Abhigyan Dasgupta

I would have given it 5 stars if not for the insipid season-3. However, the first two seasons are spectacular! At its heart, the series is about the haunting of the past. While the characters battle the monsters of the world, they also grapple with the monsters within. If not for anything, I would insist you to watch the show for Eva Green. What a phenomenal actress! She is supported by an equally brilliant cast. I wish the ending was different. It didn't do justice to Eva's character. Through out the first two seasons, we see how she owns her demons, instead of rejecting it. It's a phenomenal exploration of the grayness that is there in all of us. How can anyone else accept us if we don't accept both the black and white sides to ourselves? Eva's character was bold, vulnerable, confused and caring. To see such a feminist character meet the fate she does in the end of season-3 was jarring. But watch it anyway. It's a show I enjoyed thoroughly. And I hope you have a good time too!

The show starts out with a lot of intrigue. But three episodes in, everything fizzles out. It is neither a corny, popcorn entertainment like 'Flash' or brooding and intense like 'Daredevil'. Titans is somewhere in the middle, and I don't mean that in a positive way. The plot is clunky. The characters are half-baked. Their backstories are not seamlessly woven to the plot. Titans had a lot of potential but failed to grip my interest.

The Swallows of Kabul is both disturbing and cathartic at the same time. Set against Taliban-dominated Kabul, the story doesn't take time to soak you in. Rather, it tosses you in the world at the first instance - a world that is numbed with anger and limping with fear. The oppression is palpable. It's interesting that the creators have chosen watercolour animation. Without the distinct outlines, the imageries blend into one another; probably giving us a sense of Kabul slowly melting with terror. The animation style also lends a dreamy texture to the film - maybe indicating the battered dreams and dusty hopes that dwell in the houses of Kabul. We are made privy to two such houses - two couples still grappling with the devastation. Mohsen and Atiq are conflicted men - torn apart by the fragility of toxic masculinity and the power of tenderness. Their wives, Mussarat and Zunaira, put up a quiet resistance in their own ways towards oppression and men hissing patriarchy. They have been robbed of their freedom long ago, but not of their empathy. This film is about these four people whose paths unexpectedly intersect. The movie (based on a book) reminded me of another poignant book: Thousand Splendid Suns by Khalid Hosseini. Both the stories tell us a familiar tale of people shackled with discrimination and bigotry. And even though their minds turn cold with fear, their hearts simmer with defiance - it's this hidden definace that The Swallows of Kabul upholds. As discrimination spreads and violence becomes a lingo of communication, stories such as these become even more relevant. They dissolve the boundaries of language, geography and identity to establish that the feeling of being discriminated, no matter what, is universal. And so is the act of resistance.