Farzi (2023)

Farzi (2023)

Directed and Produced by: Raj & DK

Starring: Shahid Kapoor, Vijay Sethupathi, Raashi Khanna

By now, it feels like Raj & DK have cracked the format - doesn't matter what story they're telling, what world and characters they're exploring - they figure a solid narrative structure for the long format every time. On the surface, the narrative of Farzi is in similar lines of Breaking Bad - a guy who feels like the system is a bad way to live life by, finds a way to live outside of it with an immense talent he has. But it still seems like a different story, because on the surface the reason for both the protagonists is money. But it's more than the money. It's the insults they face, the oppression, the discrimination they face, the way they're treated and looked at. It's all these things that make more of a difference. In Ep. 2 of Farzi, we see a terrific flashback of Sunny. He's abandoned by his father in a train, and he starts drawing on every platform so that his father would recognise it and find him. 

One style I've observed in Raj & DK's storytelling is - they create depth in their stories by treating moments in a slightly matter of fact way. Sunny's father abandoned him. Big deal? It happens. It's life. That's the treatment. We don't feel these emotions with Sunny, and because of that we start looking at Sunny slightly from a distance where we know that he's been through a lot in life and it makes us feel like we are not adequate to judge what's right and wrong for him. And hence, a beautiful grey character who is protected from our judgements is born. Vijay Sethupathi's character reminded me of Srikanth Tiwari - I love how Raj & DK explore middle aged relationships and marriages, within the context of family, and the real world. Again, Vijay Sethupathi loses custody of his kid. Big deal? It's life. And because of this treatment style, it feels like you're witnessing life and you surrender to them more than otherwise. 

Modern Love: Hyderabad

Modern Love: Hyderabad (2022)

I really enjoyed this show. Although some stories seemed totally Western, they incorporated these stories into the Telugu world pretty well. We usually don’t have a lot of films in Telugu which talk about feelings, nuances within relationships and conversation driven dramas with this tone and nuance. So it was very interesting to watch. Though I really enjoyed all the episodes, I was expecting to see these stories being set in the context of romantic relationships. Only 3 out of 6 stories deal with romantic relationships. That was my only setback, but having said that the episodes that made me feel the most was not about a romantic relationship. 

Episode 1: My unlikely pandemic partner, starring: Revathy, Nithya Menen

It’s a beautiful story. I was deeply moved by it. Relationships with parents is always complicated. There is tons of love, but there are a lot of issues hiding under them too. Sometimes they come out in unexpected times and create some discomfort for a while, and they again go away or go under the rug and it again gets back to being good. This is exactly how the episode is. We know there’s a conflict between them, it comes in between once in a while, but otherwise there’s a lot of love. 

I loved the scene where the both of them sleep beside each other and talk about their relationships. The writing of the scene and the tone, and the style in which it was shot was beautiful. Reminded me of some conversations in one of my favorite shows, Little Things. The ending of this episode was absolutely heart-warming. It beautifully talks about the situation of a person after their spouse passes away in the most bittersweet way. This ending is a nice tribute to Hyderabad, and anyone who loves the city cannot help but be charmed by this ending. 

Episode 2: Fuzzy, purple and full of thorns, starring: Ritu Verma, Aadi Pinishetty

I really enjoyed this episode. I like how it takes off and jumps ahead in their relationship. The moment Ritu opens the cupboard and finds the purple sandal, my mind paused for a second and imagined what the film would be about. I thought, Ritu’s lost sandal at the temple is this purple one, and Aadi was the one who stole it so that he can find an excuse to talk to her, and that’s what happened. So their entire relationship is based on a lie, and now she wants to talk about it. But no, this story wasn’t that. 

This was about how she’s insecure about him keeping his ex’s things. And they both are on different pages about this. I always see Ritu in this calm, composed manner and in this film, she has this side, but she also brought out a neurotic side along with it, which was very interesting. Although I enjoyed the premise and the tone, and where the film goes, I would’ve liked to see more justifications from each side for their arguments, or maybe explore more problems in their relationship starting with this.

