Though perhaps lacking in the depth and multi-layered richness of
his later films or his Apu Trilogy, Satyajit Ray's Parash pathar ("Philosopher's stone") is a simple, familiar
story, delicately and charmingly told. Its everyman protagonist,
Pareshchandra Dutta (Tulsi Chakravarty), is middling in every way - middle class,
middle aged, spreading around the middle, a middling bureaucrat with a
better than middling chance of losing his job in the near future.
When
Pareshchandra finds a stone that can transform ordinary objects into
gold, he begins to fantasize about how the windfall can change his life,
and even his daydreams are modest. He imagines himself saluting an
honor guard of Indian soldiers; he dreams of a garlanded statue in his
memory standing humbly in a city park. Even when he leverages his easy
wealth to a place of recognition and adulation in high society, he does
so with positive, not negative, influence: He supports cultural
programs that celebrate Bengali heritage, and makes generous charitable
donations even to the most humble of causes. While he moves himself and
his wife into a gracious bungalow, he maintains the same solitary
servant (Jahar Roy) who had worked for him in his cramped, crumbling flat. This servant -
hilariously - hurries to change clothes as he rushes from one role to
the next, driver to butler to chai-server. Even as a grand man,
Pareshchandra remains simply hewn and relatable.
How
far out of his element Pareshchandra has ventured becomes clear when
his young assistant Priyotosh (Kali Banerjee) tells him he has been invited to a cocktail
party. Pareshchandra beams like a child; he seems never to have
experienced anything as thrilling as a cocktail party in his life, and
he skips from the office exclaiming "Cocktail! Cocktail!", trying on the
unfamiliar idea with delight. At the party, though, he is awkward and
unsuited. He fails to make conversation with any of the other guests.
He becomes desperately drunk (in a drunk scene too vividly real and
viscerally stomach-churning to be especially funny), and in a frantic
bid to remain interesting to the high-society crowd, reveals the
supernatural source of his wealth. Pareshchandra's downfall from here
is unsurprising to anyone familiar with this kind of story, from any
culture.
In the greater society's response to
this revelation of instant gold for the taking, Parash pathar finally
begins to take on some of the broader allegorical significance that one
expects of Ray films. The rich react with greed (which the modest
Pareshchandra had himself mostly avoided), and society at large reacts
with hysteria, throwing the gold market into chaos. It is easy to read
this as a thin allegory for the function of world economies,
especially for a film made at a time when many nations were debating the
abandonment of the gold standard (though India itself was on a
different precious-metal standard, silver).
For
the most part, though, Parash pathar is a straightforward, unnuanced,
and very funny fable about the dangers of greed and the non-negotiable
truth that there is no such thing as a free lunch. What makes it most
enjoyable are the touches of Ray's nascent craft - his use of
surprising camera angles, a restrained and unusually light and evocative
soundtrack, and his willingness to let Tulsi Chakravarty play to the cheap seats.
Chakravarty is by no means a pretty man, but he is a master of broad,
expressive physical comedic acting. His bulging eyes, fishy, fleshy
lips, and enormous pot belly are almost characters in their own right.
The way Charkavarty controls them, delivering their lines in perfect
complement, elevates this simple fable into memorable cinematic and
comedic art.
"Dead machinery must not be pitted against the millions of living machines represented by the villagers scattered in the seven hundred thousand villages of India." So wrote Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, as a title card at the opening of Naya daur ("new era") declares. And so begins a movie that indeed pits milling machine against woodworker, bus against tonga, unthinking mechanized progress for its own sake against the value of human teamwork. It is in no way a fair fight. In the real world, obsolescence of traditional ways of life may be an inexorable consequence of modernization. In the movies, though, the rugged salt of the earth always get their romantic, improbable victories over the sneering, cravat-wearing forces that would cast them aside in the name of greed. And such victories are always satisfying.
Shankar (Dilip Kumar) and Kisna (Ajit) are the best of friends, village boys who grew up together. Shankar makes his living as a tonga driver. Kisna chops lumber for the local mill owner (Nazir Hussain), who treats his workers with tremendous compassion, and reiterates his belief that his money and the workers' labor are in symbiosis, neither superior in value to the other. The mill owner leaves for a pilgrimage, though, and his son Kundan (Jeevan), who takes over operations, doesn't see things the same way - he brings in machines and fires all the woodworkers. Meanwhile, the bond of friendship between Shankar and Kisna is threatened when both fall in love with Rajni (Vijayantimala). Believing that Shankar has tricked him out of his chance with Rajni, Kisna allies with Kundan, who hires a bus to put the tongewale out of business. When the tongewale confont him, Kundan challenges them to a race. If your tonga can beat my bus to the temple, he says, I'll send the bus away and you can have your business back. Shankar accepts the challenge. But first he will have to get all the villagers working together to build a shortcut road for his tonga to outpace the bus. And the fire of Kisna's rage burns brightly enough to threaten not just this ambitious public works project, but Shankar's very life.
