Opinion Tandoor E-Anthology: Cinema & Reality

As Opinion Tandoor completes 12 years this month, we have brought out an e-anthology for our readers- Cinema and Reality. Our regular readers would know that we constantly engage critically with cinema at Opinion Tandoor. We’ve brought together all our pieces on cinema together in one place as an e-publication for our readers as it provides a contextual reading experience for the same.

This anthology of essays on cinema doesn’t necessarily have a theme as all these pieces have been written separately at different times. Yet when we look at them we find a common pattern among them and that is their analysis of films and their relationship with the reality. It’s true that all stories are representative of reality to different degrees but the reality that we are talking about in all but one of the films featured in this anthology, concerns collective reality of many people in context of a real event or socio-political phenomenon or process. And even the essay that doesn’t fit the bill has a different kind of relationship with depiction of reality i.e. the one on Sally Potter’s 1992 adaptation of Virginia Woolf’s novel Orlando. The other essays feature commentary on films dealing with caste violence, communal violence and state repression as well as corruption and crony capitalism in big cities and illegal mining in far-flung areas.

The essays featured in the anthology are as follows:

1. Aakrosh (1980) and Article 15 (2019): Four decades apart yet similar flaws in addressing caste-based violence
2. Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro (1983)- An alternate imagination of Mumbai and the “big city”
3. A review of Sally Potter’s cinematic techniques in her 1993 adaptation of Virginia Woolf’s Orlando
4. Maachis (1996)- A tale of the aftermath of 1984 anti-Sikh violence
5. Dil Se (1996): Addressing trauma by subverting melodrama
6. Shining a light upon the Fireflies in the Abyss (2015)

You can purchase this e-anthology for a contribution of Rs 100 to support our initiative. Click the link here,

For our readers outside of India you can purchase the copy on our Patreon shop here.