In 1920, in an Indian jungle, a muscular man in a loincloth roars at a Bengal tiger and defeats it.
Later, a Hindu soldier in the service of the British Raj single-handedly puts down a rebellion against King George VI (Elizabeth II's father) with stick blows.
The two will cross paths in the
hugely successful Indian film RRR
, available on Netflix, which
expands global curiosity about this country
.
That is why, perhaps, many have asked
what series can be seen on this platform to learn more about India?
Before presenting
ten key fictions
on Netflix, it is necessary to understand
why RRR revived interest in Indian cinema and series
.
"RRR", the award-winning Netflix film seeking a place in the Oscar nominations.
Photo: Netflix
In
three hours of epic, historical, melodramatic, fantastic and musical key
, imagine the fictional meeting of the independence heroes Komaram Bheen and Alluri Sitarama Raju (played by the famous
NT Rama Rao Jr. and Ram Charan
), in full liberation from British rule. , in the 20th century.
RRR stands for “Rise, Roar, Revolution”
.
It is spoken
in the Telugu language and emerged from the Tollywood film industry
, West Bengal, and
distinct from Bollywood
(the world's largest film factory).
This Sunday the 15th,
RRR won Best Foreign Film
at the
Critics' Choice Awards,
beating Argentina, 1985, which had won the same award at the Golden Globes. And, almost certainly,
RRR will compete at the Oscars
in March.
Director SS Rajamouli with his statuette from the Critics Choice Awards which were handed out on Sunday.
PA
For this reason, those who have been fascinated by this film, here are
ten series from India -on Netflix- to delve into this vast country
with its triumphs, pains and mysteries.
cat
First season of eight episodes
It premiered on December 9, 2022
In northern India's Punjab, spy Gurnam Singh (actor
Randeep Hooda
) wraps up his
dastar
- a sacred turban - to hide his long hair
as he prepares to infiltrate the drug-trafficking gangs
bleeding his region dry .
ancestral.
Gurnam served as a police informant back in the 1990s during the Sikh nationalist insurgency (in 1984, Prime Minister
Indira Ghandi
had been assassinated by two of her Sikh bodyguards).
"Cat."
photo netflix
The suspense will be excruciating for the spy
, as he owes allegiance to policeman Sehtab Singh, after he saved his brother Sunny from falling under drugs.
The criminal excuse in Cat serves as a portrait of this complex and fascinating region
of northern India that is the Punjab.
Police: The Chapter in Bihar
First season of seven episodes
It premiered on November 25, 2022
In north-central India is the punished region of Bihar -just below Nepal-, where
more than 110 million people live among poverty, anemia, malnutrition, spiritual elevation and the baseness of the ruling class
.
There the Bihar police (especially one person) will face the dark intentions of the new political authorities.
A phrase from the series defines his moral lesson well:
"Power does not corrupt people, people corrupt power
. "
In the midst of the bullets, someone else will want to mobilize the people:
"If it is a crime to speak out against injustice, then I am a criminal
. "
At first glance,
this series could take place in any Latin American country
, but it will soon reveal all the faces that suffer and pray in Bihar.
Mai: A mother's fury
A six-episode season on Netflix
It premiered on April 25, 2022
"What happened? Did someone say or do something to you? I'll take care of it
,” promises Sheel Chaudhary (renowned actress Sakshi Tanwar) and
her hearing-impaired daughter Supriya (Wamiqa Gabbi) signs back
just before the trauma unfolds.
Sheel won't stop until someone takes care of her grief.
"May."
photo netflix
Vindication, hunting and a system of negligence to question and disarm
.
Mai generates a healthy addiction, but also a related outrage, typical of the
subgenre of thrillers about working mothers turned avengers
.
Sheel was
a middle-class nurse in a home for adults
.
After taking an irremediable step, she will continue to collect this physical and emotional debt, facing the future second season of
Mai
.
criminal delhi
Two seasons with twelve episodes in total
The first is from 2019 and the second from August 2022
"Delhi Criminal".
This Richie Mehta police drama that combines fiction and reality is
already a classic
.
The first season reconstructed how a hierarchical officer of the force tracked down the culprits of a gang rape, in 2012, in the Munirka neighborhood, south Delhi.
And it
was a success because of its veracity, its rhythm and its sensitivity
.
In addition, he won the International Emmy Award in 2020.
This year's second season focuses on the Chaddi Baniyan Gangs, gangs that rob and kill
dressed only in underwear and masks
.
"I am Deputy Police Commissioner Vartika Chaturvedi (Indian star Shefali Shah) and it is with all my regret that I must tell you that her parents were killed last night."
This is how this series starts again,
Delhi Criminal
, which
never disappoints
.
nine emotions
One season of nine episodes
Launched in August 2021
The unfathomable of the individual can be touched through aesthetic introspection: in creative communion with others.
