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The corny-sounding Telugu movie “World Famous Lover” has an attractive starcast with Vijay Deverakonda (Gowtham/Seenayaa), Raashi Khanna (Yamini), Aishwarya Rajesh (Suvarna), and Chatherine Tresa (Smitha) in lead roles. Written and directed by Kranthi Madhav, World Famous Lover is a combination of four different love stories that gel into a single story of love, trust, and sacrifices. Released in theaters in February, the film recently popped up on Netflix with subtitles for a wider range of audience, which is certainly good news for Nepal’s South Indian movie fans.

The film starts with the story of live-in couple Gowtham and Yamini. Gowtham is a stay-at-home aspiring writer who has been unable to write anything for a year. His mental block and frustrations surrounding it weaken his relationship with Yamini, who is the sole breadwinner of the house. Her expectations from her partner have certainly not been met. Gowtham is not only nonchalant towards his work, but also indifferent to her wants and feelings.

Things change when Yamini finally decides to leave Gowtham. Hurt by the Yamini’s departure, Gowtham decides he needs to force his way past his writer’s block and prove his worth. This is when the film begins to unfold in flashbacks and imaginary sequences. Gowtham’s first story has himself as the main character in the form of Seenaya, a middle class working man who’s married to Suvarna. Seenaya, also the union leader of the factory he is working in, gets romantically involved with his boss Smitha. When Suvarna finds about the affair, she is distraught but decides not to confront him till the very end.

At the end of the Seenaya-Suvarna story, Gowtham is shown as a young and highly paid executive living and working in Paris. There, Gowtham meets Iza (Izabelle Leite), an international pilot acquainted with the Telegu language and Indian culture. They quickly fall in love before their love story is cut short by a tragedy.

As the stories Gowtham is writing unfold in visual form, his own story with Yamini is told in flashbacks. The moments when Gowtham first saw Yamini, their courtship, their acceptance of each other’s love, their start of the live-in relationship, all are shown in flashbacks to give the audience an insight into the now estranged couple’s life.

Not all stories in the film are perfect. Nor are the endings to all love stories happy for the characters but that does not seem to be the film’s motive. Love is looked at from a wider perspective with a message that compromises and sacrifices are essential in sustaining it.

Actor Vijay Deverakonda retains his rustic look and the angry demeanor from the blockbuster “Arjun Reddy” (2017). Following Arjun Reddy’s success, there has been no looking back for the actor who has impressed fans and critics alike with his good looks and effortless acting. After delivering a string of back-to-back hits, Vijay takes the screen in multiple roles in this film. From a frustrated writer to a devastated lover; from a young college graduate to a small-town factory worker; to a suave professional in Paris—Vijay performs all his roles with conviction and compliments each of his opposite actors who are as adept in their respective roles.

The only problem with the movie is its 2h 34min run time, which is not supported by the screenplay. Despite the story having enough girth to make for a compelling love drama, the screenplay feels painfully slow and certain scenes redundant. There are also attempts at humor that fail to engage the audience.

Who should watch it?

As we have the power to skip scenes we don’t like on Netflix, World Famous Lover is an enjoyable love story. It is one of those South Indian movies that deviate from the feisty and stereotypical mainstream cinema to present a serious, lifelike narrative. Definitely a ‘can watch’ during the lockdown.

Rating: 3 stars

Genre: Romance/Drama

Length: 2h 34min

Director: Kranthi Madhav

Actors: Vijay Deverakonda, Raashi Khanna, Aishwarya Rajesh

Released on March 20 this year, “Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness” is probably the most talked about mini-series on Netflix right now, even in Nepal. The crime-based documentary can compete against the best fictional series and holds so much grit that the 5h 17min runtime (divided into 8 episodes) is as enjoyable as watching an hour and a half-long action movie.

Tiger King is essentially about the life of Joe Exotic—owner of the Oklahoma based G.W. Zoo, who breeds, raises, and trades in big cats—and his arch-nemesis Carole Baskin, an animal activist and owner of Big Cat Rescue. There are colorful casts of real-life characters on both the sides—including drug dealers, conmen, cult leaders, and ex-convicts. The war between them over whether big cats can be kept as pets starts with harmless banters, and culminates in a murder-for-hire plot.

Joe Exotic, after whom the documentary series is named, is a character deserving of the title of Tiger King. Born Joseph Allen Schreibvogel, who then changed his name to Joseph Allen Maldonado-Passage, Joe Exotic is a charismatic figure who runs his roadside zoo with a team of renegades like convicted felons and drug abusers. He thinks he is helping them fit into the society. And the under-paid, over-worked staff are more than happy to raise hundreds of exotic animals like tigers, ligers, lions, leopards, and alligators, to name a few.

