Congratulations 
Articles by Prahlad Srihari
Shōgun: Lost and found in translation
Unlike earlier television versions and James Clavell’s 1975 novel itself, Shōgun on FX emphasises the Japanese perspective even as it presents the tension between fate and free will, beauty and impermanence, duty and desire. All while lavishly recreating Sengoku-era Japan
Published on Jun 21, 2024 03:39 PM IST
The Discarnates, All of Us Strangers and the pain of homecoming
Two ghost stories, two worlds and two temporalities inhabit the same representational space in Nobuhiko Obayashi’s The Discarnates and Andrew Haigh’s All of Us Strangers, both of which take off on Taichi Yamada’s novel, Stranger
Published on Jun 06, 2024 08:21 PM IST
Page to Screen: Poor Things – Gray’s anatomy vs Lanthimos’s biopsy
Poor Things feels less like a cinematic translation of Alisdair Gray’s 1992 novel than a cinematic translation of the protagonist Bella Baxter’s perception
Updated on May 17, 2024 05:16 PM IST
The Zone of Interest: The Holocaust film to end all Holocaust films
With this culmination of all the landmark entries in the genre, Glazer rethinks Holocaust films even as he refuses to let the victimisation of Jews be weaponised in the victimisation of Palestine
Published on May 01, 2024 08:47 PM IST
Dune: Blind faith is the mind-killer
While Denis Villeneuve’s Dune flattens some arcs as it streamlines Frank Herbert’s dense tome into a five-hour spectacle, the director does give women characters Chani and Lady Jessica more dimensionality and agency
Published on Apr 23, 2024 09:13 PM IST
Essay: On the spectacle of cancel culture
Depending on whom you ask, cancel culture is a threat to freedom of expression or mere background noise; it is changing social codes or it is changing nothing
Published on Apr 09, 2024 08:54 PM IST
Married to genius
Women have forsaken their own creative pursuits to rally around celebrated husbands. Books like ‘The Chosen’ and ‘Wifedom: Mrs Orwell’s Invisible Life’ and films like ‘Maestro’ and ‘Priscilla’ are now recasting spouses as historical actors in the tales of artistic achievements
Published on Mar 27, 2024 08:37 PM IST
Saltburn, Parasite and the class satire industrial complex
Ironically, capitalising on anti-capitalist sentiment has been quite profitable and the eat-the-rich satires now being regularly cranked out show that class warfare as scripted entertainment, strangely, seems to preserve the status quo
Published on Mar 19, 2024 06:43 PM IST
The Beast: All the lives we never lived
In Bertrand Bonello’s feature film, an almost-romance spanning centuries, Gabrielle and Louis, played by Lea Seydoux and George Mackay, are reincarnated as doomed lovers, always living under a shadow of a looming disaster
Published on Mar 08, 2024 08:14 PM IST
Four Daughters: Performance as therapy, cinema as healing
Tunisian writer-director Kaouther Ben Hania’s Four Daughters is an audacious film about memory and motherhood that employs re-enactments as family therapy
Published on Feb 13, 2024 06:36 PM IST
Daaaaaali! Serving surreal for dinner
The logic and visual vocabulary of Salvador Dalí’s paintings feed into Daaaaaali!, a tribute to the pioneering Surrealist by Quentin Dupieux
Published on Jan 03, 2024 04:52 PM IST
Page to screen: The highs and lows of 2023
This year, many adaptations went smoothly from bookshelf to the box office, showing that a wealth of source material is available for cinematic translation
Updated on Dec 28, 2023 06:59 PM IST
HT reviewer Prahlad Srihari picks his favourite reads of 2023
A search for a lost horror film leads the protagonists into a world of Nazi occultism in a novel that explores the legacy of colonialism in Mexico
Updated on Dec 22, 2023 06:54 PM IST
Books to Screen: Poe, Mike Flanagan and homes haunted by what’s within
The Fall of the House of Usher may borrow its title from Poe’s 1839 short story, but the story itself is a springboard for a complex intertextual palimpsest
