Red Lorry Film Festival – Day 2 – March 14, 2026

Bleary eyed , with a splitting headache and feeling more than my share of festival fatigue 🥴, with multiple choices and an “oh – I will miss this – I will miss that” , I set forth for  day 2 . It is not for nothing they say “When the going gets tough, the tough get going” 😊 .

Dedalus (2024). Director : Gianluca Manzetti. Language : Italian

New Year’s Eve. A woman’s body crashes onto a parked car. Few years later, Dedalus a social media platform, selects six people with maximum number of followers / influencers. These six have a chance to win 1 million Euros if they enter a contest , whose rules will be specified only in a totally offline site. The six include a footballer  retired due to an injury and his obnoxious cousin, a gym trainer, a young mother with a small child, an obese overweight woman who scoffs at dieting and whose social media content is full of eating large quantities of food,  a ‘modern’ influencer who covers her body with tattoos and shows them off and advocates modern ‘fashion’ trends. Once the rules are set , the contest starts taking an increasingly deadly turn as their personal faults and failures surface and it becomes clear there is more to the ‘games’ than the contestants ever thought…

Once the rules were explained and the games begin, it quickly became clear to me that this is a modern ‘digital variation’ of the old Agatha Christie story Ten Little Indians and our own Hindi copy of that story,  Gumnaam. Just to recap, ten ‘little Indians’ have been called together in a remote location , and on the first day an anonymous letter informs them that all of them will die for crimes which got away with and have not faced any punishment. In this variation, a somewhat sinister ‘Maestro’ clad in black, appears from time to time to encourage them on their tasks while revealing their inner ugliness and the nasty stuff they did and – most important – the connection to the dead woman (in the first scene of the film).  You can soon guess what will happen to the six contestants while we watch and ponder, who will be the final survivor.  Interesting first and then gradually predictable , though still makes for a decent thriller.

My rating – 3.5 out of 5

In Which Annie Gives Those Ones (1989). Director : Pradeep Krishen. Writer : Arundhati Roy. Language : English + Hindi.

Its 1974. Architecture students at the Delhi School of Architecture are in high gear as they have their final year submissions. Everyone wonders whether  “Annie”, who has been “six years in final year”, will survive this year. The gang of students consist of multiple personalities that range from the Bohemian to the serious, the toadies to the devil may care types. One thing is common among them  – they all hate their Principal whom they call Yamdhooth…

 
This is one of the most delightful , whacky , quirky yet authentic views of student / campus life. It’s clear that the students are all there for a purpose and don’t have time for any politics/ political affiliations but are concerned only with passing their final year exams. Writer Arundhati Roy appears as  the somewhat Bohemian student Radha, with a ‘steady’ boyfriend Arjun (Rituraj).  Annie is least bothered about anything in his life ; he is even planning to get married to a cabaret dancer Bijli (Himani Shivpuri) . Everyone bets that Annie will not pass while they prepare their submissions. Pranks inside the campus, including harassing a professor while he is giving lectures, friendly rivalries, genuinely helping each other and a camaraderie that can’t be explained or defined , and can be only felt by those who undergo the process. The actual locations at the school of architecture complete with student dorms with haphazard unwashed laundry , books, etc contribute to the overall authenticity.

Hats off to the Film Heritage Foundation for rescuing this film and RESTORING it from a 16 mm print and presenting a fresh print to delight the audience, who enjoyed it thoroughly , gleefully laughing at the onscreen antics. Irreverent ? of course. Important? Definitely. Enjoyable ? ABSOLUTELY

Catch the film wherever you can .

My rating : 4.5 out of 5

Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008). Writer, Director: Woody Allen.

Friends Vicky and Cristina land up in Barcelona for a holiday, meet a mysterious Spanish Painter Juan Antonio with whom Vicky and Cristina have affairs. Vicky gets married to her boyfriend Doug who wants a ‘romantic European wedding’. Cristina and Juan’s togetherness is shattered when Juan’s ex wife Maria Elena returns to his life in a dramatic way…

Well. Some things do not change with Woody Allen. In my view , his style of neurotic film making can be summarized thus:

• Love is neurotic/ Women are neurotic.
• You can’t live without love/ without women.
• You can’t live with love/ with women.
• Finally – what is love that we spend so much time seeking it ?

If we remember these points, then the film falls into place perfectly as nothing changes for Vicky or Cristina. The Barcelona locations are brilliantly shot. The multiple flamenco guitar pieces by Paco de Lucia playing in the background , add to the overall passion-tinged story. Yet there is a feeling that this could have been better.

My rating – 3.5 out of 5

Jaws (1975). Director : Steven Spielberg

Spielberg was only 29 years old when Jaws, his second proper feature film, was released in 1975 and demolished all existing box officer records. I saw the film thrice in December 1980, at New Empire theatre (Mumbai). The film is one of the finest exercises in filmmaking as we come across how the ordinary and mundane can suddenly become life threatening. Film critics have mentioned that this is a parable about corporate greed where the shark is a symbol of corporate America destroying ordinary Americans and their lives. If so , this is delicious irony as The Shark gobbled up all box office dollars for the year 1975 !

Surely Spielberg didn’t have any such lofty intentions .  He just wanted to capitalize on Peter Benchley’s 1974 bestselling book and make a quick movie. That the movie turned into a nightmare what with skyrocketing costs, a shark that didn’t work despite some of the best technical brains on the job, inclement weather – is all besides the point. For those who want to know what happened behind the scenes, here is a You Tube  link to the making of Jaws (clink on the red)

As for the film, it’s available on Amazon Prime. To rent (did we say Corporate Greed?)

My rating : 5 out of 5