I am not an Actor; Haq; Where the Light Enters You and Olive…

Two features with South Asian stories are in cinemas from today (November 7) and two shorts screened together are vying for your attention as award nominations season is in full swing…

I am not an Actor – Interesting and entertaining

Director: Aditya Kripalani

2 hours

NAWAZUDDIN SIDDIQUI (pictured above in ‘I am Not An Actor‘) is one of the India’s best known actors and internationally his reputation has only grown over the years – he holds the unusual accolade of having some seven of his films actually world premiere at Cannes within just three years or so. He plays the lead in this film which is a little bit of a mixed bag really.
Siddiqui is a retired Indian origin Kashmiri Muslim banker, living in Frankfurt, Germany.
The father of a grown up daughter, he is a bit out of sorts and befriends (online) jobbing actor and candlemaker, played by Chitrangada Saturupa in an audition between Frankfurt and Mumbai. They bond, as uneasy master and pupil – Siddiqui’s character has only done amdram at college but is fascinated by Saturupa whose one film some time back premiered in Venice and won awards.
Is he hitting on her? She’s young, feisty, smart and attractive. No, not really, there is something deeper at work, though Kripalani leaves these sorts of questions at the door and immerses you in this drama between someone who knows nothing about the craft of acting and someone who is very good at it, but finds life around her art, hard and uncompromising.
The film addresses a number of important themes from mental health, loneliness and the immigrant experience (for Siddiqui’s character).
It is very watchable and anchored by two very good performances – it’s just a shame that the film is too much about acting and process, and not enough about the two characters and their lives beyond the Facetime screen sessions.
Yes, it was shot with one crew in Mumbai and the other actually in Frankfurt.
Kripalani is an interesting and evolving voice but this film seems to stop short of its potential, because it is too much about acting and not life itself. The tone too is a little uneven. Funny at the beginning, it gets serious and heavy in its last quarter.
ACV rating: *** (out of five)

I am not an Actor is screening in selected UK cinemas now

Haq (Right) – Powerful drama that works

Suparn Varma

2 hours and 14 minutes (interval included)

THIS is about a very famous legal case in India in the 1980s and beyond – its reverberations continue to echo, especially in certain political circles.
Forget all that.
What is impressive, is the drama here and how director Suparn Varma focuses on the story and doesn’t allow the film to get bogged down or drag.
Aided by two very good central performances and good support from the rest of the cast, this is probably one of the best real life political-legal Indian stories you are going to see – again especially in the Bollywood context. It is a Bollywood production and is playing widely, globally.
Shazia Bano (Yami Gautam Dhar) is married to prominent lawyer Abbas (Emraan Hashmi). Muslim, well-heeled and materially comfortable, Varma sensibly locates the drama in the couple’s relationship dynamics.
We don’t suspect anything – these two people are in love and looking forward, children come along and all seems well with the household – they have domestic staff and a palatial home.
It all starts to break down with a visit to Pakistan for Abbas. On business, apparently, he returns with a new, second wife.
Bano is not best pleased and knew nothing about this. She is distraught and has to leave the marital home, even though she does try for a while to tolerate Abbas’s new wife.
He is deeply upset, his mother equally if not more so, and there is a parting of the ways – with Abbas citing the Triple Talaq – this a traditional quickie divorce procedure in some forms of Islam that is now mostly not acceptable anywhere any more but in India at the time and because of the sensitivity around a minority faith practice (in India) Triple Talaq was left alone…
Bano fights back with the aid of a supportive and her learned Maulavi (Scholar) father and she too knows The Qur’an well and says that Triple Talaq was only valid, if the man accepted being whipped.
She is defiant, fronts up to her ex-husband hotshot lawyer and basically takes on the Patriarchy.
This is all based on a real life case and can be seen as victory for women everywhere.
Bano comes across a strong, intelligent, principled woman – a role model if you will. It’s done well, and you will like even more if you are particularly partial to courtroom drama.
ACV rating: **** (out of five)

‘Haq’ is on general release now

Where The Light Enters You – New York meets nomadic Gujarati (US/India)

Matt Alesevich and Hemal Trivedi

About 30 mins (short)

SET in Gujarat in India and a documentary, this has feature film potential, if you could find two actors to play a) an Indian American female doctor from New York and b) a nomadic Muslim tribal teenager.
Let’s say even as a documentary, it’s very watchable and not preachy or didactic in its approach.
These two really became unexpected friends and allies.
Our young tribal is unusual in being educated but there is calamity when her father, who supported her education, passes away and the young girl, about 17, has to get married. The production started before covid and resumed after life went back to normal.
Our US-educated Gujarati Indian doctor doesn’t step in to dramatically ‘save’ her or scold anyone for this. There is acceptance and understanding and well…watch it and you will appreciate that life can hold surprises and we haven’t really seen this part of Gujarat before, internationally on the film circuit.
ACV rating: **** (out of five)

Olive (US) – Watch for quality of film

Tom Koch

About 30 minutes

WRITTEN, directed and starring Tom Koch, this is a little bit of an unusual take on dementia – at least visually.
Beautifully shot and starring Lesley Ann Warren (a very well-known US TV and film actor who has been nominated for an Oscar), she plays a grandmother.
Koch is her grandson and is doing a grand job of looking after his grandmother who is a little forgetful.
You may think you have seen this all before but Koch does something unexpected and it opens up a new angle on a familiar subject.
Koch is a talent to watch – his director’s eye and style reminds one of the great Austrian director, Michael Haneke.
ACV rating: **** (out of five)