Episode 3: Why did she leave me there? Starring: Suhasini, Naresh Agastya

This episode deals with abandonment issues – which is very relevant in the context of romantic relationships. But this story explores it through the roots of abandonment, when a kid feels abandoned when he’s left at a hostel by his grandmother who he deeply loved. I felt that the episode was middling, till the point where we realize that she’s going to leave him in the hostel and from the point where the kid realizes it, the episodes takes off beautifully and ends in a heart-wrenching place.

The issue with this episode for me was that, throughout the episode in the present, it doesn’t deal with the core point of the episode – abandonment. The setting in the present story has nothing to do with his issues. We just see that he’s doing well in his career. I wish I could draw more parallels from the present to the past in terms of where he is emotionally. That would’ve been really interesting. 

Episode 4: What clown wrote this script! Starring: Abijeet Duddala, Malavika Nair

I enjoyed this episode. I love how it was shot and performed. Both the actors were good. Abijeet had a heavy, glum face which spoke a lot and Malavika is this mysterious, charming girl who seems very deceptive, in a nice way. And I particularly liked the tone of the conversations in the episode. Although the stand-up bits didn’t land for me, I don’t know if they were meant to, but I feel like doing a stand up set in a film is the toughest thing, unless the actor writes the set and performs it by themselves. Because when you write jokes and ask someone else to perform them, it’s very challenging. 

I like the whole concept of the ‘telugu abbayi’ and how it was used as a running joke throughout the episode, and I liked the love story too. Although I wish I could feel a little more than what I did. I definitely enjoyed where the episode left me, it left me a bit hanging to see them together, it left me bittersweet to see them split and it left me smiling when there was hope in the ending. 

Episode 5: The rustle in the bushes. Starring: Ulka Gupta, Anirudh Pavithran, Naresh

This is the episode that moved me the most in this season. It’s a beautiful story, it works even on a story level and the actors just made it so better. The story is about a controlling father, who keeps an eye on his daughter all the time, and I feel like a lot of Asian people would relate to this on some level. Ulka Gupta was so good, her innocence added a beautiful layer to the character. Anirudh fits very well in his role. But there were a lot of jumps in their love story. I couldn’t figure why a seemingly traditional girl like her is interested in someone like him. 

Although I didn’t mind the incompletions because at the end of day, it’s a father-daughter love story. The ending broke my heart, because to me a controlling father is a villain. Prakash Raj in Bommarillu is not a character, he’s a villain to me. That’s how I’ve seen controlling fathers all my life. And here comes a film that suddenly makes me see the other side, and in the most heart-breaking way. I can easily say that this episode changed me as a person. 

Episode 6: Finding your penguin. Starring: Komalee Prasad

I really enjoyed this episode, because it talks about finding a mate from an evolutionary perspective. Since I’ve been reading about evolutionary psychology, mating strategies of people, inherent mate value that all of us have, this episode was quite fun to watch. It talks about how different animals find their mates and what mating strategies they have, and the character keeps trying to find love by the strategies taken by different animals. 

This episode stood out the most to me, in terms of the creative voice. It was very solid, especially with the cut-aways to the sequences where she’s dancing with weird costumes and set pieces. I really liked the casting too, the girl looks very Telugu and yet she brings out a beautiful modern-ness to the character and this makes the character urban as well as grounded and I thought that was a very interesting space to put the film in. I like the girl’s confusion and how her heart is all over the place.

The Office

Goodbyes stink! I’m not someone who revisits shows, so this is it I guess with ‘The Office’. God! How do you articulate what a show like this does to you? It started off as a silly comedy meant to be a getaway. And as I slowly started to understand the characters, and how broken deep down everyone is, it became a deeply moving experience. I discovered a Michael Scott within me – with his desperation to be loved. I enjoyed parts of Dwight too, and I want to see a bit of him in me – the relentless enthusiasm towards life. Jim & Pam’s story is such a bitch – it gives you hope that even if things are a bit shaky right now, they will eventually fall in place and workout. Is hope, good or bad? Guess we’ll never know.