Give to be, receive to understand, return to stay.
thank
.
This series
explores the nine mood swings
(the
“rasas”
), which form the aesthetic foundation of classical Indian dance and drama:
anger, compassion, courage, disgust, fear, laughter, love, peace, and wonder
.
"Nine emotions".
In
the Tamil language
, this nine-episode standalone series came about after filmmakers
Mani Ratnam and Jayendra Panchapakesan
collaborated to help support the livelihood of the South India Film Employees Federation, in crisis post-pandemic.
A good chance to delve into
"Navarasa"
,
the theory of art and spirit that inspired this subtle production
.
The Bombay Begums
First season of six episodes
Launched on March 8, 2021, International Women's Day
The feminist revolution slowly crosses the country of Mahatma Gandhi
.
In this series, five women
(“begums”
means “queens” in Hindi)
intersect their personal challenges and their ambitions within the corporate world of Mumbai
, as competitive as it is linked to voracious abuse and inequitable at the gender level.
"The Bombay Begums".
Pooja Bhatt, Shahana Goswami, Plabita Borthakur, Aadhya Anand and Amruta Subhash are stars of the Indian television industry, like their director, Alankrita Shrivastava.
They
make up these entrepreneurs of art, finance, a family business and even nightlife
.
They won't be able to beat the caste system yet, but they will know how to deal with the bosses and companions who see them as their lords and masters.
And
they will be able to embrace, together, their dreams in Bombay
.
leila
A six-episode season on Netflix
from 2019
"Leyla."
In an urgent and light comparison,
this series could be defined as "the Indian answer to The Handmaid's Tale"
.
But an empathic response, unlike that of those who seek to deny machismo for fear of losing their privileges, could define it more precisely.
One only has to look at the castes of India - in a double sense - to
understand how oppression really works
.
Here
it is denounced in a dystopian and ultra-religious key
.
Under a totalitarian regime, Shalini (Huma Qureshi) married a Muslim and had Leila (Leysha Mange).
But, since she was considered “mixed race”,
she was separated from her mother when
she was three years old.
What will be Shalini's personal journey to win Leila back once she is able to rebel?
This intense series
adapts a famous book by Prayaag Akbar.
sacred games
Two seasons of eight episodes each on Netflix
They premiered in 2018 and 2019
"Sacred Games".
"They have twenty-five days to save the city," warns gangster Ganesh Gaitonde, who had disappeared 16 years ago.
And turban-wearing troubled policeman Sartaj Singh (Saif Ali Khan) sets off.
But seeing the chain of corpses in his path, he reasons:
"There is no place for an honest man in this country."
Sartaj Singh refers not only to criminals, but to
a legion of corrupt policemen
, in the underworld of the mega-port city of Bombay.
The
flashbacks
will reveal the extremist conspiracy that intends -in fiction- to destroy the country.
It was the first Netflix original series in India and adapts
Vikram Chandra
's 2006 best-selling novel of the same name. A thriller that
brings imagination into dialogue with history
.
ghoul
Three-episode miniseries on Netflix
Released in 2018
"ghoul."
A macabre entity from Arab folklore,
the ghoul
, is the trigger for the confusing danger that could engulf a prison-fortress, once the interrogation of the terrorist Ali Saeed begins.
Ghoul
takes place in a secret camp in India during a dystopian future (which
seemed to anticipate the pandemic
, due to its preventive isolation).
There, the shrewd agent Nida Rahim (Radhika Apte is the actress, with a great physical and mental display)
will have to take care not only of the supernatural monster, but of the worst of all: she will have to remove fascism
from her way of reasoning.
This was
Netflix's second original production in India
after
Holy Games
.
It was created by the Englishman Patrick Graham -based in Bombay- and was financed with contributions from the innovative horror production company Blumhouse.
Stories by Rabindranath Tagore
A season of 26 episodes
from 2015
"Tagore, Whitman, Neruda, Machado, Juan Ramón Jiménez, broadened the spiritual geography of their lands, which are, in the universal concept, our land
," wrote Atahualpa Yupanqui in 1972.
Rabindranath Tagore
, a Bengali
who won the 1913 Nobel Prize for Literature, was a poet, storyteller, scholar, and cultural reformer who resisted prejudice.
Today he is synonymous with India and that is why
this series adapts his stories with a progressive and humanist look
.
Many of them featured strong women in the midst of a conservative society, where extreme violence against the female gender is recurrent.
India and its contradictions: an industrial and cinematographic powerhouse, a philosophical and meditative powerhouse
, a universe of beauty and pain that Tagore shaped and questioned without ceasing to love.
look too
Argentina, 1985 and another key nomination in his Oscar career
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