thedawnlist

all images are borrowed - each frame a moment from someone else's story. I share them only to reflect, not to claim. all credit to the creator.

[thedawnlist]

One Battle After Another (2025) dir. Paul Thomas Anderson

"Are you happy? Do you have love? What will you do when you get older? Will you try to change the world like I did? We failed, but maybe you will not. Maybe you will be the one who puts the world right."

The film attempts to run with the weight of revolution and though it does a hearty job, disingenuity seeps through its cracks.

Perhaps it means well, as the frames at times beautifully capture struggle, sacrifice and terror. The craft from the script to the screen is meticulous, and you can sense the desire to honour those who rose up, especially where Bob (Leornardo DiCaprio) casually watches and echoes dialogue of the Battle of Algiers, a scene which is perfectly placed within the film. The framing of the harrowing immigration raids of the Latinx population as a long-awaited just cause for contemporary revolution is compelling. Unfortunately, none of these elements are saying anything new. What's different here is that it’s meshed with Anderson's humour and style - which is simply not enough or at times appropriate to do justice to the material and ideas the film preaches.

In reality, revolution isn't just a sequence of clashes or a chorus of wounded ideals. It is the slow burn of dignity reclaimed. The private grief that becomes public courage and the way ordinary people decide that they'd rather risk everything than live bent - and perhaps there is an attempt of saying this through Perfidia (Teyana Taylor), despite her short lived presence.

In One Battle After Another, the revolutionaries feel symbolic and puppeteered, rather than burdened with the injustices of humanity. In focusing on the battles, the film forgets the ideas that actually fought them. And revolution, in the end, is always more than the wars it leaves behind.

[thedawnlist]

Homebound (2025) dir. Neeraj Ghaywan

"Identity isn’t what they box us into. It’s what we build for ourselves."

Dreams don't discriminate by class, caste or religion. But when the dream is to be respected, to build your own kursi (chair) and sit on it, chasing them tells a whole different story.

Homebound encaptures this by beautifully unravelling the friendship between Shoaib (Ishaan Khatter) and Chandan (Vishal Jethwa) in their journey to see through to the national police exams. Despite carrying the weight of faith, caste, identity and home, the two laugh, stumble, and push each forward nonetheless.

Neeraj Ghaywan places the friendship against the roar of a system that refuses to let the poor and oppressed arrive. When the pandemic sends them back to their village, the journey feels less like return and more like an exile - a reminder of how far they still are on the road to justice. This is likened to the portrayal of birds that migrate and fly freely, unlike the migrants tethered to the cage of a system that works against them.

In a poignant scene where Shoaib carries Chandan on his back on their journey home, we recall how he did the same in celebration of a victorious cricket match. This not only becomes a befitting poster for the film, but a reflection of how dreaming in India means to walk with your back bent, carrying the weight of yourself; the centuries of oppression and an identity carved before you could choose it. Though it is tiring to carry this burden, it can also be hopeful. Like a cricket ball that flies through the air to hit the wicket, you too can build your own place to thrive.

Carry the burden like a friend that sometimes lifts you, sometimes holds you back, but never lets you walk alone.

[thedawnlist]

Mississippi Masala (1991) dir. Mira Nair

"Well, Miss Masala, racism or as they say nowadays, tradition, gets passed down like recipes. Now, the trick is, you gotta know what to eat and what to leave on your plate. Otherwise, you’ll be mad forever. And you’ll never eat."

This classic sits perfecly into the Nair-esque genre of tension between exile, belonging, love and the weight of history, through the romance between Mina (Sarita Choudhury) and Demetrius (Denzel Washington). It follows an Indian family trying to rebuild life in the American South after being expelled from Uganda. As the film peels open the scars of displacement whilst unravelling a powerful interracial love story, Mississippi Masala was far ahead of its time, even by todays standards.

As the histories of the African American struggle against racism and South Asian migrant and colonial displacement collide, Nair reveals there is no better ground to resolve them than love. Mina and Demetrius’s relationship brings a tenderness that feels real and rare, framed by the vibrant colours and music and humid southern atmosphere.

For many, love is political and private choices become burdened by public histories. But in the end, we all seek to belong, beyond race, countries and history. Mississippi Masala lies perfectly in the space where these desires and issues intersect - at the cookout, in a phonebooth, along the beach, in your childhood home or in the embrace of a loved one.

[thedawnlist]

I went down to the sea, and said to the restless wave, “you are forever searching — what is your trouble? your bag contains a thousand glowing pearls — but do you, like me, have in your breast A pearl of a heart? It writhed in pain and drew away from the shore — it did not say a word. - Muhammad Iqbal (Solitude, Payam-e-Mashriq)

In Solitude, Iqbal confronts nature. Standing before the vastness of creation, he asks a single question: "do you have a heart?", only to for it to recoil into silence.

