“Man of Honor”: Liability and Responsibility in John McDonagh’s film The Forgiven (2022)

January 17, 2023 Padmaja Challakere 2

Visual Spaces

The Forgiven is a dark film that has drama, suspense, and visual artistry, at first glance, homage to Bertolucci and Antonioni. More importantly, it asks: What rules or norms of truth determine our burden of responsibility? Then, the central puzzle: Who has the power to forgive? Is forgiveness the end of punishment? Padmaja Challakere reviews.…[Read More]…

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Apotheosis of a Reservoir: Meditations on the Stepwell

September 20, 2022 Riyaz Latif 0

Visual Spaces

Stepwells are subterranean water structures – vavs, baulis and so on – that dot India, (especially western India) quite prolifically. The pre-modern vavs (stepwells) in Gujarat, however, are distinctive for their spatial, functional as well as ornamental refinement. Riyaz Latif ruminates on one of these structures, the exquisite stepwell at Adalaj (ca. 1499), in close proximity to Ahmadabad.…[Read More]…

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Telugu Cinema:: Intoxication with Woundedness: A Broken Hero for a Broken World.

May 11, 2022 Padmaja Challakere 1

Visual Spaces

Padmaja Challakere reviews Telugu cinema, “movies from the south” with the recent release of Sukumar’s Pushpa (2021), and S.S Rajamouli’s RRR (2022)- and one Kannada movie, KGF2. A new genre is birthing here, she avers, offering a hero with a real woundedness but also with a self-overcoming asceticism, discipline, and a sense of responsibility. Not a messianic hero, but one ordained to dignity.…[Read More]…

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