Incendies - Movie Review

Incendies is a 2010 Canadian movie. This movie starts with an attorney reading out their mother’s will to her twins, Jeanne and Simon. As per the will, the mother has to be buried naked,with her face facing the ground and without an epitaph because of a broken promise. Also, the twins are handed over with two letters, one for their father, who they thought was dead in a war and for their half-brother, who they never knew existed .
Now starts the exciting and difficult journey by the twins to unravel their moms past, to finish their task of finding their father and half-brother,both of whom they don’t know if they are alive or not, for which they travel from Canada to Palestine. Jeanne starts off to fulfill her mom’s last wishes. Simon refuses to join since he finds his moms wish crazy but later joins Jeanne rather reluctantly and unwillingly.
The movie travels back and fro between the mom’s past and the present.
There are a few disturbing scenes in the movie , one where children are shot down ruthlessly, the other where most of the passengers in a bus are shot down and the rest are put on fire.
Lubna Azabal plays Nawal Marwan with perfection. Nawal Marwan is a strong woman whose sole aim is to reach her aim, irrespective of the consequences. What needs to be noted is that the movie takes place in the 70’s in Palestine, where life was and still is difficult for women.
Also to be mentioned is Jeanne’s quest in unraveling her mother’s past till the end without being undettered by hurdles at every point. There are situations where people refuse to talk about Nawal Marwan. The language is an issue for Jeanne in Palestine since she doesn’t know Arabic.
This movie is slow paced at the same time edgy and has a few good twists too.
This movie won the Best Feature Film award at the Adelaide Film Festival.

Stanley Ka Dabba - Movie Review

Stanley Ka Dabba

Cast : Amole Gupte , Divya Dutta, Partho

Directed by : Amole Gupte

Set in Holy Family Convent , Mumbai ,Stanley ka dabba revolves around the central character , Stanley and his dabba.

This movie as it unfolds takes one back to their school days , those lunch breaks, where we used to eat from each other’s dabba ,those hushed whispers while the teacher is teaching, those nicknamed teachersJ

Stanley is the favorite among his friends .Everybody wants to play with him and listen to his stories. However, due to certain circumstances Stanley never brings his dabba. He quenches his hunger by drinking water, secretly, from taps However, here Khadoos comes as the villain since he doesn’t bring his dabba and fancies eating from other’s dabba’s and always picks on Stanley for not bringing his dabba.

The children start to hide from Khadoos during lunch breaks so that they don’t have to share their dabba with Khadoos and instead can share it with their friend, Stanley. Khadoos finds this out and expels Stanley from school until he gets his dabba,in a fit of anger. What happens next follows the crux of the story.

Partho who stars as Stanley has done an amazing job in engaging the audience with the movie till the very end.

Amole Gupte who stars as Khadus portrays a glutton with utmost ease. There are certain funny moments in the movie where he eyes everybody’s dabba and the way he hogs on food. Look out for the scene, where Khadoos goes around the school frantically searching for Stanley’s group of friends during the lunch break.

Divya dutta as Rosy miss is a teacher who every student would love to have for her encouraging and warm attitude towards the kids.

The chemistry between  the kids is worth mentioning here.

This is a beautifully woven movie and I would recommend this to both adults and children at the same time.