My friend @maxqnz described Naya daur as "the Lagaan of its time." The comparison is not merely apt - Lagaan clearly owes a great debt to Naya daur, and even quotes from it. For instance, in one scene, a boy asks Kisna to carve a stick and ball for him out of a hunk of lumber. The scene in which Shankar accepts Kundan's challenge to the race - the incredulity of the other tongewale, and Shankar's speech about the value of taking some action over taking no action, however long the odds - also seems echoed in Lagaan. Both movies feature the unlikely triumph of a ragtag bunch of villagers against sinister outside forces that senselessly oppress them. In both movies, the livelihood of the village is at stake. In both movies, a man is driven by unrequited love to betray the villagers and serve as a double-agent for the enemy, and is later moved to redemption by the magnanimity of the hero. And in both movies, the heroine does little beyond smile and pout charmingly as the hero brings the villagers together for their victory against the odds.
So the similarities between Lagaan and Naya daur are much more than superficial. Lagaan is one of my all-time favorite movies, and as its antecedent, Naya daur matches up very well as an entertaining and inspiring fable about unity and courage. I have never been a great Dilip Kumar fan - his acting style is often smug and mumbly, and he makes me think too much of Shah Rukh Khan to be of much appeal. Here, though, he is relatively natural and charming enough. Shankar's friendship with Kisna is delightfully portrayed, and one's heart breaks for Kisna when a misunderstanding drives them apart. Indeed, Ajit as Kisna nearly steals the show from Dilip Kumar - he is startlingly handsome, and his expressive face shows tremedous emotional range, from innocent joy to malevolent, jealous rage.
There is some rich symbolism in Kisna's arc. In his unholy alliance with Kundan, Kisna sabotages a bridge that the villagers have built at a key point along the road that Shankar's tonga will take in its race against Kundan's bus. After Shankar's sister sets Kisna on his path to redemption, he works feverishly to repair the beams he has removed from the bridge, and ends up supporting the bridge with his own bodily strength as the tonga passes overhead during the race. Thus the villager's ultimate success rests literally as well as figuratively on Kisna's redemption and the power of his friendship with Shankar. Without that bond, there is no victory.
Like Lagaan, Naya daur is punctuated by a number of excellent songs. While through most of the movie Vijayantimala's charm is as wasted as Gracy Singh's, her magnificent dancing skills are well displayed.
The most inspiring sequence in the film comes in the superb song "Saathi haath badhana," in which the villagers - men and women alike - work together to build their literal road to victory. This song has a terrific modern-sounding refrain combined with a classic midcentury filmi melody, along with lovely visuals.
There's lots of pure entertainment too, including a song tailor-made for me, "Reshmi salwaar kurta jaali ka," in which a cross-dressing girl romances another girl.
I've been told that a colorized version of Naya daur was released fairly recently, and that's obviously the version the above clip comes from. The black and white original of this song does not appear to be available on YouTube, and it's a pity, because the music track is better (it lacks the strange synthesized chords that fill out the sound but don't match the folks tonality of the tune at all), and it also has a couple of shots that are missing from the color version, such as the delighted head-bobbing of this enthusiastic fellow, which pretty well conveys how I felt while watching the song:
Jeevan cuts a fine villainous figure as always, with his outlandishly effete clothing (has anyone ever looked more ridiculous in a pair of Jodhpurs?) and his ever-present riding crop, with all of the attendant phallic symbolism.
What more can you ask of a Hindi movie than charismatic stars, excellent songs, and a rich, unsubtle populist message of unity and the importance of preserving traditional village values in the face of modernization and westernization? Naya daur begins with the words of Gandhi and ends in Gandhian triumph, offering a full complement of romance, buddy-pyaar, villainy, betrayal, naach-gaana, and a even few Johnny Walker pratfalls in between. It's about as perfect a midcentury filmi experience as there is.
Ashok Kumar and Madhubala make a very compelling screen couple - he dashing and serious, she ingenuous and fragile. Amrita at IndieQuill adores this pair so much that she once wrote an entire post celebrating them. There, she especially highlighted Ek saal ("one year"), and after thoroughly enjoying the jodi in Howrah Bridge, I came to this movie with high expectations. And Ashok and Madhubala do not disappoint - but the movie's frustratingly paternalistic premise, plus a particularly grating comic side plot, interfere to make it something less than a favorite.
