Because we need a good romcom in the depths of winter: Khoobsurat
~~~ Beth Watkins appreciates the occasional squooshing of hearts, but in a good way.
bethlovesbollywood
Tum Mere Ho
It’s been far too long since we last discussed an Indian snake movie on the Gutter, so today I bring you Tum Mere Ho (Hindi, 1990). In essence this is a tale of star-crossed lovers sandwiched in what Indian cinema calls a mythological, a story about deities, displays […]
Bombay Blofeld: Shaan
What if James Bond went to Bombay in the late 1970s and wasn’t so much a secret agent as a stylist and interior designer for a particularly aesthetics-oriented villain? The plot of Shaan has very little to do with any of the Bond films that I can remember. […]
Kshudhita Pashan: A Ghostly Love Story
Bear with me: at first glance, this piece may fall outside the Cultural Gutter’s mission to share thoughtful writing about disreputable art. Kshudhita Pashan (1960) is based on a short story by Nobel laureate, author, musician, and all-around revered thinker Rabindranath Tagore. But its ghostly ladies, creepy palaces, […]
Khiladiyon Ka Khiladi
For those of us who did not grow up watching Bollywood films (and maybe even for those of you who did, depending on how closely an adult monitored what you were watching when or after this film came out), there is a particular threshold that each of us […]
Epically Epic: Sikandar (1941)
It’s not terribly high in historical accuracy, but Sikandar is wonderful to behold and thoroughly thought-provoking about empire and political virtue from pre-Independence India. Sikandar manages to be completely entertaining while still indulging in lesson-dispensing from Aristotle, who as the film opens is in Persia with Sikandar and […]
