-
Keeping Up with the Kandasamys (2017)
Last year, I had watched the sequel, and today I saw the first movie in the series: Keeping Up with the Kandasamys (2017). It covers what happened before the marriage of the children of the neighbours. This is a simple movie, warm and the characters are highly relatable, I liked it, so I am giving it a Ripe rating. The Naidoos (note the spelling different from what’s used in Tamil Nadu), and Kandasamys are neighbours in the Indian neighbourhood of Chatsworth, a suburb of Durban in South Africa. Naidoos have two sons, Prishen, the elder one, is doing his final year in medical college. The Kandasamys’ who are wealthier than…
-
Kandasamys: The Wedding (2019)
Earlier this year, I watched Namaste Wahala (2021), a rom-com about an Indian & Nigerian couple that was nice. Following that, I looked for similar movies and I came across this one – Kandasamys: The Wedding (2019) – a sequel to Keeping Up with the Kandasamys. It follows two Indian families in South Africa whose children Prishen and Jodi Kandasamy are getting married to one other and the wedding runs into choppy water due to the ego clash between the two mothers. This film is available on Netflix and scores ‘Raw’. The film has a simple story. The Naidoos and Kandasamys are neighbours, with the latter richer than the former.…
-
Namaste Wahala (2021)
Namaste Wahala (2021) is a Nigerian rom-com in English that is about an inter-racial couple (Indian and Nigerian) falling in love and the hurdles they face from their families to get together. The film was made by Indian-Nigerian filmmaker Hamisha Daryani Ahuja as her debut attempt, and she has got it right. Though there is nothing new in the plot, I am bumping up my rating for the film to “Ripe” for the novelty of the location (Nigeria) and showing Indian-African cultural ties – I would love to see more Asian-African films. Available on Netflix. Raj (Ruslaan Mumtaz) is a young and smart Indian investment banker working in Nigeria. One…
-
Keteke (2017)
A good cinema is all about coming up with an engaging situation and a well-written screenplay. Keteke (2017), a comedy film from Ghana by Peter Sudufia is a fine example of it – how a simple story with two main characters, happening over a few hours can be told. The film is available for free viewing for a month (June 12 to July 13th 2020) from Institut Francais. Boi & Atswei (who is in her late stage of pregnancy) are trying to go to the city & then to her mother’s village for the birth of their baby. They miss the morning train going from the station near their village.…
-
The Gods Must Be Crazy (1980)
What a movie this was! I had a great time watching the South African comedy, The Gods Must Be Crazy (1980), starring Marius Weyers as Andrew Steyn and Sandra Prinsloo as Kate Thompson. One day an (ordinary) coco-cola glass bottle gets thrown down from a low-flying aeroplane into the lands of the Kalahari desert. There Xi and his San tribe of bushmen who live there find it. These people have no contact with the outside world and so, they get baffled by the fallen object and regard it as a God’s gift to them. The bushmen have no concept of individual ownership, so far they were living happily, but once…
-
South Africa’s Apartheid – Etymology
Reading an article in The Economist about the state of affairs in #SouthAfrica, it occurred to me that the word apartheid, meaning of which we all know, could’ve been a combination of two simple words – apart and heid. “Apart” meaning is well known. “Heid”, I guessed was a form of “herd” like in “they were herded into a bus”. The full word was to mean “to keep the herds apart”. Looking up the etymology for the word Apartheid, I have guessed almost correct. The word comes from Afrikaans, roots of which are from the Dutch word “Apart” and English word “Hood” (which means a condition or state of being).
-
After the Battle (2012)
After reading the description, I had big expectations for this Egyptian film “After the Battle”. The last Egyptian movie I saw was “Fawzia’s Secret Recipe” The story is about what happened after the Tahrir Square uprising in 2011. It is about a young female reporter in Cairo who is interested to find the motivation behind the horse riders in the ancient village of Nazlet (where Pyramids are everywhere) participating against the revolutionaries at Tahrir Square. The story covers various topics – Women rights in Egypt, The free press, the people (Urban Middle Class) behind the revolution & the poor plight of Horse riders around the pyramid due to the construction…
-
The Last King of Scotland (2006)
The movie (The Last King of Scotland) was about the Late Uganda Military Ruler Idi Amin and the friendship with a young Scotland doctor who comes to Uganda to help in an NGO. The doctor initially reluctant to take the President’s Physician job, then get lured by the benefits and status it provides and soon becomes Amin’s trusted adviser – little did he know that closeness to power centres are always a double-edged sword. The movie depicts the doctor’s emotional dilemma between his Western Principals and friendship with the President. It doesn’t attempt to be a historic record of all events of Idi Amin’s rule. Nice to watch.
