Girni (2006)

Girni is a psychological thriller short film directed by Umesh Kulkarni Starring Girish Kulkarni and Renuka Daftardar. It was Umesh Kulkarni's Diploma film project. It is about a young boy Samer and how his mental health gets affected by the sound of the Girni. 

Dolly has been used multiple times in the movie, initially in the start where we enter the chawl and a tiny dust particle swings towards the ground gives a slightly unsettling feeling that something eerie is going to happen. Also, the camera movement as it moves to the right on track every time Renuka Daftardar goes to pay the installments for the Girni. 

Afterglow (2012)

The short film Afterglow is a very emotive story about 'letting go'. Here we can see the protagonist who has recently lost her husband to a terminal disease trying to deal with his demise. It is the story of her journey of trying to heal herself and move on. 

The script is well written and humor is used in a good way to balance out the sorrowful nature of the topic. The conversations are candid and though one would want to laugh, it is difficult to understand how to react in such a sad situation as one delves into this world and empathizes with the characters.

Every single object or prop that is shown in the frame has a significant role to play in the story, be it the disc-playing music box, the paaghri, or the incomplete jigsaw puzzle. 

The sound design is quite remarkable in this short film. The two striking examples of this are firstly in the opening scene, the background music turns out to be a diegetic sound coming from the disc playing music box and secondly in the scene where the lady starts to pour tea into the other cup and the music suddenly stops as she snaps out of her trance as she realizes her husband is no more.

Bypass (2003)

Bypass is a short film where money acts as a catalyst that drives the dystopian society. The film starts with a married couple passing through the desert on a bypass road when suddenly they are attacked by a duo of bandits. The bandits mercilessly kill the bride and cut the groom's hand to steal his watch. 

Irfan khan, a corrupt police officer then enters the scene and we get a sense of hope that the bandits might get caught but the officer turns out to be a corrupt official who later visits a nearby shop to rape a woman.

Coincidentally the bandit duo visits the same shop. The cop confronts the bandit, Nawazuddin at the shop and takes all his money only to later get bashed on his head with a rock by the other bandit. 

The bandit duo then leaves the shop and starts walking through the desert where a jeep halts beside them. The duo hops into the jeep. On realizing that the bandits have money, the woman in the jeep murders the bandits. She then steals their money and pushes them off the jeep. The jeep then leaves the scene in a long shot as it joins the main road by the Bypass signboard. 

The remarkable aspects of this short film include the editing for the peculiar transitions and brilliant camera movement which establish the title frame and end frame of the film within the diegesis.

Black Swan (2010)

I really liked how mirrors were used in the movie. Also all scratching/cutting scenes like the one where she pulls the skin from her fingertip *shudders* really created the tense psychological fear kinda vibe. 

The whole Nina = little girl in Spanish and her mental transformation into a woman etc was also remarkable! Almost remembered Dirty Dancing. Completely different genre, but the protagonist's nickname is baby and she basically tries to become independent from her life where she was pampered by her dad.. and 'lets herself go', understands sexuality and all that.. similar plot but such a different way to portray it through Dance: black swan and Dirty Dancing!

1408 (2007)

I knew the moment I started watching that this wasn't having a happy ending. I was almost going to fall for the 'he never went to the room and wakes up in the sea' part but my brain has lost any hopes of a happy ending either in movies or real life so I wasn't surprised when the ending turned out to be sad for John lol.

Also, Stephen King is so amazing, he never uses those cliched Catholic female ghosts like the Conjuring Cinematic universe, he uses Phobias! This movie must have been a fucking nightmare for claustrophobics! He literally used natural elements such as fire, water, ice to cause panic! The classic Stephen King's flooding rooms and creepy washroom scenes were just perfect. I just love it when movies try to create psychological trippy scenes. 

Pulp Fiction (1994)

Tarantino's Pulp Fiction has had a huge cultural impact on filmmakers all around the world and has greatly influenced various new filmmaking techniques. The movie stirred a controversy back in the '90s as the mixed response received from the audience was quite contrasting to the critics'.

Pulp fiction isn't anything like the cliched Hollywood films. The unconventional storytelling caught me off guard. Now had I not seen a Tarantino movie before this I would have felt uncomfortable watching pulp fiction. But since I had already seen a Tarantino movie before this I knew how Tarantino wrote his movies. 

The dialogues are so casual that we instantly feel a connection with the characters and they feel relatable. 

Notes:

1. Keep dialogues casual so that the characters become relatable

2. Don't be afraid to go against the tide. If you feel your script is too edgy, GO AHEAD WITH IT. Keep it as a personal project but don't be afraid to take risks.  

3. Make sure your characters feel human. Don't create unrelatable superficial characters. Make sure every character has a backstory that makes him/her human. 

Jojo Rabbit (2019)

'Best Adapted Screenplay' Oscar winner Taika Waititi's Jojo Rabbit is adapted from a novel Caging skies by Christine Leunens. 

Jojo Rabbit is a film about an 10-year-old who has an imaginary friend: Adolf Hitler. Jojo's eidolon of the Führer represents his nationalism which he believes is something of utmost importance as it was highly valued in the Nazi society. 

The innocent mind of the young boy gradually learns the real story as one day he finds out that a Jewish girl has been living in his apartment. His inner conflicts of trying to understand what is right and wrong are portrayed through humorous scenes where he talks to Hitler about what he must do to protect his mother from the 'evil Jew girl'. 

The entire film is shown from the perspective of young Jojo. The character development of Jojo has been shown through his conversations with Hitler and how he goes from admiring the Führer to finally kicking him out of a window. He realizes that all that he was taught in school about the jews was fake when he meets the Jewish girl in his apartment. Jojo never quite understood nazism yet admired it because he was brainwashed in school. With the Jewish girl, he gets to be a child again.  

Jojo's mother, Scarlett Johansson plays a prominent role in trying to shape his ideals. She knows that nazism is wrong but she doesn't tell that to her son because she wants to protect him wants him to understand this on his own when he grows up. More importantly, she just wants Jojo to have a carefree childhood as she felt that 10-year-olds shouldn't worry about politics. 

Cinematography wise the scenes are cleverly shot. For instance, there are multiple scenes where Scarlett's shoes have been shown dominantly in the frame. This was done to create emphasis through cinematography. The audience remembered how the shoes looked like and when they saw these shoes worn by a woman hanged by the Nazis in the town square, it wasn't required to show her face and it was clear who the woman was. 

Simple actions such as tying shoelaces and opening doors have created an emotional context as they helped in showing the character development of Jojo. The characters are Emotional human beings and as we see them endure through tragedies, the movie comes to an end with a scene where the characters don't speak but express emotions through a wholesome dance-off.