolerant theatrical and auxiliary genre audiences worldwide.

– The Hollywood Reporter review is here which calls it a dizzying explosion of an Indian gangster film, whose epic structure and colorful, immoral killers capture the imagination for over five hours..

– Review on desi site DearCinema is here.

– In Italian. click here. Use Google Translate (GT).

– Long piece in french edition of Huffington Post is here. Use GT.

– Coverage on BBC website.

– Saibal Chatterjee’s report in The Sunday Indian is here.

– VIDEO : Anupama Chopra’s interview with Kashyap and Bala is here.

– Click on the play button to watch the official video of the screening

If we have missed any links, do post it in the comments section. We will keep on updating the post with new links.