Aakshi Magazine

At a time when hate is a safe bet, ‘Main Vaapas Aaunga’ trusts our instinct to love

June 16, 2026 16:25 IST

To watch such a film is a relief. A friend whose grandparents had to come to India from Lahore during the Partition wrote on social media that the film is like a balm

‘Dhadak 2’ and ‘Saiyyara’: Two romances, miles apartSubscriber Only

August 09, 2025 11:29 IST

While ‘Saiyyara’ is a somewhat traditional film, where masculine self-pity disguises itself as a romance, ‘Dhadak 2’ dares to challenge its audience by making visible the violence at the heart of a caste-based society

The incomplete feminism of ‘Mrs’ and ‘The Great Indian Kitchen’Subscriber Only

February 27, 2025 14:30 IST

Neither film can escape its limited view of caste

‘Girls will be girls’ and beyond: Our parents, their traumas and the films that empathise with themSubscriber Only

January 11, 2025 12:51 IST

This is what art does. It does not merely settle scores but challenges us to do the difficult work. To find within us the capacity to empathise. When you free yourself, you also free the other

In ‘Jigra’, Alia Bhatt plays a new kind of action heroSubscriber Only

October 20, 2024 12:45 IST

Unlike Amitabh Bachchan’s angry young man, to whom he pays homage in his latest film, director Vasan Bala’s angry young woman is driven not by rage against an unjust system, but trauma and love

Salim-Javed in ‘Angry Young Men’, Yash Chopra and ‘Romantics’: The perils of nostalgia as PRSubscriber Only

September 15, 2024 06:50 IST

Perhaps when popular cinema loses its current self-consciousness, it might go back to making us feel seen again. With all our hypocrisies.

In the time of ‘Veer Savarkar’ and ‘Animal’, why ‘Manjummel Boys’ stands outSubscriber Only

April 12, 2024 14:41 IST

‘Manjummel Boys’ has no male superhero, only vulnerability and courage

Varun Grover’s ‘All India Rank’: The quiet joy of life beyond exams, of nothing happeningSubscriber Only

February 27, 2024 15:03 IST

The movie conveys a simple message — in adulthood, no one has the answers. And they certainly can’t be contained in the limiting space of exam prep

Yash Raj’s ‘nostalgia film festival’ and the uncomfortable, enduring charm of the theatreSubscriber Only

February 13, 2024 17:57 IST

While the trend of re-releasing older films may be a marketing gimmick meant to attract audiences, it evokes the preciousness of the cinema theatre experience.

What ‘Fighter’, released on R-Day, says about its audienceSubscriber Only

January 27, 2024 16:53 IST

The movie is another in a long list of war films that build a case for violence, revenge and aggression

Lesson from ’12th fail’: In a just society, UPSC obsession would be cruelty. We celebrate itSubscriber Only

January 08, 2024 17:58 IST

The movie is a reminder that there is space for those who win — and for those who stay true to themselves

‘Kaala Paani’: A show that remembers — and reminds us of the value of careSubscriber Only

October 31, 2023 17:24 IST

The seven-part series asks what it means to be human and live in this world when things seem out of our control. Each character shows us that there are multiple, contradictory and conflicting answers to this question.

When Dharmendra kissed Shabana: Love, rebellion and Hindi film songsSubscriber Only

August 16, 2023 17:30 IST

Songs are serious business in Hindi cinema, which don’t see audiences for who they are, but who they secretly might want to be. In its many song sequences, Rocky aur Rani Kii Prem Kahani too embodies this special, complicated relationship of Hindi cinema to its audience

Kathal, Dahaad, The Kerala Story and one question: Why do women run away?Subscriber Only

May 29, 2023 11:41 IST

While ‘Dahaad’ and ‘Kathal’ understand why someone might want to escape, ‘The Kerala Story’ treats the impulse as born out of ignorance. Women can only be trapped, misled and ‘converted’ to the other side

‘All That Breathes’: An unusual record of the lives of people living through divisive politicsSubscriber Only

April 05, 2023 15:29 IST

As violence escalates, some people nonchalantly go about doing the big work in small ways. They are thinkers and doers, not victims

With Zwigato, Nandita Das exposes the darkness behind the gig economy Subscriber Only

March 19, 2023 19:11 IST

The film explores the relationship gig workers have with their work — one that affords them no dignity, identity. It starts and ends not with what is, but with what can be.

Lagaan to RRR: Rajamouli’s Raj-era spectacle doesn’t need cricket — it relies on a shrunken, majoritarian nationalismSubscriber Only

December 19, 2022 12:45 IST

Golden Globe nominations and Western praise notwithstanding, the film is trying to claim legitimacy for its conservative politics by building false connections. Propaganda can be this literal.

In an age of cynicism, Monica, O My Darling’s sincerity is worth cherishingSubscriber Only

November 23, 2022 15:48 IST

Aakshi Magazine writes: The Vasan Bala film is not afraid to express its love without irony. In a different context, this is also one of the reasons the Korean K-dramas feel refreshing.

What a robot from Kerala, Bombay High Court and French and Indian films tell us about domestic labourSubscriber Only

October 30, 2022 18:01 IST

Someone’s labour and attention has gone into figuring out what works best in the household. And so dismissing that work is not good politics -- noticing it is.

What the success of Vikram Vedha says about the failure of the multiplexSubscriber Only

October 07, 2022 17:12 IST

Twenty-five years after the single-screen theatre was abandoned, the popular film is not willing to let go of the memory of the less sanitised, less exclusive experience. What had become undesirable is now being missed — only too late perhaps

With Brahmastra, a more Hindu-ised BollywoodSubscriber Only

September 18, 2022 16:00 IST

Karan Johar’s Dharma Productions has found a way to appease the market and Hindutva’s fantasy of policing Bollywood.

‘Dobaaraa’ does not feel like an Anurag Kashyap film. And that is goodSubscriber Only

August 31, 2022 17:31 IST

Like its self-aware protagonist, played by Taapsee Pannu, the film knows what it is not and does not try to be more

Lata Mangeshkar, heroine off-screenSubscriber Only

February 09, 2022 21:25 IST

Even within the limited patriarchal imagination of most film narratives, Lata Mangeshkar could transcend barriers

The vulnerable, credible women characters of Bombay BegumsSubscriber Only

March 13, 2021 03:00 IST

Unlike in hypermasculine shows, which are not interested in their female characters beyond their sexual beings, Bombay Begums’ women don’t have a straightforward relationship with their desires.

In ‘Bulbbul’, moment of dread is not about female demon, but husband inflicting violenceSubscriber Only

July 08, 2020 03:00 IST

The real horror, though, is that the sequence itself, shot in a painting-like style, becomes an uneasy reminder of how we end up immortalising acts of male violence, sometimes as courage, and in this case, as terror.