Best of 2023 | The Mirror to Aatmapamphlet- Five Indian Films That Stood Out

In a landscape clogged with the tedium of narratives pandering to conventional expectations, there have been a handful of films from debutant filmmakers and established voices that pushed the envelope and took the viewer to exciting, dark and thrilling places.

The Mirror (Lust Stories 2)

Unfolding with a slinky, sneaky and utterly delicious unruliness, Konkona Sen Sharma’s short in Lust Stories 2, The Mirror packs a razor-sharp screenplay co-written by Pooja Tolani, Anand Bansal’s expertly-judged camera movements traversing space like no other, and Sanyukta Kaza’s extraordinarily precise editing. Isheeta comes home to the shock of stumbling across her househelp, Seema, having sex with her husband, on her bed. But Isheeta opts not to confront her. Instead, she turns her prying gaze into the forbidden. Seema returns the gaze, revelling in it. For a brief while, there is a shift, an interruption in the class-coded power dynamics between the two women. But what about the man? Sen Sharma fearlessly strides into the very centre of the transgression, incisively grappling with the politics of desire and crucially situating it within the grid of space and socio-economic determinants. Who is allowed to get their privacy? What do those unspoken moments where consensualities are navigated and breached look like? Seamlessly going from ferocity to delicacy, Tilottama Shome and Amruta Subhash anchor every question raised in the film with astonishing playfulness and warm humanity.

So many films hurl about a mantle of transgression; The Mirror is the rarest kind that truly understands, respects and empowers complex, messy utterances. Besides the climactic conversation between the two women, the breathtaking staging and direction of the scene where Seema discovers she is being watched and proceeds to channel that for a new pleasure make it among the most incredible, unforgettable scenes of the year. A dizzying tightrope of a film, The Mirror left me gasping for breath.

Where to watch: Netflix

Dhuin

Achal Mishra’s second film is an exquisitely sculpted, miniature marvel that compresses the unfiltered hopes and aspirations of millions of dreamers into a watertight fifty minutes. Pankaj wants to make it as an actor; he hasn’t yet turned cynical or bitter. He has been evading the move from Darbhanga to Mumbai, tied down by familial responsibilities and economic expectations. Then there’s the pitiless condescension and judgement spewed by circuits he longingly looks at from the sidelines, which unfailingly remind him of his place at the edge.

The familiarity of the story rings with freshness in its measured despair, its seemingly calm surface jolted apart by a ruthless, restless core. Mishra’s gaze is tender and acute. In a breakthrough performance, Abhinav Jha is quietly crushing, soulfully mapping out an entire internal journey. To cap it off, Tajdar Junaid’s plaintive riffs make Dhuin an indelibly moving experience.

Where to watch: Mubi

Pokhar Ke Dunu Paar

Co-produced by Achal Mishra, Parth Saurabh’s brilliantly perceptive, uncommonly honest debut feature reckons with the fallout of a couple’s (Sumit and Priyanka), decision to elope and the pandemic-prompted return to their hometown in Darbhanga. Led by Tanaya Khan Jha and Abhinav Jha who deliver some of the year’s finest performances, emotional truth and situational authenticity shine through every scene. Each piece of dialogue bristling with character-specific nuance comes sparklingly alive in Saurabh’s direction which considers, with wisdom and maturity, every beat in this story of a couple learning and recognising things about themselves and the other.

Saurabh creates a starkly resonant portrait, affecting and subdued by turns, of two individuals, which is as blisteringly interested in their frustrations and disappointments as it is in the interlocking economic and gendered anxieties undergirding the relationship. With an unerringly wise, keen eye, Pokhar Ke Dunu Paar traces what happens after the first flush of love has faded in the crucible of reality.

Where to watch: Mubi

Aatmapamphlet

It’s impossible not to be completely swept up by the giddying charm of this Marathi-language film. As Ashish comes of age in 1990s India, he is convinced key moments in his life are inseparably tied to prominent events in his country. With whiffs of Rushdie’s novel, Midnight’s Children, Ashish Avinash Bende’s film is one of the sharpest, funniest, intelligent and definitive debuts in recent years. Bookended with the most inventive prologue and an utterly bonkers, outrageously inspired ending, the film brims with unflagging mischief, youthful brio and zest.

While Paresh Mokashi’s wonderfully imaginative screenplay manages to touch political nerves in a subtle way, acknowledging progressiveness, difference and equality like few Indian films have. The film also distinguishes itself from the staple children’s drama in its naturalistic, lively use of language. Led by a sensational Om Bendkhale and a scene-stealing Chetan Wagh, Aatmapamphlet is greatly buoyed by Faisal Mahadik’s editing that enables it to leap and fly. Bende makes the most charged statements with wit, irreverence and lightness of touch.

Where to watch: Zee5

Viduthalai Part 1

Reprieve exists fleetingly in the worlds director Vetrimaaran builds. Viduthalai Part 1 is grim, punishing and wrenching. The newly recruited constable Kumaresan (Soori) has an existential tussle between the pull of duty and things his department would like to overlook as they try to nab a local activist, Permual (Vijay Sethupathi). At times, the film does chew more than it can adequately do justice. The assembly line, unending images of brutality pushed upon the villagers can provoke divisive conversations around the question of representing violence. Yet, the dazzlingly audacious portrait the director presents of an intricate web of morality, ethics, complicity and accountability, seen through the perspective of a rookie idealistic police officer stepping into the crosshairs between his force and the local militia, has a staggering ambition and defiant rage few Indian films have dared to possess. Even the hilly forests seem to be seethingly biding its time.

Viduthalai is a parable of disillusionment with authority that isn’t shy of jabbing out the fault lines central to any debate on the price of ‘development’, the threat of native dispossession and the fight for holding onto natural resources.

Where to watch: Zee5