Published on Dec 12, 2023 09:00 PM IST
Wes Anderson and Roald Dahl: A match made in picture-book heaven
From The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar to The Swan, The Rat Catcher and Poison, a look at how Anderson handles four of Dahl’s stories on Netflix
Published on Dec 05, 2023 09:36 PM IST
John le Carre and the art of deception
In The Pigeon Tunnel, the Apple TV+ film, Errol Morris sits down with novelist John le Carre to sharpen the blur of fact and fiction, truth and memory
Published on Dec 01, 2023 06:46 PM IST
Page to screen: Killers of the Flower Moon
Martin Scorsese’s vision transforms David Grann’s book into a robust dialogue about stories and who gets to tell them
Updated on Nov 24, 2023 07:32 AM IST
As quick with a quip as with a Glock
On Justified, the art of dialogue, and why Elmore Leonard’s work is such a natural fit for the screen
Published on Nov 03, 2023 05:51 PM IST
Page to screen: Under the Skin
As Under the Skin turns 10, a look at what made Jonathan Glazer’s cinematic meditation on alienation a touchstone of book-to-film reinterpretations
Published on Oct 26, 2023 05:46 PM IST
Movies as endless commercials
Films are no longer just a catalyst to sell pre-existing product lines. Instead, as Barbie, Air and Flamin’ Hot show, they have become obsessed with mythifying the product itself
Published on Oct 14, 2023 11:39 AM IST
Essay: The catastrophe that destroyed all meaning
Neither the dropping of the bombs nor the aftermath is shown in Oppenheimer. But it is Japanese art and media that provide an audit of the bomb's devastation
Updated on Aug 17, 2023 06:01 PM IST
Book to film: On Oppenheimer and American Prometheus
A look at how Christopher Nolan’s film builds on Kai Bird and Martin Sherwin’s scholarly biography of the famed physicist
Updated on Aug 09, 2023 09:01 PM IST
Mash-up madness: Welcome to Barbenheimer
The same-day release of Greta Gerwig’s Barbie and Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer was expected to cause a cultural fission. Instead, we got fusion
Updated on Jul 27, 2023 07:00 PM IST
Essay: An unnatural hunger
From Bones and All to American Psycho and Silence of the Lambs, a look at cannibalism in popular culture
Updated on Jul 20, 2023 07:05 PM IST
The new Perry Mason – more Raymond Chandler than Raymond Burr
HBO’s Perry Mason employs the 1930s setting as a lens to investigate the perennial anxieties surrounding race, class, sexuality and immigration in America
Updated on Jun 30, 2023 03:32 PM IST
Essay: On the caustic humour of Succession
For its entire run, an abiding pleasure of tuning into the HBO show was to watch a superb ensemble mercilessly lob verbal grenades in their jockeying for power
Updated on Jun 08, 2023 08:58 PM IST
Fleishman Is in Trouble: A Divorce Story
Based on Taffy Brodesser-Akner’s debut novel, the Disney+Hotstar series makes viewers think about how women are transformed in male-centric narratives even as it takes them on a non-linear tour of a marriage from beginning to end
Updated on Mar 29, 2023 05:16 PM IST
Without Its Hot Star HBO, A Disney+ Sub Is Slim Pickings
If losing the rights to IPL cost Disney+ Hotstar close to 4 million subscribers, losing HBO's roster may prove to be a considerable setback. By Prahlad Srihari.
Updated on Mar 28, 2023 11:08 PM IST
Essay: On the continuing fascination with Marilyn Monroe
From Joyce Carol Oates to Norman Mailer and Andrew Dominik, most writers and filmmakers find it impossible to celebrate Monroe for the artist she was and view her life only as tragedy
Updated on Mar 15, 2023 06:50 PM IST
Prahlad Srihari
Essay: On remixing history
From Apple TV’s Dickinson to Netflix’s Persuasion and Hulu’s The Great, period accuracy is out and creative anachronisms are in. While this might upset the purist, it is an interesting approach that injects freshness into classic material
Updated on Jan 25, 2023 08:04 PM IST
Prahlad Srihari
- 1
- 2
- ...
