PremiumThe Critic: Mansore’s short film with TS Nagabharana takes a hard-hitting look at ‘critics’
Backed by cinematographer Satya Hegde, this is based on a short story by BM Basheer and is a must watch.
Last Updated: 08.12 PM, Jan 20, 2022
Award-winning filmmaker Mansore’s latest presentation is a short film, backed by cinematographer Satya Hegde is the first venture for the latter’s Youtube channel, Satya Hegde Studios, a platform on which he is looking to bring content that does not merit feature film length, but will work best as a short.
The Critic, starring award-winning filmmaker TS Nagabharana and Uma YG, follows a litterateur-critic and a budding novelist. When the young novelist approaches the critic with her first attempt at a novella, she is eager to know his thoughts, driven out of the respect/admiration she has for him. But then something transpires, which changes the outcome of their meeting.
Mansore’s film has a single setting and is just over 11 minutes long and is, quite literally, a hard-hitting look at critics today. While the premise of the short is about a book critic, the social media post for the short film tagged most Kannada film critics, including this writer. The film is a reminder to everyone in the profession about maintaining professional/ethical standards. Critiquing is subjective - what one likes, another may not, which is a fair point - but it should never be based on personal biases; a point this film drives home quite effectively. And for that, this team deserves applause. Unfortunately, the days of subject matter experts being critics are over. Today, anyone is a movie critic – all you need is a Youtube channel and a few thousand followers. But that’s a different story altogether.
The Critic is based on a short story by BM Basheer. Up next, Satya will release a short film by cinematographer Abhishek Kasargod, called The Puppet, on February 13. The plan, according to reports, is to bring out one short film on the Youtube channel every second Sunday of the month. Satya has also been clear that his involvement will strictly be limited to production, and that his primary skill as a cinematographer will not come to play in this venture.