This show has been my companion over thick and thin for a while now. Irrespective of how I was doing mentally, I’ve always enjoyed watching an episode. I like the dry, cynical, pragmatic worldview towards life that this show offers. This level of honesty and self-awareness is quite rare in today’s pop culture. I like how they don’t shy away from addressing that Kevin looks unattractive, and it’s tougher for him find love. I love the cynic that Stanley is. And I can’t help but love Michael Scott. I’m afraid of how much I love him. In his desperation to be loved, Michael Scott ends up being the most loving guy of all. In his desire to get love, he ends up giving a lot of love – warranted or otherwise. And the world needs more people who have a lot of love to give – to get it back or otherwise.

Michael Scott would be one of my favorite characters of all time, simply because of his ability to show up to work everyday, carry the same enthusiasm through thick and thin, make people laugh (at least he tries), and how without even being aware, he ends up becoming the most loving person of all. He's, indeed, the World's Best Boss.  

Fleabag

Fleabag Season 1

Created, Written by, and Starring: Phoebe Waller-Bridge
Streaming on Prime Video.

Fleabag has the obscurity of a French New Wave film - both in terms of style and substance. I've seen an episode a few years, but I wanted to revisit this and finish the first season for some reason. Here, the style almost disrupts the storytelling and me being a big sucker for style - I was enjoying it. But after a point, her looking into the camera and predicting what the other characters would do wasn't as much fun. Because we know that the writer can make the character know what the others would do. So the intelligence of the character felt a bit convenient. But apart from this, I liked the general observations she was making about what'd usually happen after a fling. It's very interesting how this was adapted from a play. I'm curious to know how the 4th wall thing was done in the play. I'm sure it'd have been an interactive play. 

I liked how her character was unfolding throughout the show. The stuff that they show in the last episode, added a beautiful layer to her character, which was pretty consistent throughout the show. Even in the humor, there is a sense of detachment in the character - which is what the stuff in the last episode explained. I like the complicated relationship with her sister, and with her father. I loved how even I took her side, and started hating the step-mother till the father comes to her and says, I deserve to move on and be happy. With that one line, my perspective flipped. I was like, yeah, why am I too judging the step mother? That's when I realized how beautiful the writing was - it took us inside her head and made us empathize with her so much that we lose objectivity for a while. I don't want to urgently watch the 2nd season, because I don't know what's in store. But I'll definitely watch it sometime later. 

Squid Game

Squid Game (2021)

Created, Written and Directed by: Hwang Dong-hyug

Netflix's most watched show till date.

Spoilers Alert.

It is about 456 bankrupt contestants, who risk their lives to play games to win a huge amount of money. One good thing the show does is, they show us how badly they want the money - instead of directly jumping into the show. That makes the show more human, in spite of it having a template. Another good thing is that the show has distinctly designed characters, in a way that we root for them. My favourite game is the one where they have to take all the marbles to win the game. This game had the most amount of tension. The one where Ali dies. The game with the old man, that's using someone's weakness against them to kill them - that's the most brutal I felt in the entire show. The one where the girl convinces the other to play, and ends up dying. It was so heavy.  

The tug of war was also beautiful. It could be a quintessential Telugu mass scene. The way they end the episode in a high tension moment was also beautiful - a classic cliffhanger that was. It's a lot of heavy drama, and usually I'm not into such high drama stuff. But I realised, it's because most of the times, it doesn't land and it doesn't work. Here, it does. Everything works. The reveal of the Front Man, the reveal of the old man, the ending fight, and the most kind moment of the show is where the protagonist offers to end the game, give up everything, to save one life. Such a beautiful moment it was.

Modern Love S1 Analysis

Modern Love S1 (2019)

Created by: John Carney

Streaming on: Amazon Prime Video.

An anthology of different love stories set in New York City. The tone of the show is beautiful visually and bittersweet emotionally - just like what Pixar does. Some of the stories are centered around conflicts where you the characters can't do anything about it. Anne Hathaway can't do anything about her condition. She's trying. The old lady in the last episode, what can she do. The older guy and the young girl in Ep-6, what can they do. Somehow these stories are centered around things which we can't control. Life and death. Making someone like you. Fate. These are beyond your control. And that's what makes it heartbreaking. The bittersweet part comes out of the aspect that they can choose to move on and let life happen to them. The setting of New York comes through very well, by the way they shot it. It also comes through the locations it is set in; houses, cafes, grocery store and such life affirming locations.