As much as the sea shines, endures and dazzles, it simply cannot feel. And the same goes for the mountains and the moon. Somehow, the world, with all of its grandeur, becomes almost empty beside the trembling heart of a man. Somehow, a heart that feels, breaks, remembers and hopes, carries a flame that the universe cannot replicate.

But this discovery is both triumph and torment, as it means even nature cannot provide the companionship that the heart aches for. This loneliness is dignity in disguise - as to feel lost, to search and to ache, is what Iqbal emanates, as the mark of heart alive.

Full poem here.

(still from Atonement (2007))

[thedawnlist]

Dhadak 2 (2025) dir. Shazia Iqbal

"Everyday, someone or the other reminds us that we are not human beings."

The film follows Neelesh’s (Siddhant Chaturvedi) struggle, as a Dalit law student whose quiet resistance mirrors the intellectual legacy of Dr. B.R. Ambedkar more than any filmy heroism archetype. It nods to Ambedkar’s belief that justice must be structural rather than sentimental as Neelesh is constantly forced to prove his worth as a student, as a lover and as a human being.

Casteism is an everyday violence which Dhadak 2 perfectly captures. The film depicts how it isn’t just a social problem, it’s a wound carried in your name, in your walk, in your family's occupation and in your dreams.

[thedawnlist]

Roman Holiday (1953) dir. William Wyler

"At midnight, I'll turn into a pumpkin and drive away in my glass slipper. And that will be the end of the fairy tale."

Capturing a fleeting moment of freedom, Roman Holiday sells the fantasy of a holiday fling in a wholesome but heart-aching way. Audrey Hepburn’s Princess Ann steps out of duty and into the streets of Rome like someone tasting life for the first time, as Gregory Peck’s Joe Bradley watches her not as a saviour, but as a witness, gently testifying for her freedom to live as a normal girl.

Often coined as an “anti-fairytale”, the film presents love as something that can live fully even if it only lives once. By ending on a rare note of contentment that recognises the duties we must uphold amongst the freedoms we may desire, this bittersweetness is perhaps what makes the film endure.

[thedawnlist]

F1 (2025) dir. Joseph Kosinski

"Why do we do this? What’s wrong with tennis or golf?"

Though it is sleek and stylish, beneath the roar and blitz of engines, the film is formulaic (no pun intended). And despite boasting of its technical brilliance, real F1 footage and cameos and a thundering score delivered by Hans Zimmer, the story remains too clean and calculated to match its thrilling shell.

Sonny Haynes (Brad Pitt) fully steps into the archetype of the aging racer pulled back into the game for one last feat, which is complemented by his mentorship of rookie Joshua Pearce (Damson Idris). However, this dynamic is treated more like a subplot than a driving force. Instead F1 trades in tropes of redemption arcs and underdogs comebacks - performing emotion but not quite sitting with it. Perhaps interacting more with the politics of the class divide, the intersections of race and the commodification of the sport would have avoided its sterility.

F1 may be a technical triumph, but emotionally and thematically, it stays in the pit lane. And yes, Simone Ashley deserved better.

[thedawnlist]

28 Years Later (2025) dir. Danny Boyle

"Memento mori. It means remember death."

Marking his return to the franchise, Boyle delivers a film that both honors and reinvents the zombie genre. But this time, the apocalypse wears the quiet ache of grief alongside the frantic pace of survival. This third installment drags us through a long aftermath, consisting of not just what violence leaves behind, but what it teaches people to live with.

The new generation, embodied by Spike, doesn't remember the outbreak; he only knows the remnants of the world, which becomes the thesis of the film. It's not about the survival of a catastrophe, but rather suriving in its shadow.

Despite Boyle's striking visual motifs - abrupt cuts and vacant lanscapes - subversively, the real horror here is emotional: a father’s rage, a mother's illness and a child who carries memories and hope. Though the softening of horror for generational melodrama risks dulling the films teeth, it leans into a coming of age narrative that confronts grief and death, which is arguably just as haunting.

The film reminds us that grief is the original horror - living long before the infected rose but remaining to haunt us nonetheless.

[thedawnlist]

Fish Tank (2009) dir. Andrea Arnold

"You're what's wrong with me!"

Fishtank is a raw relentless portrait of a girl thrashing against the glass walls of her life - poor, boxed in and unseen. Arnold depicts Mia with brutal intimacy, as the camera shadows her discomfort and ache.

