“Interpretation is the revenge of the intellect upon art.” —Susan Sontag, Against Interpretation. “The way paranoia has of understanding anything is by imitating and embodying it. (…) What does knowledge do—the pursuit of it, the having and exposing of it (…)” —Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Paranoid Reading and Reparative Reading. “It takes two to Tango.” […]
Heart Lamp takes you by the hand and plunges you into the tangled chaos of the everyday lives of Muslim women in Karnataka. Where children dart through rooms, wronged women await justice with patience born from disappointment, disloyal husbands avoid consequences, and families navigate domestic life. The twelve short stories, written over a thirty-three-year period, […]
Disclaimer: Contains major spoilers for Season 6 of Peaky Blinders “It means you f*** people over. Don’t give a f***. Covet and steal and burn all principles for self-interest. Well, I’m changing,” Thomas Shelby says, almost tenderly, when asked to define his “moral turpitude.” “It would make a fine name for a racehorse,” he smirks. That’s […]
In Walden, Henry David Thoreau wrote, “To a philosopher, all news, as it is called, is gossip, and they who edit and read it are old women over their tea.” In You Didn’t Hear This From Me, Kelsey McKinney takes a similar view of her ever-expanding, ever-present subject: gossip. She draws out the contradictions and […]
Life at the end of 2024 is a strange mix of relying on AI to run your intellectual chores while wondering whether it’ll replace you entirely by dusk. In this age of tension—where romantic, complacent nostalgia often battles innovation and progress for cultural order, Peter Cat Recording Co. makes the case that the two can […]
To retell is to reminisce, to reimagine, and even readapt to a world that evolves with the gust of change. The stories that are ever-lasting have an undying habit of wanting to be heard. While One Day is no Pride and Prejudice, there exists a Shakespearean element that cinema has outpoured in reincarnating Emma and […]
Amid the grand acclaim last year for the Barbie movie as a landmark in feminist cinema, it’s worth revisiting another feminist screenplay that celebrated its 10th anniversary: Frances Ha. While Barbie explicitly addresses feminist themes within an androcentric industry and effectively communicates them to younger audiences, Frances Ha surpasses it with a more nuanced exploration […]
Wim Wenders’ “Perfect Days” stands in stark contrast to the contemporary world, obsessed with frivolous ambition and the relentless pursuit of “being better.” Self-help books and exercise routines gather dust, healthy recipes get saved, and free AI courses to get that big break in your job, are abandoned midway. You eventually commit to one or […]
Image: Farren van Wyk’s collection of eight photographs titled, “Thirppy.” The subtitled words face the pavement in front of Utrecht University of Arts’ (HKU) space for new art and media located at Minrebroederstraat 16. They serve as a primer to the narratives and conversations in focus at the space’s latest exhibition, CAPE X UTRECHT: Hidden […]
Now that the dust has well and truly settled on 2022, and we wait poised for a summer of big Hindi film releases (although probably the biggest, Pathaan, has passed us), it’s becoming clear that last year was a turning point for the industry. It’s no secret that Bollywood has been floundering over the past […]