Movie: Lipstick Under My Burkha
Starring:Ratna Pathak Shah, Konkona Sen Sharma, Ahana Kumra,Plobota Borthakur
Directed by: Alankrita Shrivastava
Rating: ****(4 stars)
An inherently murky claustrophobic air pervades this inconsistently brilliant hard hitting raunchy ‘ram’-com, very conscious of its responsibilities as post-feminist cinema on women’s powerment.
Here is a film that deserves a rousing ovation for bringing out the sexual fantasies and other unspoken yearnings of four middleclasswomen in a non-metropolitan milieu eking each out an exciting existence from the hard brutal raw material of her inert life.
But the film falls short of being genre-defining. Shrivastava whose earlier and only film Turning 30 only hinted at the post-feminist explosion of Lipstick Under The Burkha, takes charge with an all-knowing confidence of four women from different walks of life and belonging to separate generations .
Perhaps to offset the mess that they make of their lives, the lineup of women is a little too tidy and symmetrical. Usha(Ratna PathakShah) is 50-plus, Shireen(Konkona Sen Sharma) is 30-plus, Leela(Ahana Kumra) is in her 20s and Rihana (Plabita Borthakur) , the baby of the empowering harem, is in her teens.It all adds up with a tantalizing cohesiveness, leaving nothing to chance. Maths in place, I had seen the same galactic configuration of representational women in Leena Yadav’s fabulous Parched last year, except for the fact that Parched though a celebration of feminism at the grassoot level , was a visually beautiful film thanks to its desert scaped panorama which caught the women’s sexual candour in vivid colours.
Lipstick Under My Burkha revels in its deliriously designed dimensions of dinginess. This is Bhopal at its most basic strata. The film resolutely refuses to capture the film’s beauty, focusing instead on the crowded stifling lanes and gullies where furtive sex is undertaken in community toilets and where women have to toil over sewing machines and microwaves while father, husbands, boyfriends and lovers sow their wild oats and come home in time for the cornflakes.
This film is actually about four women leading dual lives and hiding dark dirty secrets from the men in their lives.The men of course are blinded by the floodlights of patriarchy. They are not allowed to show in sensitivity.
To their credit the vast cast has a blast breaking one kind of gender stereotyping that such films breaks, and also dodging the trap that a film of this nature lays down for actors who have to talk about condoms casually . Ratna Pathak Shah is expectedly outstanding as the repressed Bua who has phone-sex with her swimming instructor(Jagal Singh Solanki, excellent). She manages to make the character’s inviolabe coyness a cute cocoon awaiting metamorphosis. But the explicitness of her conversations with her sex-object(interesting reversal of traditional roles here) elicits more giggles than shock from us.
Surely, this Buaji could have done better that …errr…this.KonkonaSen Sharma has the most sympathetic and therefore most difficult role as an oppressed Muslim wife who gets raped every night before sleep.Yawn! While the actress is habitually competent here I find Konkona relying excessively on stock expressions of wistful yearning. Sushant Singh as her insensitive husband shines in a thankless role even when he has to utter banal lines like, ‘Biwi hoshauhar ban-ne ki koshish mat karo.’
And I thought this line of spousal thought went out of fashion withSahib Bibi Aur Ghulam.
The youngest rebel of the quartet Rehana(newcomer PlabitaBorthakur, just about adequate) throws off her burkha , steals Britney boots from malls and parties wildly with girls from homes far more privileged than hers and romances a drugged drummer(ShashankArora, dutifully dazed). And when her mortifying secret life is discovered by her shamed father we are supposed to feel protective towards Rehana.
Sorry, not happening.
The most unsympathetic protagonist is Leela, played with persuasive gumption by Kriti Kumra. Leela has a perfect (read: boring)fiancé(Vaibhav Tatwawdi, excellent), a mother who leads a life of shame to bring up her daughter(the mom has been posing for nude paintings for years, she tells us and we are meant to sob), and yet all Leela wants to do is f..k, f…k and f..k with her scummy photographer boyfriend(Vikrant Massey doing an incredible volte face from his virgin angel act in A Death In The Gunj).
What does Leela want? I can’t say. Neither can she. Kumra playing beautician, shares some excellent erotic screen-time with Konkona in a sequence where the former removes the latter’s hair in private places.Again this sequence has a direct echo in Parched whereTannishtha Chatterjee sponges the abused wife Radhika Apte’s breasts.
A pity, Lipstick Under The Burkha couldn’t do to the post-feminist genre what Dunkirk has done to the war epic. It moves with seductive stealth through the lives of the four women but does not eventually evoke the memorable images from the great feminist and post-feminist films of Indian cinema including Parched. Nonetheless this is a vital and in many ways, great film more remarkable for what it doesn’t say about women who long for sexual salvation than what it does say, so explicitly.

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Why On Earth Is Sushmita Sen Smoking A Cigar In Aarya’s First Look?