Usha (Madhubala) is a vibrant, lovely girl who delights in life - you would never know she has an inoperable brain tumor with a prognosis of just one year to live. Usha herself does not even know - when her father receives the news from her doctor (Mehmood), he decides to keep her in the dark. Suresh (Ashok Kumar) arrives, ostensibly to manage her father's land holdings, but really with some kind of con in mind, hoping to fleece the wealthy man for as much as he can take for himself and his business partner, a bitter woman named Rajni (Kuldip Kaur). Usha quickly falls in love with the dashing Suresh, but he does not return her feelings - indeed, he scorns the very idea of love. Even knowing this, her father - desperate to keep Usha happy and smiling in the final months of her life - offers Suresh an astonishing amount of money to pretend he loves her. It is an offer that Suresh, who is always looking for an angle, cannot refuse. But soon Usha melts even his hardened heart, and Suresh has to wonder if the con might become the truth. The jealous Rajni wonders too, and sends a hapless private investigator, Pinto (Johnny Walker), to throw a monkey wrench into Suresh and Usha's romance.
Although there is a lot to love about Ek saal, I find it hard to get past the patronizing way that the men in Usha's life control her access to information. I can sometimes forgive a certain kind of sexism in older movies - one rather often has to, to enjoy them at all. But the idea that a woman is too delicate a creature to deserve forthright information from her own doctor about her own prognosis is just too offensive for me to se aside, even for the sweetest of movies. If Usha is naive, an ingenue, it's largely because Suresh and her father insist on keeping her that way. One supposes that her innocence both pleases them, and keeps her docile and manipulable. Who knows what kind of woman Usha could be if she were actually given control over her own destiny? The movie doesn't contemplate that, and that is very frustrating. Usha's father's grief is poignant - he shudders with sadness every time the clock strikes, marking the passage of her time on earth - but it is also premature. I have to think that if she knew she were dying, Usha would not tolerate her father's simpering, and would instead urge him to enjoy their time together to the fullest.
Meanwhile Rajni offers an interesting contrast to Usha's helplessness. Rajni is an angry, malevolent force - she is in love with Suresh herself, but he rejects her as anything other than an associate in his shady business dealings. Rajni's response to this rejection seems to say that if she can't have Suresh, she'll make sure he and everyone he cares about suffers just as much as she does. She is a fascinating character - a heavyset woman, with her mouth set in a cruel scowl, she is both loathsome and thoroughly fabulous in her own way.
Though Suresh tries to keep her physically distant (trapped in Lucknow while he cavorts with Usha from Bombay to Mussoorie), Rajni takes matters into her own hands, first engaging Pinto and finally confronting Usha herself to sabotage her happiness. What is remarkable here is that it is Rajni who finally reveals Usha's prognosis to the clueless girl. Rajni tells Usha bluntly that men are not to be trusted, and while her motives are nefarious, there's a weird backward truth to what she's saying - the men strive to control Usha by concealing her illness, and only a woman, Rajni, gives Usha anything resembling a truthful account of what is happening to her. She does not intend to do so, but ultimately Rajni empowers Usha.
Suresh is powerless too, in an entirely different way. He is at least nominally in charge of his own destiny, but as he falls in love with Usha he becomes more and more helpless, treading ground he's never covered before in his heartless, mercenary life. A hard heart softened by love may be a time worn cliche, but it is a thing of beauty when well-executed, and Ashok Kumar does a masterful job with this trajectory. When I watched Howrah Bridge - another movie in which Ashok Kumar pretends to love Madhubala only to fall for her for real - I complained that Ashok's about face was abrupt and not sufficiently conveyed. Here, though, his turnabout forms most of the meat of the movie. In one standout scene, Suresh grapples with his conscience, which appears to him in the form of a photograph of himself (never mind why he keeps such a photograph on his nightstand!) that comes to life and scolds him for his reprehensible decpetion.
So, there is a lot going on in this movie, and I admit that I appreciated it more on a second viewing, when I could skim through Johnny Walker's numerous, lengthy scenes - he irritates me a lot more here than he usually does - and focus on these interesting nuances in the story and characterizations. And, of course, on the pretty - there is lots and lots of pretty to enjoy. Madhubala is utterly radiant - even if her imposed fecklessness grates at times, she does play a marvelous ingenue, and she's simply lovely.
That is just the prettiest of the many pretty songs in Ek saal. Early in the film, some dancers perform for Usha on her birthday - wishing her "tu jiye hazaaron saal" - and her childlike delight at their performance is just scrumptious. Toss in a couple of entertaining cameos - Usha's doctors include an uncharacteristically nerdy and straight Mehmood, as well as Madan Puri - and there is plenty to make Ek saal worth watching. If nothing else, it will please Amrita to know that I am thoroughly sold on her favorite jodi. A copy of Mahal arrived in the mail today...
