The interiors resonate with a certain aspirational quality. Right paintings by the right artists on the walls. Right books on the shelves. One has only to look a little closely to see that the tomes in Damayanti Rane’s (theatre doyenne Vijaya Mehta) library, their spines pristine and uncreased, look suspiciously unread. Nihalani’s camera, subtly fluid in its movement, discreetly records the filigreed details of her salon, copper plate engraved in Devanagari on a wall, the lacquered wood furniture, her curated…

“Sarhadon par bahot tanao hai kya,
Kuchh pata toh karo chunao hai kya”

My translation doesn’t quite capture the scepticism, by turns wry and lyrical, at the heart of Rahat Indori’s lines, but manages to convey its outlines.

“Is there much tension at the borders?
Ask around, is there an election coming up?”

Vijeta’s last act, constructed around a battle sequence and staged by Nihalani to suggest an air of scepticism, reminded me of Indori’s poem. A third act, which…

Ardh Satya, which translates as ‘half-truth’, occupies the centre of a triptych bookended by Aakrosh and Aghaat and threaded loosely by the boundlessly interweaving relationships between the post-Emergency society and institutions. Based on a script by Vijay Tendulkar which, in turn, was adapted from a short story by D. A. Panvalkar, the movie, Nihalani’s third feature as director, traces a few months in the life of Anant Velankar (a young Om Puri in one of his most iconic roles), a…

It’s a screwball comedy welded to a deep sea adventure that moves like a bullet. While discussing his movies from this period with Bogdanovich, Dwan noted, “I still worked on the scripts - always with two things in mind - budget and speed, tempo. I’d eliminate stuff that was extraneous and speed up stuff that was written slowly. A writer stretches a story out, and you’ve got to fix it up. Make it move.” He sums up this picture better…