My favourite is Ep-6, and Ep-8. I wish they showed us more the story in Ep-8 instead of calling back to the earlier episodes. For some reason, I found Ep-8 so endearing. It felt like something impossible was happening, to the both of them. It's quite rare to find someone at that age and be together. And Ep-6, the way it's shot is entirely from the girl's perspective which is why when the guy kisses her, we go WTF. But do a rewatch of the episode from the guy's perspective, it's a totally different reading of the same episode. Ep-6 has lots of scope for discussion about it.

Never Have I Ever Analysis

Never Have I Ever S1 (2020)

Created by: Mindy Kaling, Lang Fisher
Starring: Maitreyi Ramakrishnan
Streaming on Netflix.

It's interesting how life is for an average Indian. The expectations of your parents are at one extreme, and the expectations of Instagram is at the other extreme. You are somewhere at the middle, not living up to either of them. 

It's a coming-of-age show set in high school. It's about an Indian-American teenager dealing with life, high school and also the recent death of her father. It talks about the feeling of being left out, being a misfit, the feeling of not being good enough, a question on our self worth and more such things. The striking aspect of this show is the style of it. There is a very interesting idea, where the voice over is done by John McEnroe, a tennis player who has nothing to do with the show. Breaking the fourth wall is becoming a cliche these days unless the actor is really good, so this is an interesting way they did it in this show. Although Devi is not written to play by any stereotypes, the way her mother talks felt a bit unreal and like it was written to cater to the stereotypes. Some of the exaggeration could be for the jokes to work, I get it. I'm not vouching for political correctness here, lol. 

The track with Paxton is beautifully written - the part where she ditches her friends and goes to Paxton - it's kind of sad the difference in the level of efforts people put in when they are actually into someone and when they aren't. You can clearly see through. The subplot with Devi and her mother's relationship is very well written. Devi's mother was portrayed mostly from Devi's perspective, I wish we saw a bit of why she is so rude to Devi, so that the ending would've been more organic and we could've empathized with her mother too a bit more. 

The Queen's Gambit

The Queen's Gambit (2020)

Written, Directed and Co-created by: Scott Frank
Starring: Anya Taylor-Joy
Streaming on Netflix.

This is the story of the obsessed artist. How does it feel when you dedicate your entire life to one thing? Your mind is thinking about it all the time. Irrespective of what you are doing. It's likely that if you stay like that for a couple of years, you'd become good at it. But what about your life apart from that? That is the question these stories have dealt with - films like Whiplash, Black Swan, Shankarabharanam, The Disciple, and Queen's Gambit too falls in the same umbrella. All these stories have told that it's quite tough and lonely. Because people think you are mad, and would go nowhere, until you are successful. Queen's Gambit is at least not as heartbreaking as The Disciple - because she is good at it and gets a lot of acclaim for her game. The Disciple is the story of a guy who no matter how hard he tries, and how much of his life he dedicates, he just can't achieve excellence. He never sees the moment of excellence that the artists achieve in the endings of Whiplash, Black Swan and Queen's Gambit. This moment is what these artists have been longing for all their lives. And when it comes, it is gratifying. 

Chess is not a very visual game, for it being a cinematic tool. But they do her taking the tranquilizers and imagining a game on the roof, which they even use in the ending - which is a good pay off. Queen's Gambit is also about dealing with success and money at a young age - they ask a beautiful existential question - if you become the world's best chess player at 21, what will you do the rest of your life? This question makes total sense, because the pursuit of being in something is what keeps us look forward to something in life, which is also why perhaps people who have everything in life are not necessarily happy. You need to have problems in life, which you have to keep solving for life to keep going.

Mare of Easttown Analysis

Mare of Easttown (2021)

Created and Written by: Brad Ingelsby
Directed by: Craig Zobel

Starring: Kate Winslet

Streaming on Disney+Hotstar.

It's a murder mystery show. It follows a similar structure, of all shows. We see a world in Ep-1, a murder by the end of Ep-1 and we see all possible characters in the world by Ep-2. By the next few episodes, they create a doubt on some of the characters - they lie about stuff, but not probably because they are the killers, but because they messed something else up which they don't want the cops to know about it. The doubts keep clearing as we go, and finally there's someone amongst the characters who turns out to be the killer. More suspects. Broadchurch, Unbelievable, and most murder mysteries have the same structure.

