Latest Indiancinema Podcast Episodes
The Stranger and the Bhadralok
Banter, Bollywood and Beyond - March 26, 2021 09:00 - 44 minutesThe Stranger (Agantuk) by Satyajit Ray is our first Bengali film on the podcast. Despite it being Ray's final film, it is a wonderful film on its own merits, as the great Utpal Dutt plays the charming visitor who, for reasons unknown, returns to a Bengali urban elite (or Bhadralok) family which ...
Raees
Banter, Bollywood and Beyond - March 12, 2021 11:09 - 46 minutesYou can have it from us in writing, this is Raees! Smytta chooses full-on modern Bollywood (2017), firstly because she just feels like it, and secondly because this literally and figuratively meaty movie has plenty to get stuck into: Muslim and Gujarati identity, Shah Rukh Khan's particular b...
Chhoti Si Baat
Banter, Bollywood and Beyond - February 27, 2021 15:37 - 52 minutesBack to Bollywood banger territory! For those of us in lockdown, Chhoti Si Baat (1976) is wanderlust and nostalgia catnip. Mumbai-native Smytta enjoys reminiscing over the Mumbai landmarks with Alex. Samovar café! Gaylord's! Eros Cinema! Another café with view of the Gateway of India! Ahhh... ...
A Death in the Gunj (2016)
Banter, Bollywood and Beyond - February 12, 2021 15:43 - 45 minutesSorry we haven't gone back to Bollywood just yet! Smytta needed some young energy, so she chose A Death in the Gunj, the remarkable 2016 debut of Konkona Sen Sharma, daughter of the legendary Aparna Sen. Set in 1979, the story centres around Shutu (Vikrant Massey), who tries to recover from a fe...
Naseem
Banter, Bollywood and Beyond - January 29, 2021 18:52 - 53 minutesWe're back! Sorry for the slight delay, but we were busy over the holidays. Our first episode back isn't a Bollywood banger (coming soon, promise), but the beautiful Naseem, made in 1995 by Saeed Ahktar Mirza. This is the story of a young muslim girl growing up in Mumbai, whilst elsewhere, in...
Amar Prem
Banter, Bollywood and Beyond - January 02, 2021 00:00 - 36 minutesHappy New Year! How much can superstars and amazing music elevate a film? In the case of 1972's Amar Prem (translation: Immortal Love), the answer is "all the way to a classic." Superstars Rajesh Khanna and Sharmila Tagore, alongside Vinod Mehra, Om Prakash and a clutch of Bollywood bangers, a...
Chupke Chupke
Banter, Bollywood and Beyond - December 19, 2020 00:00 - 48 minutesFor our last episode of the year- look! It's a Hindi film released in 1975 and starring Amitabh Bachchan and Dharmendra! Sadly, it's not Sholay, but rather Chupke Chupke (or Hush Hush in English), a time-capsuletastic comedy of manners which also stars Sharmila Tagore and Amitabh's actual wife J...
Saaheb (1985)
Banter, Bollywood and Beyond - December 05, 2020 00:00 - 49 minutesAfter two forays into parallel cinema, we're back to Bollywood baby! This episode, we dive into Saaheb, a 1985 drama starring Anil Kapoor as a goalkeeper with Elvis hair and a permanent Tom Baker scarf. The film starts funny, goes romantic, has a spot of dishum-dishum, some sport, some marriag...
Ek Doctor Ki Maut
Banter, Bollywood and Beyond - November 21, 2020 00:00 - 1 hourOn October 3rd, 1978, a child called "Durga" was born. This wouldn't have been unusual except for one small fact: she was the first Indian child, and the second child in the world, to be born via IVF, or In Vitro Fertilisation, thanks to the amazing work of one Dr. Subhash Mukhopadhyay. However,...
Mandi (Market)
Banter, Bollywood and Beyond - November 07, 2020 00:00 - 1 hourSurprise! After our interview last episode, we return within a week's notice with Mandi, Shyam Benegal's 1983 surprisingly funny and touching story about brothel life and its political entanglements in Hyderabad. Look at the names on this film! Naseeruddin Shah! Smita Patil! Shabana Azmi! O...
The Lift Boy Interview with Director Jonathan Augustin
Banter, Bollywood and Beyond - October 30, 2020 23:00 - 58 minutesWe don't just talk about classic Indian films in the Banter, Bollywood and Beyond household, oh no. As a result of Channel 4's Indian film season, we've had the pleasure of catching The Lift Boy late one night and getting spellbound by its easygoing, funny well-observed charm. So we thought: why...
Sadma
Banter, Bollywood and Beyond - October 16, 2020 23:00 - 58 minutesThis episode Alex scratches a long held itch, which is that of watching a film featuring the late and legendary Sridevi. After consulting with Smytta, he went for this 1983 amnesiac classic by Balu Mahendra, which is itself a remake of his own Tamil film, Moondram Pirai. Srivdevi plays Reshmi...
Hera Pheri
Banter, Bollywood and Beyond - October 02, 2020 23:00 - 19 secondsWe promised we wouldn't stay away from Bollywood for very long, and after last episode's minimalist experimental ghost story we go for something a lot more crowd pleasing. It's also our most modern, being released in 2000. Aren't we cheating though? Was that released long ago enough to consider...
Duvidha
Banter, Bollywood and Beyond - September 19, 2020 00:00 - 30 secondsIf you're a bit knackered after successive historical epics, why not try Duvidha (Dilemma)?. Coming at a sprightly 82 minutes, the film springs from neither Bollywood nor its complimentary cousin, Parallel Cinema. Rather, it is that rarest of beasts- an Indian avant-garde ghost film, made by the...
Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam
Banter, Bollywood and Beyond - September 04, 2020 23:00 - 30 secondsThis episode, we're once more shifting both place and time to Calcutta (now Kolkata) and the turn of the 19th-20th Century respectively. However, we remain fully in epic Bollywood mode, albeit of a very different tone, with Abrar Alvi's (or should that be partially Guru Dutt's?) 1962 masterpiece...
Mother India
Banter, Bollywood and Beyond - August 21, 2020 23:00 - 1 hourOh boy. Following last episode’s low-key character study, we decide to go full-on rural epic Bollywood mode and our longest episode to date. Mother India is enormous in every sense. The film centres on an iconic performance by Nargis as Radha, who selflessly overcomes endless obstacles, such ...
Pestonjee
Banter, Bollywood and Beyond - August 07, 2020 23:00 - 56 minutesFor this episode, we go off the beaten Bollywood track a little- don't worry, we'll be back there again shortly- and look at Vijaya Mehta's 1988 drama, Pestonjee. The film is set in the Parsi community, a group which is frequently underrepresented in popular culture (although there was this g...
Gol Maal
Banter, Bollywood and Beyond - July 25, 2020 16:00 - 56 minutesIn Episode 2, we go a bit lighter and discuss Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s 1979 smash comedy Gol Maal (meaning “Messed Up” in English), a comedy where a sports-and-film obsessed chartered accountant switches between dual identities to keep his job and woo his boss’s daughter, Urmila. If you’re feeli...
Awaara
Banter, Bollywood and Beyond - July 07, 2020 14:19 - 41 minutesFor our inaugural episode, we discuss Raj Kapoor's 1951 Hindi classic, which covers the trials and tribulations of a young Mumbai thief. We discuss exactly how many generations of the Kapoor family are present in the film, how empty Mumbai looked back in those days, family names, and a bit of...
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