Girlhood here isn't pastel or soft-focus, its feral, bruised and constantly negotiating space in a world that doesn't make room for girls to be girls. Intersecting with the limits of class and gender, Arnold refuses the voyeuristic gaze so often imposed on working-class girls in cinema. As much as Mia is angry, volatile and unapologetic, she yearns - through her thoughts and her dance - for a life outside, beyond the estate.

As a coming-of-age film that depicts how age is forced, not chosen, how growing up means learning to survive in a world that preys on you, Fishtank is devastating - but also necessary.

[thedawnlist]

Materialists (2025) dir. Celine Song

"How would you like to make a very bad financial decision?"

Disguised as a rom-com but in actuality a sharp emotionally layered romantic drama that dismantles the illusion of modern love, Materialists is as alluring as it is disquieting. Song attempts to softly indict late capitalist intimacy - revealing not what we want in love, but what we've been taught to love.

However, though Song sets the table with the right tensions - gender, class, intimacy - she never quite lets them clash. Instead, everything feels manicured, like the lives it tries to critique.

Lucy's (Dakota Johnson) character is fascinating in theory: a woman who profits from matchmaking but struggles to map her own desire. Yet the film seems afraid to implicate her too fully. Or perhaps it is unconvincing. We may get glimpses of her contradictions - her moral flexibility, her commodified feminism - but they’re softened by aesthetics and charm. The film wants to critique the system whilst still making it look enviable.

Eventually, we're left with people performing roles; the idealist, the financier, the feminist caught in between - without ever fully stepping out of them. Even the subplot of sexual violence, though a blunt reminder that no amount of wealth or curation can fully shield women from the evils of patriarchy, feels strangely isolated and not fully metabolised by the film's politics.

For a film titled Materialists, it flinches at the true material consequences of its ideas. Love isn't just shaped by capital - it is deformed by it. And yet the film remains caught in its own performance and expectations.

[thedawnlist]

28 Days Later (2002) dir. Danny Boyle

"Think! Actually think about it. What would you do with a diseased little island? They quarantined us. There is no infection. Just people killing people."

Released in a post-9/11 climate, the film taps into anxieties about society itself - its fragility, how easily it falls and the debris that remains. Set in a Britain ravaged by a "rage" virus, 28 Days Later, opens with images of animal cruetly and violent media, which - to nobody's surprise - becomes the origin story of the forthcoming apocalyspe. The virus is born from our own reflection. And what subsequently spreads isn't just infection, but anger, uncontrolled and consuming.

What Boyle shows, over and over, is that catastrophe doesn't create evil - it simply unmasks it. Military order becomes another form of tyranny, protection turns into possession, and what's left of humanity begins to rot from the inside. The line between the infected and the "uninfected" blurs, until rage feels like the only language anyone can speak.

As a zombie movie that strikes the perfect balance between spectacle and intimacy, it portrays not how to survive the apocalypse, but the kind of people we become when we do.

[thedawnlist]

The Dark Knight Rises (2012) dir. Christopher Nolan

"You think darkness is your ally. You merely adopted the dark; I was born in it, molded by it."

Nolan crafts a city that mirrors our own - rife with inequality, disillusionment and quiet rage. Bane (Tom Hardy) isn't a mindless villain but an echo of an uprising turned inwards - his critique of inequality feels real, even if the film doesn't let him follow through. But this is central in revealing how the language of justice can be co-opted and corrupted, how the line between saviour and opressor becomes paper thin.

Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) returns not just to save a city, but to prove that symbols don't die, that they're reborn through sacrifice. Stripped of his wealth, armour and legend, the audience witnesses a resurrection, but also the release of the myth of Batman.

In the end, it is not so much the bat symbol that saves the city, but trust, sacrifice and the belief that something better can be built from the ashes.

[thedawnlist]

Battle of Algiers (1966) dir. Gillo Pontecorvo

"It's hard to start a revolution. Even harder to continue it. And hardest of all to win it."

The Battle of Algiers shakes the illusion that colonial violence is clean or distant. Through grainy black and white urgency, it exposes what empire tries to bury - that the resistance is firm in its practice. Whether it be children running through alleyways or women with bombs hidden beneath veils, the film reveals the cost of breathing freely under a boot.

Pontecorvo doesn't romanticise revolt, he makes you feel the suffocation, the tension and the way oppression reshapes both the coloniser and the colonised. The French military may win battles, but its the silence after torture that echoses louder - the unrelenting hum of rage that can't be extinguished by force.

Even the veil becomes a battleground, as French colonialism targets the intimate spaces of identity - the bodies of women. However, though to the French, unveiling the Algerian woman was part of their so-called civilising mission, to the women, the choice to unveil isn't submission but subversion. To inflitrate, decieve and recalim. This is their front line.