IndieQuill's post about Madhubala and Ashok Kumar prompted me to pull out Howrah Bridge, a film I'd been meaning to watch for some time. Madhubala alone is plenty to keep my eyes fixed to the screen, and this marvelous tale of the Calcutta underworld offers even more than that.
The ex-pat businessman Prem Kumar (Ashok Kumar) rushes to Calcutta from his home in Rangoon when he learns that his brother Madan (Chaman Puri) has been found murdered on the city's famous Howrah Bridge. Before his murder Madan stole their family's priceless heirloom, a jeweled dragon mask, and Prem determines both to recover the mask and bring his brother's killers to justice. With the help of his tanga driver Shyamu (Om Prakash), Prem finds his way into a hotel run by Joe (Dhumal) and one run by Chang (Madan Puri), where he encounters a loose federation of smugglers including Chang, Pyarelal (K.N. Singh), and Joe's niece, the singer Edna (Madhubala). Giving a false name, Rakesh, Prem attempts to infiltrate this underworld by romancing Edna. But Shyamu's servant Bhiku (Sunder) witnessed the murder on Howrah Bridge. His snooping raises Pyarelal's suspicion, and Pyarelal - who is also jealous of Edna's attention - attempts to turn the tables on Prem, framing him for Pyarelal's own crimes.
For a film in the mystery-suspense genre, Howrah Bridge's mystery isn't particularly mysterious, its suspense not terribly suspenseful. We know from the first scenes who committed the murder and stole the artifact, and there is little in the way of twist or surprise to cast doubt on the inevitability of justice being done. The love story, too, would have benefited greatly from subtler handling. It's apparent from the story that Prem's initial interest in Edna is a fabrication, a pretense to get closer to the gang and its activities. By failing to show us a clear turning point where Prem struggles against his pretended feelings becoming real, Howrah Bridge squanders an opportunity for satisfying dramatic tension.
Despite these storytelling flaws, though, Howrah Bridge is engaging and entertaining all the way through. Shadowy cinematography sets an appropriately noirish mood (enhanced by the poorly-preserved film that unfortunately comes out even darker than intended in the DVD). Madhubala is delicious as always. And the city of Calcutta, its skyline dominated by the titular bridge, offers an ever-present, ever-shifting and fascinating backdrop. The film careens through its grimy streets, from seedy immigrant districts to ramshackle waterfront shanties to shady nightclubs. The city's better face is also shown, in the jaunty song "Sunoji yeh Calcutta hai," picturized on Om Prakash driving his tanga past Calcutta's bright parks, historic buildings, and scenic riverbanks.
There is a peculiar air of the exotic in all these scenes of Calcutta as well, and in Madan Puri's stereotypical yet weirdly compelling performance as Chang, with his arched brows and high-pitched, Chinese-inflected Hindi. I don't know whether it's proper to apply the "Orientalist" label to Bombay movie that fetishizes still more eastern locales and types, but whatever name one gives it, I have the impression that exoticism is a significant part of the mood that Howrah Bridge aims to set. The wonderful song "Mera naam Chin Chin Chu," which made a star of Helen, is one of the exotic jewels set front-and-center in this dragon-mask of a film. If nothing else it shows what a difference make-up can make, as the part-Burmese, part-English Helen, who often looks so very western in later appearances, looks perfectly east Asian here, clad in a cheongsam and made up like a porcelain doll.
The rest of the film's numerous songs are magnificent too, and really deserve repeat watchings. From Madhubala's teasingly sexy club number "Aaiye meherbaan" to an enchantingKashmiri dance performed by Mehmood and Minoo Mumtaz, and everything in between, the delightful O.P. Nayyar soundtrack is more than enough to land Howrah Bridge squarely among my favorites.
Returning to Hindi films after a bit of a hiatus, I've rewatched a couple of movies that I saw about a year ago but didn't get around to writing up, and it's been interesting to note that some of them I liked better the second time around. Ashanti was one such. And another is Dilli ka thug ("Delhi rogue") - while not much more than a pleasant timepass, it is loaded with smiles, songs, and antics that just reminded me why I love Hindi movies.
Kishore (Kishore Kumar) is an unemployed newspaper reporter who makes his living conning rich folks at the gambling table. His mother scolds him, fearing that his roguish antics threaten his sister's engagement to a boy from a respectable family. But Kishore has no respect for the rich, whose unscrupulous greed, he says, ruined his father's name and caused his death. Meanwhile, Kishore's friend Suhanlal, who is mixed up with a counterfeit medicine racket, is murdered by the racket's mastermind Amarnath (Krishnakant). Kishore learns from Police Inspector Dilip Singh (Ifthekar) that this murderer is likely the man responsible for Kishore's father's downfall and death. Kishore vows to find him and bring him to justice - but he has no idea that the man is the uncle of the charming girl he's set his heart on, Asha (Nutan).
