Category: Film Review

‘Farhana’: Shaping a Muslim Woman in Unprecedented Settings

Cinema, Film Review

Review by MUHAMMED NOUSHAD; originally published in Maktoob Media. Tamil movie industry doesn’t bring many Muslim heroes and heroines; hence, a hijabi woman as the title protagonist in a story unfolding in a non-community setting, definitely arouses curiosity, particularly in India’s alarmingly Islamophobic environment. That’s what Farhana does, and concomitantly, there was an unfortunate controversy prior to the release of the movie,

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‘Love Again’, A Missed Celine Dion Opportunity

Cinema, Film Review

MUHAMMED NOSHAD thinks the gracious presence of Celine Dion and her songs don’t save Love Again from banality and predictability. Getting to see Celine Dion acting a role, albeit as herself, is a surprising pleasure, especially when she is through hard physical ailments and her concert tours stay cancelled indefinitely. Love Again brings the charm of the pop queen as

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RVs as Lifeboats; Cathartic Community of Nomadland

Cinema, Film Review

Nomadland raises critical concerns about the economy, lifestyle and perceptions of happiness, writes MUHAMMED NOUSHAD. In Nomadland, the analogy of a motor home is that of a lifeboat. The economy is Titanic, unstoppably sinking thanks to the wreckage. The sinking could be slow, too slow to notice or acknowledge, but it’s inevitable. When Bob Wells, the charismatic vandweller and minimalist who plays himself in

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Over a Haveli: Gulabo Sitabo and Contemporary Contestations

Cinema, Featured, Film Review

MUHAMMED NOUSHAD reads Shoojit Sircar’s Gulabo Sitabo in the context of India’s contemporary conflicts on identity, heritage and even citizenship. The octogenarian actor Farrukh Jaffer of Gulabo Sitabo, somehow reminds one of the nanis and dadis of Shaheen Bagh, as her remarkable character Fathima Beegum has got certain resemblances to those elderly women sat at the Delhi-Noida highway, to protest against

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Shallow Conversations Around Profound Themes

Cinema, Film Review

Collateral Beauty leaves the plot’s philosophical potential poorly developed, writes MUHAMMED NOUSHAD. When you are losing your six year old daughter inside an intensive care unit and you are aware of the unforgivable fact that her life-supporting machinery is removed one by one, and the death is soon to be pronounced, what if you are told by a stranger, “Just make

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