The Best Movies Of The Decade: A Personal Journey

A decade is a long time in cinema, and indie cinema has cunningly infiltrated mainstream. Here's a list of Hindi and regional films in the last 10 years that have managed to push the envelope

- Maithili Rao

A decade is a long time in cinema. Tastes and levels of acceptability have disproved assumptions of what audiences want and are willing to consume. Of course, there are hysterical fringe elements calling for bans, the latest target being the yawnathon Panipat and empowered Hindutva extremists taking umbrage at any slur on cow/desh bhakti/love jihad, or any new target it is expert at finding. But despite these recurring stumbling blocks, a few Hindi and regional films have managed to push the envelope an inch or so.

Has the headlong sprint of the new millennium slowed down to catch its breath, to allow trends to settle into deeper exploration of newer territories? The last time such energy and enthusiasm swept us over was by our own version of the New Wave cinema, or parallel cinema, as it came to be termed by consensus.

The last two decades were definitely not another version of the New Wave. Indie cinema has cunningly infiltrated the established mores of the mainstream and boasts of auteurs and wannabe auteurs that have incorporated familiar tropes and props of storytelling…but with an exciting twist and panache. Many personal voices may not have harmonised into a chorus, but they do sing like a choir. And, they are not entirely preaching to the choir.