Streaming tips: "The White Tiger", "Star Trek: Lower Decks", "Pretend it's a City"

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Lebowitz, Scorsese in "Pretend It's a City": Talking about money, about cigarettes, about taxis and men

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COURTESY OF NETFLIX / Netflix

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Ascent from poor villager to poor chauffeur: "The White Tiger"

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Tejinder Singh / Netflix

"The White Tiger," Netflix

A heated debate is currently raging in India over the Amazon series "Tandav", which allegedly offends the religious sentiments of Hindus.

There were calls for a ban, and a politician from the ruling nationalist party BJP would like the international streaming services operating in India to be better regulated.

Its content, writes Manoj Kotak in a letter to the broadcasting ministry posted on Twitter, is full of "sex, violence, abuse, hatred and vulgarity."

It will be interesting to see how Kotak and his like-minded people react to "The White Tiger".

The film can definitely be seen as a frontal attack on Indian sensitivities and most beautifully confirms the fears that the Netflix and Co. programs trigger among Indian nationalists.

Sex?

At least the morale guards don't have to worry about that.

For: violence?

Oh yes, physical and mental.

Abuse?

Definitely, if you don't interpret the term purely sexually, but refer to power relations.

Hate?

If it could be weighed: by the tens.

Vulgarity?

No question.

And Hindu gods are offended too.

At the same time, "The White Tiger" is the best film about Indian society that an international audience has seen in a long time.

A rousing mixture of sharp social satire and dark psychological thriller that manages to entertain and shock with the disclosure of grievances.

And thus far more honest and artistically significant than the poverty soap "Slumdog Millionär", which in 2009 garnered eight Oscars.

"The White Tiger" tells the story of the rise of Balram (Adarsh ​​Gourav), a poor villager from East India, who begins his job as a chauffeur for the son of the rich village patriarch.

In truth, the patriarch is nothing more than a criminal who maintains excellent contacts with politics and who enriches himself at the expense of the village.

He treats Balram like a serf, which, however, is no reason for complaint, because the fact that he was born to be a servant determines his lower caste.

But Balram is learning, above all, that you can get up in India - if you are willing to ruthlessly take advantage of opportunities and not shy away from murder and manslaughter.

"The White Tiger" is the film adaptation of the novel of the same name by Aravind Adiga, which was awarded the Man Booker Prize in 2008.

Directed by the Iranian-born American Ramin Bahrani, who has already delivered impressive class struggle dramas with films such as »99 Homes«.

Booming India in 2010 - this is the year the story takes place - with its particularly brutal economic system based on centuries of inequality, serves Bahrani as an extremely dark example of a society that produces blatant injustice as a permanent condition.

“Indian entrepreneurs have to be honest and corrupt, mocking and religious, sly and sincere at the same time,” Balram learns, but that's only enough to get started.

In the first half, "The White Tiger" is still a laconic satire in which the audience can laugh away at the brutality inherent in the images.

In the second, Bahrani turns his film into a dark thriller in which a broken bottle neck has to help make dreams of advancement a reality.

In terms of »Tandav« the nationalists have prevailed, the series is being re-edited.

That won't be possible with “The White Tiger”, the whole film is a slap in the face for the ruling class.

Their calls for a ban should be all the louder.

Oliver Kaever

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Better a glass of champagne than a pile of medals: The crew in "Star Trek: Lower Decks"

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"Star Trek: Lower Decks," Amazon Prime Video

Every streaming platform wants its content to be endless.

So what was once a series filmed with the simplest of means about the crew of a spaceship called Enterprise is now a whole universe made up of different story threads.

The latest entry in the logbook is the first "Star Trek" cartoon series.

"Lower Decks" takes place in the insignificant lower departments of the insignificant space cruiser USS Cerritos and works best with mean gags about the heroic and explorer figures of the upper floors, which are actually always somewhat ridiculously pathetic.

However, if you haven't always been a Star Trek fan anyway, you can very well exist without this appendix.

Oliver Kaever

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COURTESY OF NETFLIX / Netflix

“Pretend It's a City,” Netflix

If a woman comes into the pub, sits down at a table, starts talking - and only stops after seven episodes.

Put simply, this is the concept of Martin Scorsese's documentary miniseries "Pretend It's a City".

She is terrific!

That's because the woman talking is Fran Lebowitz.

Lebowitz, now 71, is the epitome of a lot that made Manhattan so fascinating in the 20th century.

She is a columnist and writer, worked for Andy Warhol, knew the jazz musician Charles Mingus and the photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, went to the concerts of the punk forerunner band New York Dolls.

She has been good friends with Scorsese for years, and appeared as a judge in his film "The Wolf of Wall Street".

In “Pretend It's a City” Lebowitz talks a little bit about the city of New York - and a lot about herself, her life in New York and what else she thinks: about money, about cigarettes, about taxis and men.

So entertaining and quick-witted that Scorsese only remains in the role of listener to regularly break out into enthusiastic laughter.

Just laugh along.

Sebastian Hammelehle

And here you will find the current »crime scene«.

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