Filmi Geek

Bhumika (1977)

भूमिका

When female actors get married, they are no longer heroine material. At best, a heroine who marries another actor might continue to star opposite her husband. Or she disappears from the scene, and returns some years later for the occasional mother role. At least, that has been the conventional wisdom. Shyam Benegal's Bhumika ("role") turns this conventional wisdom on its head. Usha (Smita Patil) is a movie star who would like to quit the business, take care of her daughter and mother, focus on her home. But her husband Keshav (Amol Palekar) insists that she keep working. Keshav has not had much success in business and he needs the money her work brings in, to enjoy the luxuries he has become accustomed to. And so with each successful movie, Keshav, acting as Usha's manager, negotiates a still more lucrative contract. For most heroines, marriage forces the premature end of their careers. Usha's marriage forces her career to continue.

There is no ambiguity in Bhumika. Usha is a victim from the very beginning, and Keshav is a creep. Flashbacks to Usha's childhood show an angry, drunken father and a mother (Sulabha Deshpande) who constantly scolds her.  Keshav teases the young Usha and inists that she will marry him, inappropriate ribbing that clearly makes her uncomfortable.  At the same time, Keshav pushes boundaries of intimacy with Usha's mother. Keshav's intervention after the death of Usha's father is nominally benevolent; to help the family make ends meet, he works contacts in Bombay to get her into the movies.  But there is a sinister air about Keshav; one has the sense that his plan from the very beginning is to manipulate Usha into stardom and milk her for all she's worth, and as their marriage wears on he seems more like a pimp than a husband or a manager.

And indeed, married to Keshav and working entirely at his demand, Usha comes to hate her stardom.  Here, as well, Benegal illustrates another of the many ways that women, and especially female actors, get screwed.  Keshav, who forces Usha to work, also suspects her of hanky-panky with her perennial costar, the handsome but somewhat vapid Rajan (Anant Nag).  Keshav is no better than the gossip-mongers who make hay out of every rumor.  Usha works in the movies only because Keshav forces to, and yet Keshav presumes Usha guilty of the moral lapses imputed by the judgmental janta to any woman who works in the movies.  His jealousy and her resentment combine to corrode their marriage.

Usha finally does get fed up with Keshav, but leaving him renders her even more powerless than she was in her home.  Rajan has always loved her, but rejects her when she offers herself to him now.  Usha finds her way into a sequence of singularly submissive relationships.  The first is an intense attachment to a pretentious intellectual art film director (Naseeruddin Shah), which Usha hopes will provide her ultimate escape.  Later, she discovers what she believes to be her domestic ideal with Kale (Amrish Puri).  Kale's wife (Dina Pathak) is disabled and bedridden, and Usha slips easily into a role that is part second wife, part housemaid, part governess to Kale's child.  But Usha soon learns that even the life she has dreamed of comes with a price.  In the world of Bhumika, a woman simply cannot win - not too different from the world we live in.

The bleak story of Bhumika is told in textbook Benegal style, with comparitively little dialogue and much meaning conveyed in the grim expressions and body-language of its star.  I am about to say something controversial:  The more I see of Smita Patil, the less I am convinced that she was as good an actor as she is reputed to be.  She is often labeled a "natural" actor, and vocally rejected the studied approach taken by some of her Stanislavsky-esque contemporaries like Shabana Azmi.  Her performance in Bhumika highlights both the best result of this approach and its shortcomings.  Smita Patil renders well that which she is best at - dejection and suffering - but does not show a tremendous amount of nuance within that.  Usha moves through her troubles with an air of contained anger and resentment, a sense of teeth gritted, that is fairly constant throughout the film.  When she needs to move away from that space, she - and consequently Usha - seem a little bewildered.  It's not at all a bad performance, but it is at times somewhat superficial.  It is perhaps why Bhumika is far from my favorite Shyam Benegal movie.