Dilli ka thug does not pack much in the way of substantial messages or delicate themes. But it does have its surprises. Asha is a champion swimmer, a doctor, and owner of a controlling interest in a pharmaceutical company - her intellectual superiority to Kishore is made quite plain, both in the lead-up to the charming song "C-A-T Cat" and in several clever tricks she plays on him. And she shows her guts in the film's climax (aboard a pilotless aircraft), where she steps up to take the film's decisive action.
The real star of Dilli ka thug, though, is Kishore Kumar's relentless and adorable energy. He dons costumes, leaps around the screen waving his rubbery limbs every which way, smiles and pouts with a charming childlike air. Even the fight scenes are played for laughs, and his comic interactions with the owner of a drugstore where he works are hysterical. In one delightfully manic scene, Kishore cons three investors (very broadly caricatured themselves - a rich nawab, a South Indian swami, and a Parsee businessman) by pretending to negotiate with a maharaja. He jumps - literally - from one side of the conversation to the other, first playing his own role, then the role of the maharaja, then back again. He even manages to squeeze in a few lines for the maharani.
And in his courtship of Asha, Kishore's manic energy takes a very sweet tone. I grinned like a dope all the way through "Hum to mohabbat karega," both at Kishore's adorable courtship and at Nutan's sweetly and willingly weakening resistance to it. There are other very fun songs too, including two excellent cabaret numbers and an impressive display of synchronized swimming that features Nutan emerging from the petals of a giant lotus blossom. But the sweet moments of Kishore's courtship of Asha - and her gradually warming to his goofball earnestness - are the best pleasures of Dilli ka thug. It's not in the same league as Chalti ka naam gaadi -but that is pure perfection, one of the most fun films ever made. Still, if you liked Kishore and the tone of the romance in that movie, you will find something to enjoy in Dilli ka thug.
The exquisite sacrifice that is the life of an Indian woman is a common and moving theme upon which many great Hindi films are based, from Amar Prem to Lajja. And the mother of all these films may be Mother India, in which an Indian woman survives an almost unimaginable series of hardships and rejuvenates an entire village with her own backbreaking work, only to face the ultimate sacrifice - one she must make not only for her family, but for the good of the entire community.
Radha (Nargis) marries the handsome Shamu (Raaj Kumar) and settles well into life with his solid agrarian family. She soon learns, though, that her mother-in-law mortgaged the farm to pay for her and Shamu's lavish wedding celebrations. The moneylender Sukhi Lala (Kanhaiyalal) claims three-fourths of the farm's produce, having tricked Radha's illiterate mother-in-law into signing a usurious contract. As the family grows - Radha has three children - it becomes more and more difficult to subsist on their meager share. The hardships multiply, leaving Radha and her children alone, homeless, and starving. They survive through Radha's own tireless hard work, and her sons grow into strong young men, though each is scarred in his own way by the traumatic experiences of his childhood. The spirited Birju (Sunil Dutt) is mischievous and temperamental; he is hungry to seek revenge from Lala, who still claims the lion's share of their produce. The solemn Ramu (Rajendra Kumar) is protective of his mother and reflects her values, relying on hard work to make his way. The tension between the two philosophies sets the stage for the film's ultimate conflict, as Birju's rash, violent nature clashes head-on with his mother's stern, grounded integrity.
Mother India is a beautiful film, shot in beautiful brown and
orange tones that both highlight the majesty of the rural Indian
landscape and bring to life the grit and heat of working the soil. The themes lend themselves to an abundance of iconic and symbolic images - Radha hauling a plow that is meant to be hauled by an ox; Radha standing neck-deep in flood waters, hefting her young children over her head on a pallet. And
Nargis, as Radha - really as the titular Mother India - is in absolute top form. She is the epitome of badass filmi womanhood; she is simply fierce. Nargis has crafted a performance that is melodrama at its finest, focused and heightened emotions that magnify the viewer's sense of Radha's experience. Indeed, the multiplying calamities that befall poor Radha can be hard to watch - there are times when the story is so bleak it seems hard to carry on.
Still, there is a current of hopefulness as well. Radha's story is told in flashback; the film opens with the villagers asking Radha, now an old woman, to bless the inauguration of the village's new canal. "You are the mother of us all," the villagers plead with the recalcitrant old woman. And so the viewer knows, from the outset, that Radha not only will survive her trials, but will come to hold a revered place as the savior of the village. Radha shoulders the burden of rearing her family and restoring a village upheaved, in what is surely a metaphor for the construction of modern India and healing the fresh wounds of Partition. And so the film's message is, as it must be, that once Mother India has made the difficult decisions and painful sacrifices, those of her children that remain will be squarely on the road to prosperity.