These animals are then smuggled across the country and even cross-border to be sold to private zoo owners and wealthy collectors. Joe also used to organize traveling shows across the country, displaying exotic animals and giving people photo ops with them for money.

Carole Baskin, on the other hand, runs a volunteer organization that rescues the animals owned by private zoos, which she claims abuse the animals and treat them inhumanely. Baskin’s Big Cat Rescue has a huge team of activists who not only raise awareness and stage protests against animal breeding, but also spy on the activities of animal breeders to gather evidence of abuse.

Shot over five years by directors Rebecca Chaiklin and Eric Goode, Tiger King gives the audience a glimpse into the lives of these two main characters and also a host of equally interesting supporting ones who playing themselves—characters like (gay) Joe’s husbands John Finlay and Dillion Passage; Bhagavan Antle, the owner of the Myrtle Beach Safari; Jeff Lowe, businessman and Joe’s partner who runs him out of the business; Howard Baskin, Carole’s husband and co-owner of the Big Cat Rescue; among others.

What makes Tiger King more interesting than your regular documentary series is that the filmmakers have spent real time with the characters and made them comfortable enough to spill their worst beans. With real life footages that give insights into the lives of the principle characters, the documentary proves that truth can be stranger than fiction. It does not judge the characters, but leaves it up to the audience to decide.

Joe—a king in his own world who is confident enough to run for the President of the United States in 2016, and for the Governor of Oklahoma in 2018 representing the Libertarian party—is a gun-wielding, mullet-bearing, rough-mouthed, arrogant and shrewd businessman.

At the opposite extreme is Carole, the savior of the big cats, who is gentle, friendly and calm on the outside. But Joe and the family suspect foul play behind the disappearance of Carole’s deceased husband Don Lewis. Carole inherits millions after Don is pronounced legally dead in 2002 when he fails to turn up for over five years, raising suspicions. So, ultimately, it is again the audience that gets to apportion blame.

Who should watch it?

With controversies and talks of lawsuits already haunting the documentary makers as well as Netflix, anyone interested in the docu-series should definitely do a marathon-run of Tiger King. It might vanish anytime. Also, big cat lovers will also enjoy the mini-series that documents the lives of these exotic animals in captivity.

Rating: 4 stars

Genre: Crime, Documentary

Run time: 5h 17 min (8 episodes)

Director: Rebecca Chaiklin, Eric Goode

Actors: Joe Exotic, Carole Baskins, John Finlay

There are some seeds in my body. 
Gradually growing.

One lies in my heart.
Maturing to love.

One lies in my head.
Maturing to learn.

The other two lie in my hands.
Maturing to help.

Perhaps these lines sum up the attitude of any teenager. But Prashasti Aryal’s prose is special. She is sharp. She is insightful. She contemplates the moon from her study table at nights when everybody else sleeps. And she talks to it. And words flow down to her. Sometimes the moon changes color and becomes red.

Red Moon is a collection of Prashasti’s thoughts and sentiments expressed in poems. But poems don’t tell you what prompted those musings. You can only guess. If you know the person, you can guess better. Sometimes the seed of that emotion has been sown years—or decades—ago. So you need to know the person for long.

But what if you have a book of poems in your hands and you don’t know the person? Learn about the poet’s life first? Not always possible. Perhaps the best way is to empty your mind, and read the poems with as much concentration and openness as possible. Contemplate without straining yourself. What they reveal to you is your understanding of poetry. It gives you a chance to reflect on the feelings or emotions they generate, and to connect you with your own past or imagined experience.

But we aren’t satisfied with that. We still want to know the person who wrote it. Our poet, Prashasti, is a 17-year-old science student who has just finished her higher secondary. Her hobbies are writing, reading, painting, music—all the creative stuff. And she has never been in a relationship. Perhaps that gives the reader some context. One’s age and gender often determine how the mind works.

Biological, social, and peer factors shape thoughts. Prashasti wrote the poems during her 10^th and 11^th grades—a phase of life when things seem to be in a constant flux. She lets her mind wander to discover the sublime. And she wanders with thoughts that are as powerful as swords.

Prashasti’s age can be deceptive. You can’t tell her poems apart from any old hand in the craft. They are rich. They are expressive. But they are also mostly sad and melancholic. Prashasti acknowledges that she is a pessimist and an introvert. In the back cover, she tells the readers that the book is a “piece of my darkness,” and in the introductory note, she cautions her readers that they are about to get into her dangerous mind. But that, too, is deceptive. In the poems, a subtle, beautiful, and mature mind reveals itself.