The work of Fanon, haunts the film - it is the cinema of his theory incarnate - of the Wretched of the Earth not waiting for permission, but wrenching back their humanity with clenched fists. Even the use of non-actors mirrors Fanon's urgency; this is not ficiton, but rupture. It echoes his belief that colonialism is not a polite disagreement - it is violence, and can only be undone by violence.

[thedawnlist]

American Psycho (2000) dir. Mary Haron

"I have all the characteristics of a human being: blood, flesh, skin, hair; but not a single, clear, identifiable emotion, except for greed and disgust."

American Psycho isn't really about Patrick Bateman (Christian Bale) - it's about everything that makes someone like him not just possible, but inevitable. A satire so clean it cuts through the curated veneer of wealth and reveals the rot beneath: a culture built on consumption, competition, misogyny and hollow masculinity. Bateman is merely the most honest product of an economy that rewards appearance over substance, wealth over morals, status over soul.

He is, in every way, the American dream made flesh - white, rich, educated, attractive, and yet completely empty. He performs identity rather than inhabiting it. And the result is violence, the ultimate form of domination, which is destructive to his self as much as it is to others.

Haron thus presents a warning. What happens when society is built to value only what's profitable, when identity becomes a brand and power excuses everything, including the most deplorable forms of violence? You get Patrick Bateman.

[thedawnlist]

A Passage to India (1984) dir. David Lean

"I am not defending a case - and you are not trying one! We are both slaves!"

Despite how jarring the instances of brownface are, the film is - in true David Lean fashion - a remarkable adaptation of a classic novel. The story (originally authored by E.M. Forster) arguably attempts to show that racism and imperialism are personal failures than structural ones. Lean's adaptation doubles down on this, painting colonial India as an exotic landscape where misunderstandings between individuals cause tragedy, rather than pointing to the violence baked into empire itself.

Dr. Aziz (Victor Banerjee), although often overshadowed by Fielding (James Fox), is the quiet pulse of resistance, though not through protest or uprising, but through dignity, hospitality and a refusal to surrender his full self to the empire's gaze. He's not presented as a flawless hero, but that's precisely what makes him poignant. He's tender, proud and wounded. And most importantly, he survives, even after he tends to his colonisers - not because he loves them, but because he still believes in the possibility of shared humanity.

There is an attempt to say that East and West cannot understand each other. But what the film avoids is that this lack of understanding is not natural, it was engineered, maintained, and enforced, through occupation, violence and cultural domination.

So while A Passage to India wants to be a critique of empire, it remains trapped in the very structures of power it claims to expose. As much as Lean might want to believe it, friendship is not the solution to colonialism.

[thedawnlist]

Malcolm X (1992) dir. Spike Lee

"Each hour here in this Sacred Land enables me to have greater insights into what is happening in America. The American Negro never can be blamed for his racial animosities—he is only reacting to four hundred years of oppression and discrimination. But as racism leads America up the suicidal path, I do believe that the younger generation will see the handwriting on the wall and many of them will turn to the spiritual path of the truth—the only way left to America to ward off the disaster that racism inevitably surely leads to."

Spike Lee doesn’t just trace the life of a man - he charts the evolution of conviction itself. And with that, the film is not just a biography (much like The Autobiography of Malcolm X), it is a political education.

Poignantly, Malcolm’s embrace of Islam stands not as a footnote, but as the turning point in his conviction. It is when he steps onto the white marble of Mecca, shoulder to shoulder with believers from every race, that he sees Islam not as a reaction to white supremacy - but as a revelation beyond it - the solution to hate. His eyes widen, his heart softens, and his mission sharpens. His Islam is not a quiet refuge - it’s a sword and a salve.

The film doesn't mythologise Malcolm X to make him digestible. It depicts a man who's truth was too vast to be contained in America, or ideology, or even film. And yet, here he is, etched in light and colour, alive and burning.

[thedawnlist]

Stolen (2025) dir. Karan Tejpal

"Without us, she had no chance."

The stark realism in Stolen is both the essence and reckoning of the film, becoming a true standout genre film in contemporary Indian cinema. As Jhumpa's baby vanishes in the night, so does the last shred of certainty, as brothers, Gautam and Raman, seek out to ensure justice still remains. But in a world where rumour metastasizes into rage, goodness is a dangerous currency and the audience becomes witness to what happens when faith and justice is outsourced to mobs.

Tejpal paints a portrait of a country fleetering between belief and bloodlust, as compassion becomes incriminating and indictable. The skin of a nation is peeled back to reveal its growing inablity to distinguish fear from the truth.