DesertTalkies Film Reviews!

Mughal E Azam [1960] Starring: Madhubala, Dilip Kumar, Prithviraj Kapoor, Nigar Sultana Direction by K. Asif with Music by Naushad Language: Hindi My parents often tell me this: ''you cannot call yourself an admirer of Hindi cinema without watching Mughal-E-Azam''. And it was on a drive home where my parents happened to play the movie soundtrack that I made my decision to watch the movie. I was initially very hesitant to watch it: the only way I could watch it was on Youtube, a platform that doesn't offer English Subtitles with a movie like this one. I can speak Urdu/Hindi conversationally, but such complex Urdu, like the one spoken in the movie was something I knew I would have challenges with. As such, the experience of watching this movie was a little stilted, as I had to keep pausing to ask my parents what certain words and expressions meant. But I get what Indian cinephiles mean when they call this movie a classic: the movie was a pioneer, which contained all t...

  The Sound of Music [1965] Starring: Julie Andrews, Cristopher Plummer, Charmain Carr Direction by Robert Wise, Screenplay by Maria Von Trapp Language: English Sometimes I dream that I am Maria: gallivanting around the hills of the Austrian countryside. Sounds peaceful, doesn't it? Everyone, even those who haven't watched this movie, have some link to it. Everyone has heard 'my favourite things' somewhere - I'm sure of that. The last time I watched this was a good thirteen years ago, when I was sick with a cold. A cold of similar severity has struck me down again, and so naturally I thought that it was time for a rewatch.  There is no musical without the music (it goes without saying), and it was glorious. Timeless classics hit the viewer left and right. I miss the simplicity of movie music: where simple and strong melodies were the norm. There's a reason that, after watching this movie, I have caught myself singing some of the big songs - several times. My fav...

 Here is something a little bit different: because of my exams, I have not been able to watch any movies, and so I thought that a different type of post would be good to do.  Today, I'll be sharing some of my favourite Bollywood film posters. Bollywood films in the 1950s to the 1980s were advertised through print media; handcrafted posters painstakingly drawn, coloured, and replicated on a wide scale to provide an insight into the movies they were advertising. Bollywood films rely on strong visuals to be appealing, and that has not changed during the several decades that Bollywood cinema has been such a large industry.  The posters that strike me are the ones that focus solely on women, or have women as the dominant entity in the frame. The one on the right is Bandini, a movie from the 1960s that was known to be one of the first feminist movies in the Hindi-language film industry, and industry otherwise so bogged down by antiquated gender stereotypes. Adding to this, the ...