REVIEW: RADHE RADHE: Rites of Holi [2014]

“Oh Radha, you are voluptuous, pure and always forgiving, the source of life itself, our beloved, delightful as a blossoming lotus.” An art piece bridging Vijay Iyer‘s newest energetic composition as played by the International Contemporary Ensemble and stunning footage of Holi celebrations in the Braj region of India, RADHE RADHE: Rites of Holi proves an invigorating experience of cultural tradition. Inspired by the centennial of Stravinsky-Nijinsky’s The Rite of Spring, Iyer and director Prashant Bhargava looked to explore their own heritage’s demarcation of the season’s change through song as…

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VIFF11 INTERVIEW: Prashant Bhargava, writer/director of Patang

While at the Vancouver International Film Festival this year, I had the pleasure of speaking to the writer/director of Patang [The Kite], Prashant Bhargava. A Chicago-born filmmaker of Indian descent, his first feature length work has hit screens in Berlin and Tribeca before making its way to Canada, picking up praise at every screening. A very human tale of a family in Ahmedabad rekindling during the city’s famous kite festival, Bhargava’s film will enchant and intrigue through its exotic locale and very familiar emotions. Speaking about his process, the casts’…

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VIFF11 REVIEW: Patang [The Kite] [2012]

“What do you know about true love?” For Chicago-born Indian-American Prashant Bhargava, his debut feature film Patang [The Kite] is a seven-year labor of love. Rooted in the memory of his own uncles fighting kites in the sky, the writer/director decided to fashion his tale of familial bonds around the northern Indian festival, Uttarayana. By utilizing the dueling of magnificent beauty and fierce warfare the thin paper fliers portray, Bhargava gives us a metaphorical entity to mimic the battle between brothers Umesh and Jayresh. Two boys with differing ambitions, their…

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REVIEW: Sangam [2004]

“Don’t hijack the train” Showing us two men that could be brothers in another life, writer/director Prashant Bhargava creates a short tome on how their similarities are anything but. For Vivek (Sanjay Chandani) and Raj (Hesh Sarmalkar), the magical crossroad Sangam holds great meaning to their pasts. The pilgrimage point where the Ganges, the Jamuna, and the Saraswati meet in Prayag, India, its power to give strength and freedom can take many forms. While one’s distant memory holds it as an exotic land whose beauty is worth experiencing again, its…

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