News

Sandalwood Neo-noir films usually have a cynical attitude and revolve around crimeSanjana DeshpandeRooted in the German Expressionist Movement, the style film noir emerged in the United States against the backdrop of the Great Depression which lasted from 1929 to 1933. The noir films usually had a cynical attitude and presented stories of crime. The films were largely associated with the black-and-white visual style and had low-key lighting. Neo-noir was an attempt at revival of the noir. Although the two genres are stylistically the same—replete with low-key lighting, unbalanced framing, Dutch angle, blurry boundaries between good and bad— a distinct feature sets them apart. Neo-noir was rooted more in the French New Wave which emerged in the 1950s. Quite a few Indian films have been made in neo-noir style, and the Kannada film industry too is trying to push boundaries with the genre. Here’s a list of five Sandalwood neo-noir films...

ReviewWith unreliable narrators and the story changing depending on who's narrating it, this thriller keeps you guessing till the end. Sowmya RajendranArishadvarga, directed by Arvind Kamath, is that kind of delicious whodunit which invites the viewer to participate in the investigation. With unreliable narrators, coloured narratives and refurbished truths, the screenplay is a mix of fact and inventive fiction that the viewer has to navigate, much like the dour-faced police officer Ashok (Nanda Gopal). It's unconventional to discuss the ending of a film at the beginning of a review. But then, it is the ending which also makes sense of the title, where it all begins. 'Arishadvarga' are the six enemies of the mind -- kama (lust), krodha (anger), moha (attachment), lobha (greed), mada (pride) and matsarya (jealousy) -- which must be conquered for a person to attain moksha or salvation. Each of the characters who are on this chessboard represent these emotions.

Director Arvind Kamath’s latest film takes its title from the Arishadvargas, or the six enemies of the mind according to Hindu belief. Lust, anger, greed, pride, jealousy and attachment are all believed to prevent a person from achieving salvation, though the first three of these – lust, anger, and greed – are also supposed to pave the way towards hell, and all of them can only be overcome by setting out on a personal devotional path. Kamath uses these concepts as the basis for his latest film, a Kannada-language neo-noir thriller that is as complex as the concepts it derives its title from.

Anish (Mahesh Bung), an aspiring actor, stumbles across the body of a film producer when he arrives at a meeting arranged with a woman (Maanasa) who has set up him to take the fall for the murder, telling him she felt like “gifting” someone a murder, and today was Anish’s lucky day.

A movie producer has been murdered in an upscale bungalow in Bengaluru. Who is the culprit? No one knows, but a pair of unlucky would-be actors are the primary suspects, and it's going to be up to them and one dogged detective who doesn't like to play by the rules to figure this one out in Arvind Kamath's new Kannada language thriller, Arishadvarga. It's been a while since since I've seen and enjoyed a film that utilized this many parallel narratives in service of a story that is essentially confined to a couple of main locations. The two actors, Anish (played by the handsome Mahesh Bung) and his female counterpart Saakshi (played by Samyukta Hornad), are caught in a web of deceit designed to frame...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...