Anurag Kashyap's Bandar - Monkey in a Cage Review Tiff 2025 | Sucharita Tyagi

Описание: Bandar remains watchable because it refuses to bend to moral binaries, which is a risqué swing. You aren’t presented with an innocent martyr nor do you see a frothing predatory monster.

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Bandar Movie Review by Sucharita Tyagi -

An Anurag Kashyap film, at an international film festival, was a prospect I was excited about 2 years ago as well, May 2023 to be precise.
Let’s hope Bandar has a better fate than Kennedy!

Inside prison, Kashyap stages a rapid descent into animality. Jail ki subah subah waali devotional morning chants are almost mockingly hopeful considering the barbaric conditions. The man is finally in a world where this “problem”, women, simply don’t exist, and what a wretched world it is. But here too, there are two parallel notes – we are supposed to feel bad for these under-trials and the dismal conditions they live in, but also despise them for the views they hold on women, insisting all rape charges are either false or unjustified or the victim was “asking for it.” Yahaan violence bhi hai par empathy bhi. Joh log auraton ki body police karne lagey they, unki khud ki bodily autonomy chhin gayi toh bhar bhar ke irony bhi.

Bandar remains watchable because it refuses to bend to moral binaries, which is a risqué swing. You aren’t presented with an innocent martyr nor do you see a frothing predatory monster. However, the film fumbles entirely when a final text slate hits you over the head with the film’s thesis- onscreen statistics talking about false rape cases filed in India. Now, whether this is intended to highlight the inefficiency of the system or not, ending the film on this note establishes resolutely where it expects our sympathy to lie. A statistic about how many SA cases still lie unsolved in Indian courts and how so many don’t even get there, but these flash momentarily at the bottom of the screen, ineffective and pointless.

Bandar (Monkey in a Cage) is a 2026 Indian Hindi-language thriller crime drama film directed by Anurag Kashyap for Nikhil Dwivedi under his banner Saffron Magicworks. The film written by Sudip Sharma and Abhishek Banerjee is inspired by a real-life event. Starring Bobby Deol and Sanya Malhotra, it follows Raj Malhotra, an aging television star whose celebrity is on the wane.

Sucharita Tyagi is the newly elected Vice Chairperson of the Film Critics Guild of India. With nearly 20 years of media experience, she is best known for her popular movie reviews on YouTube, where she has built a community of dedicated fans. Now splitting her time between Mumbai and New York, Tyagi also has extensive experience in broadcast radio. With a unique voice, she reviews films and discusses South Asian pop culture with honesty and passion through a contemporary, feminist lens, breaking down complex issues in relatable ways.

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Sucharita