The film's second half is as much about Radha's sons as it is about Radha; much time is devoted to developing their contrasting approaches to reconciling with the past and preparing for the future. The hot-headed Birju thirsts for revenge and lives in the moment; Ramu is practical, methodical, and hardworking. The film is abundantly clear in its endorsement of the latter philosophy. And yet as much as Birju frustrates her, Radha adores him; as in Deewaar, Mother India favors her miscreant son over her honest one. The only limit Radha sets for her indulgence of Birju is one that reflects the film's girl power subtext: "You may do as you like and I will always love you," she tells him, "but don't you dare ever disrespect a woman."
These comments are quite long enough, but I have to add a few words about Mother India's beautiful music. The songs encapsulate the agrarian beauty of the film and present delightful tableaux of idealized life in a farming village. While they don't stand alone - there are no singular dances or set pieces that stand out in my memory (except perhaps the Holi song) - they add texture, and in the film's darker moments, respite, to an already lovely movie.
When I saw Raj Kapoor and Nargis in Shree 420 I was astonished in equal parts by the magnetism of the stars and by Raj Kapoor's mastery of the art of entertainment. So I had high expectations for Awara ("vagabond") - perhaps too high, because while Awara was certainly an excellent film, it left me somewhat unengaged and disappointed.
Raghunath (Prithviraj Kapoor) considers himself a forward-thinking man, and bucks tradition and his family by marrying a widow. When his wife Leela (Leela Chitnis) is kidnapped and then mysteriously returned, though, Raghunath is overwhelmed by the wagging tongues of his community. He concludes, in shades of the Ramayana, that her honor is sullied, and casts her out of his household; she bears his son in squalor.
Raghunath continues to rise in esteem and eventually becomes a judge who deals harshly with criminals, believing them born of bad blood and incapable of rehabilitation. His son Raj (Raj Kapoor), meanwhile, under the influence of the same thug Jagga (K.N. Singh) who kidnapped his mother, grows up to be a crook and a bank robber. When he is reunited with his childhood friend Rita (Nargis) - who happens to be Judge Raghunath's ward - sparks fly, and Raj is torn between his desire to be good enough for her and his belief, fostered by Jagga, that he is no good for anything other than crime.
Like Shree 420, Awara explores a wide range of social themes. Dominated by ruminations on the question of nature versus nurture, it also addresses classism, injustice toward women, and other weighty issues. But where Shree 420 clothes its missive to post-partition India in a truly entertaining package, watching Awara it is difficult to shake the feeling of being educated. Everything, and everyone, is deadly serious. The tone is set by Prithviraj's clenched jaw and furrowed brow and carried through Raj's dour sarcasm, a bitterness that sours even the film's tender moments. The result is a movie that, despite the excellence of its craft, feels like work to watch.
There are unquestionable strengths to Awara. Raj Kapoor and Nargis turn in subtle and emotional performances. And Nargis's character Rita is a rare treat - a young woman who also happens to be a lawyer. She is cautioned against allowing her emotions (presumably a feminine weakness) to interfere with her rationality, but her introduction of compassion into the cold calculus of criminal justice is presented by the film as an unambiguous asset and the key to both Raj's and Raghunath's redemption. This is possibly Awara's most radical idea, the notion that criminals should be treated as redeemable individuals with the potential to rehabilitate, rather than as the mechanical sum of their breeding and past bad actions.
Awara also features a beautiful evergreen soundtrack, whose highlights include the title song, a creepy and gorgeous dream sequence in "Tere bina aag yeh chandni," and - especially - the cheeky "Dum bhar jo udhar munh phere,"in which Rita implores the bright full moon to give her and Raj some privacy for an amorous moment. But the film's sweet, engaging, or moving moments just aren't enough to overcome the general tone of gloom and preachiness. I realize that Shree 420 is an impossible standard to hold any film against (and that it was made after Awara), but Awara just misses striking that balance of offering its substantial message in a package that would make me want to watch the film again. It's a great film in many ways, but just a little ponderous, a little off.
This is the second time in a couple of months that I've watched a
movie and loved it so much that I had to wonder why I didn't get to it
sooner. While the other one, Parvarish, was only a silly, fun piece of masala candy that tickled me for personal reasons, Shree 420
is one of the all-time classics of Hindi cinema, one that helped me
understand why Raj Kapoor is Raj Kapoor, and why Nargis is Nargis. And I can't believe I waited
this long.
