Paul Thomas Anderson’s spellbinding music documentary Junun takes viewers on a musical expedition through Jodhpur, India. Following the month-long musical partnership between Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood (composer of film scores for Anderson’s films since There Will Be Blood) and Israeli composer Shye Ben Tzur, who lives in India and records with the group Rajasthan Express, Junun is a fly on the wall look at the recording of their forthcoming album of the same name (set for release on November 13th). Forgoing explanatory talking heads, the documentary encapsulates the experience of witnessing these songs as they are developed. Running at a slight 54 minutes, about the length of the album itself, Anderson’s debut documentary is also the filmmaker’s first time shooting a film digitally.

The director toys with the camera during takes, adjusting focus or repositioning himself. He even implements a drone camera for some stunning shots of the Indian landscape that surrounds Mehrangarh Fort, the intricately designed building in which the group records their album. The moments where the camera veers across the room too quickly, or a pigeon’s coo is picked up by the microphone before the bird gets shooed away, help establish the documentary’s immersive quality. Much of the movie is beautifully photographed, Anderson panning from one emotive performance to the next. Junun‘s opening shot is a cleverly designed, slow 360-spin around the room that lands on specific musicians as they join in on the song. Implementing the touch of a veteran music video director, Anderson creates some magnificent sequences that swell in time with the building tunes.

The real reason to see the documentary is the distinctive, eclectic sound produced by Greenwood, Tzur and The Rajasthan Express. Junun relegates both Greenwood and Tzur to the background in most scenes, though their presence in helping to shape the project is clear—Anderson himself appears just as briefly for a group photo and during the end credits. Instead, the documentary highlights the extremely talented musicians of Rajasthan Express. In particular Aamir Bhiyani’s spastic trumpet lines—the stirring burst of notes from his instrument. Junun captures the collaborative spirit of skilled musicians, chronicling the recording of this team’s fascinating sound in an enjoyable, concise documentary.

Directed by Anurag Kashyap, Gangs of Wasseypur—released in two parts, each nearly three hours in length—attempts to chronicle the violence and corruption in the criminal underworld of this impoverished region of India. Both parts of the film are narrated by Nasir Ahmed (Piyush Mishra), an assistant to Shahid Khan, who continues to stay with the Khan family through their conflict with Ramadhir Singh. The majority of Gangs of Wasseypur Part One tells the story of Shahid Khan whilst the Gangs of Wasseypur Part Two focuses on the Khan families continued war with Singh.

Gangs of Wasseypur, begins with Shahid Khan who, after being thrown out of his village, finds himself working as a hired muscle for Ramadhir Singh, an industrialist who has made a fortune out of mining coal. However, fearing that one day his ‘lapdog’ may replace him at the top of the food chain Ramadhir Singh has Shahid Khan killed. This death has disastrous consequences for Singh, leading to a bloody conflict with Khan’s son Sardar, the feud between the two spanning across generations.

Given the length of Gangs of Wasseypur, it would be fair to say Kashyap is not a filmmaker who attempts to tell a story concisely. As is the case with any story of this length, keeping the audience engaged is something of a challenge and sadly throughout its running time Gangs of Wasseypur feels saddled by exhaustive levels of exposition. The reason for this is that Kashyap is very keen to establish context, with every crime explained in forensic detail, and placed in the context of the changing political and social landscape of the region. At times this offers an interesting insight into the history of India. However, it is detrimental to the narrative, causing it to lack pace, and leads to the film feeling overburdened by the scale of the story it is trying to tell.

However, Kashyap is clearly not a filmmaker without talent. Throughout both films he cleverly inverts the utopian themes of Bollywood, by juxtaposing classic Bollywood songs with images of violence and corruption on the streets of Wasseypur. This idea of the contrast between Bollywood and reality is further reinforced later in the film by Ramadhir Singh who decries all those who are ‘fooled’ by Bollywood film, exclaiming ‘every fucker trying to become the hero, in his own imaginary film.’ Despite the film’s claims towards realism the excessive violence in Gangs of Wasseypur borders on surrealism. Reminiscent of the work of Nicolas Winding Refn, this provocative portrayal of violence gives the film a similar visceral appeal, yet it also lessens the impact of the film as piece of political commentary. It is another example of Kashyap trying to appeal on too many fronts. The film shifts in tone with conflicting messages, becoming confusing and disorienting.