The good part about Mare of Easttown though is the character exploration of Mare. Her coldness, perhaps her way of overcompensating for being called weak as a woman by sexist men back then. The ending of Ep-3 is my favorite scene of the whole show - it shows us to the extent where Mare can go to have her family with her, to take custody and not let go of anymore people - the way she lost her son. It plays in the grey area, and also acts as an 'all is lost' moment in the show. Zabel's character, I felt was nothing more than a tool for a terrific cliffhanger. It perhaps explores Mare as a person a bit too.

Although one thing I would've done differently is, they arise terrific mystery on the Priest and Dylan in Ep-5, which I felt was too late. They could've done with one of them, in an earlier episode and clear it before moving to the next suspect. That way, Broadchurch was more even. This little unpredictability is interesting, but it felt a bit all over the place at times. Kate Winslet was terrific, her emptiness within, and the way she reacts and responds conveys that she'd have had a past. 

Euphoria Analysis

Euphoria (2019)

Created and Written by: Sam Levinson

Zendaya won the Emmy for Best Actress.

Streaming on Disney+Hotstar.

The general setback of TV shows is that they lack cinematic language. Alfonso Cuaron once said, 'If there are two characters talking, and if it keeps cutting back and forth to their closes - why do I even have to watch it? I can just listen to it'. Shows not having cinematic language is natural as well - because of the runtime - it's not likely that they shoot and edit the entire show with conscious decisions. They generally tend to capture what's happening. In this show, they use almost every cinematic technique which you stands out. The style is unapologetically visible. The prologue of every episode is a 10-min introduction of a character - where we see their childhood voids. Every prologue is shot like the opening sequences of Amelie. The show is heavily influenced by the filmmaking of Martin Scorsese. The way it roots for anarchy, the voice over, usage of pop music, and the snappy editing. Goodfellas. Wolf of Wall Street. One more thing the show does is, it stitches a lot of swish pans.  

Let's talk about Rue, her nihilistic IDGAF outlook towards life comes through the way she talks, the way she walks and even in her general body language. The same with Cassie, Kat as well. One dark thought I generally have when I meet someone is, what could be the worst thing I could say to insult them. It's just a passing thought. It helps us understand their vulnerabilities. This is explored through every character in the show - Cassie gets the worst insult in the show when the guy says that she's boring and any guy who is interested in her is only there to sleep with her. Rue gets such insults. Nate gets those insults, where she says that he can't keep himself hard - it hits straight to his masculinity. All such vulnerabilities are used to explore the characters. The unpredictability of the show makes it less addictive, binge-able, and makes it more of a movie watching experience. 

Easy Season 1 Analysis

Easy S1

Written, Directed, Edited and Produced by: Joe Swanberg

Streaming on Netflix.

It's an anthology, it comprises of different characters and stories set in Chicago. It talks about the modern world problems: like navigating through murky relationships, spicing up life amidst midlife crisis and it deals with the day to day activities of life. The show captures the intellectual postmodern world very well, where there is a lot of conversations that go on about purpose, absurdity, and the futility of life. In the 1st episode - they discuss evolutionary science and apply it to today's world and see what masculinity means, and it feels like we're going in loops of subverting norms. Once we break gender norms, we realize that even though we do it in the modern world - biology doesn't change and we get back to evolutionary science. It's crazy.

I could not appreciate the ones where they face midlife crisis and try to spice up things. My favourite ones would be episodes 2, 3, 5, 1 in the order. Ep-2 talks about wanting to confirm to the norms and belong. I think that's the most important story of the show. The struggle of the young people is to adhere to the political correctness, and to do the right things by choice - but we also feel tired. I miss that naivety, where we didn't try to correct everything that's "problematic" and just let things be. All of this coming through a love story was masterful writing. Ep-5 talks about something that probably every artist would've faced. Drawing from your own life to create art. You're constantly confused where to draw a line. This episode is a hilarious take on it. I'm curious to watch the 2nd and the 3rd seasons. I think this is an interesting format, where you can explore a lot of ideas within a similar tone and genre.