Raj (Raj Kapoor) is a guileless, carefree vagabond, wandering the
streets of Bombay in search of work. He has a college degree - he
carries his diploma in his pocket, along with a medal for honesty that
he earned as a child. In his wanderings Raj meets a merry band of
beggars and working folk, the den mother of whom (Lalita Pawar) is
charmed by his innocence and takes him under her wing. They live on
the footpath in front of the home of the blustery tycoon Seth Dharmanand (Nemo), who is kept
awake nights by the vagrants' cheery singing. Raj also encounters the
beautiful Vidya (Nargis), a down-to-earth schoolteacher who has fallen
on hard times, selling her books and her trinkets to the local pawn
dealer to make ends meet. Sparks fly between Raj and Vidya, but Raj
frets that he cannot offer her a financially stable future.
Opportunity knocks when Raj meets the vampish, scheming Maya (Nadira),
a greedy socialite who recognizes in Raj a talent that she can exploit
to separate others from their money. From Maya's small-time cons Raj
graduates into full-scale employment as a master of fraud with Seth
Dharmanand, selling bogus shares in bogus companies and running other
big-time schemes. (The film's title, "Mr. 420," refers to section 420
of the Indian penal code; "420" is vernacular shorthand for a crook or
a con.) Raj is making real money, but it may cost him Vidya, who
doesn't fit into his high-rolling world - and who anyway wants nothing
to do with Raj as long as he is a con-artist and a fraud.
Shree 420 is rich with symbols of the promise and pitfalls of
post-partition India. Raj's emergence at the beginning of the film
from his rural ramblings into the hard bustle of Bombay represents the
country's transition from its traditional grounding to modern
government and economics - and it is no coincidence that Raj is
immediately taken advantage of upon his arrival in the city. There is
a running semiotic pun based around Raj's honesty medal as he pawns it and
redeems it; Raj's honesty itself is for sale. For most of the film, Raj is caught between a traditional simplicity, represented by Vidya (whose name means "knowledge") and the glitter and spangle of high-tone, high-stakes capitalism, represented by Maya (whose name means "illusion, trick, deceit"). The film pits pure, hardworking, homegrown virtue directly against the exotic, westernized world of greed and fraud. Ultimately the film weaves a complex and powerful social message, exhorting the everyday people - who in the film literally sleep on the doorstep of the fat-cat's opulent home - to work together to build an India that is modern and yet free of exploitation by that greedy element.
The richness of the narrative and its symbolic arsenal is matched - even exceeded - by Shree 420's pure entertainment value. Raj Kapoor is a masterfully physical performer, moving fluidly between Chaplinesque antics and Cary Grantish suavity as quickly as changing a mask (another of the film's recurring symbols). He is a delight to watch. Nargis, one of the greatest stars of the era, has an ineffable grace that transcends beauty, a riveting poise and a presence. She ranges from firmly proud in her early meetings with Raj, to bashfully passionate as their romance develops, to heartbreakingly wounded when she is insulted by Maya. In either of the stars' performances it is clear why this film is a revered classic. Nadira is car-wreck compelling (and maddeningly sexy) in her career-defining vampish turn as the bitter, manipulative Maya (screencap below). Finally, there are the film's timeless songs, from Raj Kapoor's iconic "Mera joota hai japani," to the tender declaration of love in "Pyaar hua ikraar hua," to the exuberant peasant dance of the vagrants in "Ramaya vastavaya," to Nadira's seductive call to the dark side, "Mud mud ke na dekh". I haven't named them all and I don't doubt that someone will chime in with another favorite - they are all that special. My friend Sanket at Bollywood Music Club has more about the delicious music of Shree 420
There are volumes more that could be said and have been said about this film, its place in Hindi cinema, and the significance of its social commentary. But if you haven't seen Shree 420, don't spend any more time reading about it - just go and watch it.
This bleak but often lovely film is the gloomy story of a depressed filmmaker who spends his life lonely, unappreciated, and plagued by demons - not unlike the tragic biography of its tortured auteur, Guru Dutt.
Director Suresh Sinha (Guru Dutt) is making an adaptation of the classic Indian tragedy Devdas. His heroine doesn't share his artistic vision - she wants her character glammed up, with luscious sarees and a sophisticated hairdo. After she walks off the set, Suresh stumbles across the heroine he has been looking for in Shanti (Waheeda Rehman), a young working woman without a family. Suresh becomes Shanti's mentor and father figure, and a tenderness grows between them as well. Just when that tenderness appears poised to blossom into real love, though, Suresh's young daughter Pammi (Kumari Naaz), who is kept from Suresh by his estranged wife (Veena) and who harbors a fantasy that her parents will reconcile and reunite, prevails on Shanti to leave Suresh. The film covers a span of years as Shanti and Suresh, who seem destined for one another, nevertheless attempt to navigate their lives apart.
