Ansango

Narratively speaking, SISTER MIDNIGHT turns from straightforward to baroque in its last act, but its sheer audacity and uniqueness is marvellous. This film is a tale about ennui that's brilliantly told through an awkward couple's forced arranged marriage and its bizarre repercussions. The film is wacky, weird, wonderful, somewhat disjointed, subversive, totally unpredictable, and amalgamates several genres into a superb blend that's filled with brilliant darkly comedic moments, absurd narrative turns and a fire performance by Radhika Apte - she is literally the soul of this film.

It is a very offbeat exploration of loneliness, identity negotiation, non-conformity, gender role internalization and self-realization. Very unusual, oddly charming and wholly entertaining, this film is an extraordinary experience that defies conventions and is not weird for the sake of weird; there is a method to its madness, and its storytelling structure that's essentially a series of vignettes arranged linearly. Also, a special shoutout to Sverre Sørdal for his amazing cinematography.

Overall, I loved it and can't recommend it enough to people who are in search of offbeat genre benders with distinct vibe.

LOMAD is the world's first black and white single take feature length narrative film, and on purely execution and technical levels, it is an easy 10/10. The manner is which HEMWANT TIWARI executes the whole film in one shot with several time jumps is truly marvellous. The performances, while sometimes ranging on exaggerated theatricality, are mostly good.

Where the film falters is in its very ordinary and flawed writing. While the story is good, the screenplay is very poorly written, with lots of conveniences and huge plot holes. The beginning of the conflict also films rather manufactured, where characters do some seriously bizarre and dumb things just for the sake of progressing the plot further in a forced manner. The entire film is full of characters talking to each other, but the dialogue writing is very average; in several places you're compelled to comment that that is not how people talk in real life.

All in all, LOMAD is a technical marvel where one-shot is executed flawlessly, the sound design is brilliant, and the exquisite black-and-white cinematography complements the grimness of the story, but due to a very ordinary writing, this film fails to soar. I will still recommend this film to anyone who is interested in exploring the offbeat and indie side of Hindi cinema, but I will suggest them to watch this film while keeping their expectations in check.

Despite some shortcomings in the film, I have mad respect for its Hemwant who wrote, directed as well as acted as the lead in this film. A true blue cinema ardent who achieves here what several filmmakers can't in their entire careers. He is a pure representation of artistry, and cinema is made cinema due to the dedication of people like him. Bravo sir!

What's up with the vitriol for this film? Agreed, it's not in the same league as KH's or MR's best film, but THUG LIFE is not a bad film. The story is pretty generic, but the drama built around it is pretty nice despite being predictable. The cinematography is gorgeous, and the music is superb. The film suffers due to poor writing that contains a lot of undeveloped ideas, especially in the second half, and plot inconsistencies, but despite that, it's a hella entertaining ride, and at no point I felt as if I am forcing myself to finish this film.

You know, when you dislike a well-liked movie because it didn't connect with you and say "it wasn't for me". I think this film is opposite of that, as "it was for me".