Despite a commendable performance from its cast, in both parts, Gangs of Wasseypur also suffers from a lack of charm or relatable characters to identify with. In Gangs of Wasseypur Part One, in particular, the desire to see Sardar Khan avenge his father loses its impact when interest in his character is hard to maintain. The female characters, when they do come to the surface, are empathetic but too often reduced to the sidelines of the story.

In the end, both parts of Gangs of Wasseypur disappoint. Kashyap is a director who clearly has a keen-eye for conveying violence, and the clever soundtrack hints at a real talent. However, Gangs of Wasseypur is laborious and overly long, its convoluted plot and lack of empathetic characters makes it a challenge to sit through.

It’s hard not to like a love story whose lovers are brought together by a home-cooked meal. Make it an Indian home-cooked meal, with aromatic curries and slow-cooked vegetables, and it’s borderline irresistible. Aside from eliciting tummy rumbles, Ritesh Batra’s feature debut, The Lunchbox, is an enticing, melancholy romantic indie about our universal hunger for validation and intimacy.

An anomaly sets our story in motion: in Mumbai, there is a remarkable delivery network made up of “dabbawallahs”, bicycle deliverymen who take hot homemade lunches from housewives to their husbands at work. Despite an antiquated coding system, the dabbawallahs’ error rate is unbelievably low, at an estimated one error per six million deliveries. Batra’s story follows one of those astronomical errors, in which a lunch prepared by Ila (a ravishing Nimrat Kaur) is mistakenly delivered to the desk an aging accountant and widower named Saajan (Iffran Khan, Slumdog Millionaire, Life of Pi) for reasons left unexplained by Batra, giving the coincidence a slight air of magic.

The delicious meal–which Ila lovingly prepared with the guidance of her “auntie” to rekindle her stagnant relationship with her husband– warms Saajan to the core. (He usually gets a ho-hum delivery from a local restaurant.) When Ila catches wind of the mix-ups, she’s compelled to write a note to Saajan, as he consistently sends her stacked-tin food containers back to her empty, the ultimate sign of appreciation.

They begin a pen pal relationship, with their passed notes becoming longer and more personal as the days go by, and they grow to look forward to the notes as a source of joy. They share their deepest secrets with one another and, with each thinking their lives had plateaued, they find that they’ve reawakened the dreamer in one another.

Saajan, on the precipice of retirement, has been aggressively avoiding his pestersome successor, Shaikh, who diligently stalks him around the office, begging Saajan for any piece of advice. (Seeing Saajan’s seething anger when Shaikh successfully hunts him down is hilarious.) But as Ila’s notes begin to soften Saajan’s calloused heart, he begins to open up to Shaikh, and he learns that there’s more to the young man than he thought. Ila’s husband is so emotionally distant it sometimes appears as if he’s looking straight through her. Saajan’s notes give her something to cling to, something mysterious and new.

What drives The Lunchbox is our yearning to see these two characters (excellently acted, by the way) finally meet. The vulnerability and finesse displayed by Khan and Kaur is riveting. Batra’s editing of their written conversations make these scenes feel intimate and electrified, as if there’s no one else in the world but these two. Batra recognizes that the gravitational pull between her characters means everything, and tastefully maintains that tension throughout. The film isn’t as overly sentimental as it may initially seem, with Batra and her actors operating largely on subtlety and undertones. Those hoping for a Hollywood-style resolution will be disappointed, but by keeping the ultimate feel-good moment just out of our reach, Batra makes The Lunchbox a more resonant, alluring piece of romantic storytelling.