Omar Ahmed

Comments

Meghe Dhaka Tara

Ghatak’s rebelliousness is infectious, and so are his films.

Pickpocket

Bresson’s films continue to mesmerise with their simplicity.

Uski Roti / Our Daily Bread

The real aesthetic break in Indian cinema was the spatial/temporal innovations of Kaul’s work, one of the most authentic, unpretentious of his generation and a creative high point of Indian Parallel Cinema.

KAAGAZ KE PHOOL

Guru Dutt’s opus is drenched in a melancholic bitterness that should be viewed side by side with Pyaasa.

AMMA ARIYAN

Malayali filmmaker John Abraham’s staunchly Marxist Third Cinema political opus is the one I return to so that I can remind myself what is at stake politically.

KUMMATTY

Aravindan is the best kept secret in global cinema, and the tactile, impressionistic visual poetry of Kummatty places it alongside the best of Tarkovsky and Malick.

Gangs of Wasseypur

Wasseypur is the epoch of New Indian independent cinema but also one of the most nourishing, gut punch genre films of our age.

Court

One of the most astonishing debuts in recent memory, Court explores the politics of caste through sublime tableau.

Thief

Any Mann is accomplished but Thief (early Mann) seems the leanest.

After Hours

After Hours is my favourite Scorsese; a nightmarish Freudian satire.

Further remarks

Everything is relative. While I have lots of films rummaging around in my mind each week, I feel I have reached a point where I have nowhere left to store them. So, where am I right now? Well, I am currently writing a book so most of my current connections and sentiments to film are rooted in Indian Parallel Cinema, the most sustained and creatively innovative film movement (from the global south) you’ve never heard of.

It pains me to omit films by Hitchcock, Ozu, Fincher, PTA, Edward Yang, Francis Coppola, Saeed Mirza, Kumar Shahani, Abbas Kiarostami, Satyajit Ray, Leone, Kubrick, Anand Patwardhan, John Ford, Spike Lee, Jarmusch, Kaneto Shindo, Ken Loach & Kieślowski whom I cherish dearly.