A Wish in the Dark

Murad is a young man from a Mumbai slum, driven by a father who wants him to take a steady job and a world that expects him to stay in his place. He starts writing rhymes, meets a street rapper and slowly finds a voice. Inspired by the real Mumbai hip-hop scene, in particular the rappers Naezy and Divine, Akhtar's film is a Bollywood-sized musical drama about class, ambition and what you do with a mic.

Why it’s here: It's a film about a kid who finds out his own life is material. What's punk is that the music comes from the gully, not from a studio, and the film is full of the real language of a neighborhood that gets ignored. What's pedagogical is how clearly it shows class as a map of who gets to be heard, and how making something is a way to be counted. Note: long, musical, standard Bollywood structure and some melodrama; some domestic conflict and a violent scene. Hindi and Urdu with subtitles. Good global-voice pick for a family with older kids, and an India film in a catalog that has books on it but few films. Close relatives: The White Tiger and Salaam Bombay! (suggested 10-22).

Harold is a death-obsessed rich kid who stages fake suicides to shock his mother. At funerals he meets Maude, a free-spirited woman nearly eighty who steals cars and replants trees. Their friendship, and then something more, turns a black comedy into a love story about being alive.

Why it’s here: The film laughs at the family, the church, the army and the psychiatrist, and takes the side of a boy who wants to feel something. What's punk is Maude, who refuses every authority and has the best lines in the film. What's pedagogical is the question it asks: what does it mean to live on purpose? Pairs with LAUGH & RESIST shelf books like Brain Droppings and Revolution for the Hell of It. Note: the romance between a teenager and a woman nearly eighty is played for comedy and puzzles some viewers, and some of Harold's fake deaths are dark.