Season 3 of Aarya is being shot as you read this, and naturally Sushmita Sen is super-kicked about it, so kicked that she has put out a video where she is seen in the best Lady Boss version of herself.
Alarmingly, she is seen puffing away at a cigar, to complete her Badass Lady Boss image.
There was a time when women smoking cigarettes in Hindi cinema signaled vampishness. If a female actor was shown smoking it meant she had evil designs over the hero, and life in general.
Sushmita being Sushmita, a cigarette won’t do. A cigar it is, to go with her formidable image. The last Bollywood actor I saw smoking a cigar on screen was Premnath in the 1970s. Back then so many people didn’t die of cancer by smoking.
These are different far more dangerous and deadly times.
Sushmita is an iconic actor.She needs to be more careful about the image she projects . Smoking a cigar doesn’t enhance a woman’s(or a man’s) muscle power. Nor does it make her look cool.
About shooting for the third season of Aarya Sushmita says, “Aarya is synonymous with my name. I have lived as Aarya for two whole seasons and the love received by the audiences has only encouraged me to do more. Walking on the sets of Aarya Season 3 makes me feel at home and gives me a sense of empowerment. I’m grateful to the entire team at Disney+ Hotstar, Ram Madhvani Films and Endemol Shine India for the vision of creating Aarya and taking it to newer heights with every season.”
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Shah Rukh, Deepika, John Will Meet The Media On Monday At 4 pm(But There’s A Catch)

Pathaan has effectually discredited the efficacy of media interactions to promote a film. The film’s lead actors Shah Rukh Khan, Deepika Padukone and John Abraham did not conduct any press or portal interviews to promote the film.
And yet Pathaan is a blockbuster.
This weekend the Pathaan producer Aditya Chopra of Yash Raj Films took a call on behalf of the Pathaan team to do one media meet at the Taj Land’s End in Mumbai on Monday January 30 at 4 pm.
The three principal actors and director Siddharth Malhotra will address the media.
But here’s the catch: the media will not be allowed to ask any questions. There will be no Q& A s or one-on-one interactions.This basically means that the Pathaan team will have an opportunity to say what it wants to the media. But the media will have no say.
Make what you will of this one-way traffic.
A source close to Yash Raj informs me that this is the pattern regarding the media that Yash Raj will follow for future releases: no press meets no promotional engagements.
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Fake Projects of Pathaan Director Being Planted In Media

Siddharth Anand Denies Considering Any Project With Deepak Mukut
A word of caution to those marketing and publicity wizkids who think it’s okay to plant fake stories on (fake) projects with the Pathaan director.
It is not.
Such baseless announcements are meant only to raise the equity of the producers with whom Siddharth Anand’s name is linked. One such producer whose name has cropped up after the spectacular success of Pathaan is Deepak Mukut.
There were reports everywhere that Siddharth Anand’s next would be with Mukut.
Turned out to be a false rumour.
A source in the know informs, “Siddharth now has to complete Fighter starring Hrithik Roshan and Deepika Padukone for Yash Raj.Then he is committed to direct the sequel to War 2 for Yash Raj films. They will then start work on the next film in the Pathaan franchise. There is no scope or room for any outside projects for Siddharth Anand. So every announcement that you read of a new film to be directed by Siddharth Anand for an outside producer is likely to be a hundred percent fake.”
When I asked Siddharth Anand about the supposed project with producer Deepak Mukut he promptly replied, “NOT AT ALL.”
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Pink Director’s Next Featuring Yami As A Crime Reporter To Stream From February 16

Anniruddha Roy Chowdhury whose Pink featuring Amitabh Bachchan and Taapsee Pannu was one of the most important films of 2016, is all set to release his next Hindi film.
Entitled Lost, Anniruddha’s film , based on true events, will see Yami Gautam Dhar(that’s what the actress calls herself after her marriage) as a crime journalist. LOST is an emotional social thriller that represents a higher quest, a search for lost values of empathy and integrity.
Inspired by true events, Lost is a story of a bright young woman crime reporter in her relentless search for the truth behind the sudden disappearance of a young theatre activist.

Lost
Says Aniruddha “The shoot of LOST has been an incredible journey. I have been eager for the release of our hard-worked venture. The film is a realistic highlight of media in a social context and I am sure that it will give the audience a compelling watch. I am curious about its release and see the responses it shall get. I hope they will welcome it with open hearts.”
Yami Gautam Dhar who plays the lead of the crime reporter says, “I can’t be happier and more proud of the film’s selection for the opening night at CSAFF. I feel like its one that the people will connect to and will be the one that you cannot miss, especially in the current age and time. I have loved playing this role because it was such a special experience, it allowed me to explore so many layers of emotions as an actor and the entire team has worked really hard on it. I genuinely cannot wait for the film’s release, especially to see the reactions of the audience to it.”
The crime investigation drama boasts a stellar cast. Along with Yami, the film will feature Pankaj Kapur, Rahul Khanna, and an ensemble of younger talent, including Neil Bhoopalam, Pia Bajpai, and Tushar Pandey, in pivotal roles.
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