In the first half of 2024, a conversation emerged around the limited presence of women in several celebrated movies of the time. While there were voices critical and defensive of the films, they were largely accepted as well-made or unique, going on to perform well in the state and elsewhere. Into this conversation, like an answer to the question of where the women were, came and the Cannes winner .
While picking our best of 2024, we have included some from both ‘clubs’—if clubs are what you call them—in the spirit of good cinema. : Interestingly, this one could be counted as a curious mix of both ‘clubs’, considering the large gang of men surrounding the single woman among them, as she becomes the fulcrum around which their stories revolve. Zarin Shihab, in her best role, plays the lone woman in a theatre group dominated by men of varying ages.
On a night of frenzy, they get drunk by the pool at a resort, and in the darkness of the late hours, the woman is molested. The round-table conversation that follows becomes a perfect setting, capturing the gist of reactions a survivor would face, from the critics judging her choices to the so-called supporters turning hostile. The movie beautifully tears human hypocrisies to shreds.
: Mammootty is wickedly malevolent in this slowburn, hypnotic horror thriller—a groundbreaking movie that reimagines the Malayalam horror genre by intertwining elements of folklore, history, film noir, and spatial metaphors. The film follows.
