Three Films That Make You Think

Three films to watch this month, if you haven’t already — two about the angst ridden private life of film-makers, and one about one man’s brutal solution to the stranglehold of caste hierarchies and feudalism that kept him down

- Maithili Rao

Eviscerating — it’s one of the many wounding words thrown around with rage in the riveting talkathon that leaves you both emotionally exhausted and intellectually excited. It happens one night in a film replete with film references, where names of iconic film-makers and classic movies are thrown into a conversation that veers off course, and critics are derided for their unconscious racism and conscious political correctness. Malcolm & Marie (Netflix) engages in a duel to death, and only pauses for breath, and music that acts like a complementary track.

Malcolm and Marie of the film’s title are a couple who come home after the premier of Malcolm’s new film where this young black director (John David Washington, son of the great Denzel) is compared to Spike Lee and John Singleton. Malcolm is in a cautiously celebratory mood because he doesn’t know what the critics will write the next day. He is particularly mean about the white woman at LA Times: he is sure she will see a racist angle in his film about a young black woman trying to come clean from her drug habit. The stunningly beautiful Marie (Zendaya) answers in monosyllables, ambushing to deflate Malcolm’s swagger: you thanked everyone but left me out.