Once humiliation is naturalised as a civilisational condition, violence no longer appears as aggression but as rectification. Anubhav Singh Cinema has never merely reflected political life; it has functioned as one of its most efficient laboratories. From its earliest mass forms, cinema has been a technology for organising affect, disciplining perception, and training populations to… Read More How Hindi Cinema is Preparing India for Violence
A new film by Nan Goldin: WATCH THE VIDEO: Gaza → For over five decades, the photographer Nan Goldin has been creating unforgettable images that traffic in the poetics of the personal. Friends, lovers and ambiguous others star in her intimate and yet operatic diaries of love, loss and longing. More than any other artist of her stature,… Read More Gaza: Scenes from the destruction of a people
Anusha Rizvi’s The Great Shamsuddin Family is billed as a comedy. So why does it leave you unsettled? Apoorvanand Dolly Ahluwalia (Asiya) and Farida Jalal (Akko) in a still from the movie. Set within one house, and one day, the film maps how personal choices—marriage, migration, belief—are influenced by a wider climate of suspicion. If you wish… Read More Laughing carefully
Earlier this year, Bangladesh asked Pakistan for a formal apology for the 1971 war crimes. But responsibility for the massacre of civilians does not rest with Pakistan alone. Ramesh Sharma’s latest documentary ‘Chronicles of the Forgotten Genocide’ looks at the role of the US in the violence that accompanied the birth of Bangladesh. The Emmy-nominated filmmaker… Read More The puppet-masters behind the Bangladesh genocide of 1971: Interview with Ramesh Sharma
Readers outside of India can donate hereto support Mainstream Weeklyhttps://tinyurl.com/2rsy4ss6++++++ In this issue IMAGE & SOUND Editor’s Picks: Books of Note https://mainstreamweekly.net/article16391.html
Israeli soldiers speak out on killings of Gaza civilians “they’ve destroyed all my pride in being an Israeli – in being an IDF officer. All that’s left is shame” Julian Borger Israeli soldiers have described a free-for-all in Gaza and a breakdown in norms and legal constraints, with civilians killed at the whim of individual… Read More ‘All that’s left is shame’
Total destruction cannot produce narrative. You can’t tell a story about the end of all stories. Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists In the final frames of Kathryn Bigelow’s nuclear thriller A House of Dynamite, nothing explodes. The intercontinental ballistic missile has not made impact, the countdown is almost over, and the screen simply fades to black.… Read More A radical act of cinematic restraint: How to understand the ending of ‘A House of Dynamite’
As the actor approaches his 90th year and publishes an autobiography, he reflects on his early years on stage, being inspired by Laurence Olivier, becoming a Hollywood star and conquering his demons Steve Rose ‘What’s the weather like over there?” asks Anthony Hopkins as soon as our video call begins. He may have lived in California for… Read More We Did OK, Kid: Antony Hopkins looks back on a tumultuous life
NB: I respect this writer and this film maker for speaking the truth as far as their resources allow. The term community of crime is something terrifying because it reflects the truth about the fragility of human consience; and the power that ideologies possess to pervert the conscience into its opposite; to literally create communities… Read More Two years after the massacre, I look back in disbelief. I, too, missed the October 8 surprise / ‘If 1948 was a war of Independence, the current war could be the one that ends Israel’
The truth never dies, but is made to live like a beggar: Yiddish proverb People all seek to know what they do not know yet / they ought rather seek to know what they know already : Zhuang Zhou (369-286 BC) What you run away from, runs after you: Roumanian proverb Raoul Wootliff There is a moment in 1948:… Read More October 7 War: Remember, Remember Not
After the truth-shower 