Kaagaz ke phool ("Paper flowers") is in many ways an exceedingly beautiful film. It is poetically written, touchingly acted, and shot with gorgeous and evocative black and white cinematography that I do not even feel qualified to describe. Its tortured artist theme, however, is somewhat grating - films about how hard it is to be a filmmaker always tend toward the self-indulgent, and even an excellently-crafted film like Kaagaz ke phool cannot entirely escape the gravity of that sort of navel-gazing. It is frustrating to watch the tragic evolution of people who are done in by their own stubbornness; Suresh in particular, but Shanti too, have plenty of opportunities to improve the course of their lives, and their persistent refusal to take advantage of them shifts the mood away from the tragic and toward the pathetic. At one point, after Suresh - without Shanti as his muse - makes a bad film and loses his job, there is some musing about how unforgiving the film industry is, how once one has begun to fall there is no regaining one's footing. But this is not shown to be an inevitability for Suresh - rather, it is a self-fulfilling prophecy, in both the professional and personal domains of his life. It is not for nothing that the film opens with Suresh molding Devdas to his vision; that story chronicles an even more annoyingly self-indulgent character who refuses to take responsibility for his own happiness.
None of this is to say that I did not like Kaagaz ke phool or that I think it is a bad film - it is, for the most part, engaging and compelling, save for a few draggy portions in the second half when we are shown Suresh's descent and degradation from a few too many different angles. But Guru Dutt and Waheeda Rehman are beautiful and charismatic, and even though the actions of their characters frustrated me, I genuinely cared about them and wanted better for them. (In this aspect the film stands in stark contrast to the only adaptation of Devdas that I have seen, in which the miserable protagonist's death could not come quickly enough to satisfy me.) And there were moments at which my breath caught at the sheer beauty, like the picturization of the majestic and unutterably lovely "Waqt ne kiya", the film's iconic song, which I am sad to report cannot be seen on YouTube. I feel I need to see the film again, perhaps on a day when I am better prepared to be battered by a story that starts out bleak and gets bleaker, in order to fully appreciate its art.
Satyajit Ray's Apu Trilogy films are considered by many to be the crowning achievement not just of Satyajit Ray himself, but of all of Indian film. Apur Sansar (The world of Apu) is the final installment of the story, and I saw it without having seen the first two chapters, which recount events in Apu's childhood and adolescence.
Apur Sansar picks up at Apu's graduation from school. Living in a grungy Calcutta tenement beside the railroad tracks and barely scraping his rent together, Apu (Soumitra Chatterjee) aspires to be a great novelist, and we learn early on that he has had some success at it, selling a short story to a local periodical. On a vacation with his practical and grounded friend Kulu - ostensibly for Kulu's cousin's wedding - Apu makes a rash and heroic decision that changes his life forever. The bridegroom succumbs to mental illness, and Kulu prevails on Apu to take his place and marry Kulu's cousin Aparna (Sharmila Tagore, here only about fourteen years old). Apu and Aparna settle into a spare life in Apu's dingy flat, and for a while they enjoy a delicious period of newlywed bliss. Then tragedy strikes, though, and Apu, unmoored and confused, struggles to recover his bearings.
Apur Sansar's story covers a period of six or seven years in Apu's life, and is therefore necessarily episodic in nature. Indeed, the film may fairly be characterized as a series of beautifully shot, poignant moments. The dialogue is sparse and one is left to fill in the blanks, to guess at what the characters are thinking and feeling. But the direction and performances are both subtle and expressive, so the emotional content is very real, even if the viewer must supply it. In one early scene, Apu visits a pharmaceutical factory looking for work. His face droops in self-doubt as he realizes that he lacks the constitution for monotonous physical labor. Later, a series of warm, tender scenes conveys the quiet happiness of Apu and Aparna's married life. In every scene, emotions play subtly across the actors' faces and evocative symbols - a wounded animal, a torn curtain, an inkblot - do much of the film's heavy lifting.
I feel somewhat out of my league reviewing Apur Sansar, which, despite the many ways in which it is fundamentally an Indian story, reads more like a European art film than an Indian film. I don't know a thing about European art films, and while I enjoyed Apur Sansar and was moved by it, I don't know that I fully understood or appreciated it. Each shot is loaded with complex symbolism that is rich and even apparently contradictory at times. At the movie's conclusion I immediately wished I could watch it again to give more thought to those symbols. Instead, here I am with my rather impressionistic and incoherent commentary. For something more, please visit my friend Amit and read his thoughts.
Text (c) 2006-2013, Carla Miriam Levy
The ideas and opinions expressed in this weblog are mine alone, and do not represent the views of my employer or of any other organization with which I may be associated.
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