The poems are diverse. Some are long, some short. Some tell stories, some are just quotes. Some are fit for textbook poetry, some are random thoughts spread out one word per line. They are arranged into four groups, each preceded by a letter Prashasti has written to ‘life’. These are letters of despair and confusion. She tells life that she is “curled up in a corner crying and scared,” and that she is “confused and insecure.” But she endures. And ‘life’ listens. It says it loves her silently, and tells her it is with her always: in the moonlight, in the stars. It reminds her that she was born to fight, and that the difficult phases shall pass. She lets the flux pass through her poems.

‘Life’ tells her to confide in someone. And she does so: in her moon. It knows about her, like no one else does. It meets her in the night when loneliness prevails. And she wonders: How can the moon be so bright even amidst all the darkness?

Red moon
Prashasti Aryal
Genre: Poetry
Published: 2020
Publisher: Sangri-La Books
Language: English
Pages: 159
Price: Rs 295

“There’s a difference between dreams and delusions,” is the underlying message of the lighthearted family drama/comedy “Maska”—cleverly puts across. While most Indian and Nepali films have been telling us that ardently chasing one’s dreams ensures success, Maska dispels the disillusion of the entire cosmos working together to fulfill one’s dream (pun intended). Not all dreams are worth chasing. Sometimes, cultivating the skills you already have is better than chasing a distant dream.

Maska’s storytelling is grounded and the plot somewhat predictable. In fact, Maska is a film in which predictability makes it more interesting as the audience get a chance to identify with Rumi Irani (Prit Kamani), son of Rustom Irani (Javed Jaffrey), the sole heir to the historic Cafe Rustom established in 1920 by his great-grandfather. While Rumi’s mother Diana (Manisha Koirala) wants him to take charge of the iconic café, which has a loyal following among patrons, Rumi has other ideas. He wants to be a film star and is taking acting classes and auditioning for roles. The mother-son clash when their dreams collide and a drastic step Rumi takes to fulfill his dream is the story of Maska.

The low-budget, independent film not only captures the nuances of a mother-son relation but also gives space to real life history of the famous Irani Cafes in Mumbai, which hold a special place in the history of the place. Opened by Zoroastrian Iranians who came to British India in the 20^th century when they were fleeing Islamic persecution in West and Central Asia, the cafes played a big role in the popularization of Iranian cuisines in Mumbai. The fares they serve mostly consisted of Irani tea, biscuits, samosas and the famous bun maska (bun and cream) from which the film gets its name.

So with the story of the mother-son conflict and ‘dreams and delusions’ as the front, Maska—written and directed by Neeraj Udhwani—is a coming-of-age tale that also celebrates posterity, heritage, legacy and antiquity, in this rapidly changing world.

Rumi’s mother Diana, who took over the cafe after her husband’s untimely demise, lives with his fond memories. She has preserved her husband’s apparels and accessories and hands them over to her son on his birthdays.

Diana also doesn’t want to change anything in the restaurant. She even repairs the almost 100-year-old furniture to preserve the original essence of the place. Also, the cafe is tied to the lives and memories of many of its patrons, some of whom have been visiting for decades. Rumi’s dilemma is between continuing with his father’s legacy or pursuing his dream. A mama’s boy who has already taken the huge step of moving in with his non-Farsi girlfriend Mallika Chopra (Nikita Dutta), Rumi is also split in matters of the heart when his neighbor Persis Mistry (Shirley Setia) starts getting intimate with him.

On the acting front, our very own heartthrob Manisha Koirala makes yet another resounding comeback. As a Farsi single mother, Manisha weaves her charisma into the role and has us almost believing she is one of the Zoroastrian Iranian women from the Ferozshah Baag Colony in Colaba, Mumbai. Whatever little awkwardness she has in diction while switching between Farsi, Hindi and English, she makes up with her high energy and kindred spirit.

Javed Jaffrey, whose voice narrates the film as Rustom and who also appears in the imagination of his son Rumi, adds humor to the film with his impeccable comic timing. Although not famous for playing lead roles in Bollywood, Javed has honed his skills for decades and in his role as Rustom Irani he proves why he has thrived in the industry for so long.

Newcomer Prit Kamani doesn’t fall behind his veteran co-actors either. As a young and confused man on the verge of a personal rebellion, Prit is both convincing and entertaining.

Who should watch it?

Despite the film being mostly pleasant, the 1hr 51mins runtime feels a bit stretched. The film’s subject perhaps asked for a shorter script. Nonetheless, Maska is definitely a family entertainer and if you don’t mind having to read the subtitles (because some Farsi words might be completely new to you), you will definitely enjoy the Netflix special.

Genre: Comedy/Drama

Actors: Manisha Koirala, Prit Kamani, Javed Jaffrey

Director: Neeraj Udhwani

Run time: 1hr 51mins

Rating: 3.5 stars