Benegal fills out Bhumika's dramatis personae with many of his regulars, such as Nag and Puri, and Kulbhushan Kharbanda as the producer who makes most of Usha's movies.  This crowd is as familiar as a class reunion.  This is not a bad thing, as they are all fine actors and Benegal of course uses them very well.  But it inspires games, in the same way that Welcome to Sajjanpur made me want Shyam Benegal Bingo.  (Anant Nag does something pathetic and impotent - DRINK!)  It's also an interesting bit of cognitive dissonance, after a string of Amol Palekar's cutie-patootie movies (like Golmaal and the delicious Chhoti si baat) to see him here as a real piece of work, smarmy and creepy and unredeemable and mean. I am reminded of Khamosh, a very different sort of film in which Amol Palekar's creepiness is, in a sense, the punchline.  There's nothing funny about him here, though.  He is the avatar of every injustice that is dished out to women in the film industry. 

 

Filling some gaps: Mini-reviews of Banaras, Slumdog Millionaire, Jaanwar aur insaan

With very few exceptions, this site contains a post about every Indian movie or India-related movie I have seen in the last eight years, even if just a paragraph or two.  Every once in a while, though, a movie slips through the cracks, and I neglect to write about it.  This offends my sense of order and completeness. 

And yet, for a variety of reasons, the chances are slim I will ever write a full review of some of these films.   So, here are brief notes that will fill in three gaps that have dogged me for months or years.

 

Banaras (2006)

Haay bhagwaan, this movie is awful.  It is the kind of awful I would have relished shredding in a full review, and I very much wish I had done so at the time I watched it.  But for whatever reason I did not get around to that, and I just can't bring myself to view it again as I would need to do to treat it properly.  Now, I remember little save the visceral shuddering sensation it induced, and the sense of embarrassment for the actors one feels when watching a truly horrendous work of cinema. 

Banaras, as I recall, is a dreadful, ham-fisted attempt to weave profound religious philosophy into the filmi archetypes of an inter-caste love story.  I can't say for sure that this idea is doomed from the outset; perhaps it has the potential to be a fine idea, and the film's near-unwatchability is due to irrecoverable flaws in execution.  Most of the film's cast is competent; Urmila Matondkar stars as a philosophical Brahmin woman, Raj Babbar and Dimple Kapadia play her parents, and Naseeruddin Shah makes an appearance as the enlightened mentor of the low-caste young man (Ashmit Patel) that Urmila's character falls in love with.  This Ashmit Patel is thoroughly outclassed in this company, and his stiff, breathy, awful performance contributes in no small measure to the cringeworthiness of this terrible movie. 

Having now been to the titular city in the years since I endured this film, I might at least enjoy its mystical setting.  There is something remarkable about being on the Ganga in Banaras; one can feel the holiness of the place in the collective sincerity of the pilgrims that flock there to worship.  But I would not risk desecrating those memories by superimposing this embarrassingly clumsy film on them.  It's just not worth it.

 

Slumdog Millionaire (2008)

I saw this movie when it came out, but I didn't write about it right away, and after a week or two it seemed so much ink had been spilled about it that I had nothing to add to the greater discourse.  Now, more than four years later, I feel much the same.  It is a good film, tightly scripted, well-acted, manipulative in all the right ways, entertaining and moving (*).  But as a western movie by a western director, it raises issues that make me uncomfortable, issues I am not sure how to address. 

I don't think there is anything wrong, a priori, with people telling stories set inside cultures other than their own.  I do not think such stories are necessarily exploitative or colonial or presumptuous, although many are all of these things.  I do not even know whether Slumdog Millionaire errs in these respects, or whether its director Danny Boyle has treaded carefully enough to paint a legitimate picture.  But in a sense, it doesn't matter.  Western audiences with little knowledge of India will draw the conclusions they draw, regardless of how much care has gone into crafting the story. 

The portrayal of Bombay life  in Slumdog Millionaire may be faithful in some respects, but it is a faithful representation of only one of Bombay's multiplicity of truths, much less the truths of all of India.  Of course, no movie can explore all realities at once.  But there is an unfortunate tendency among western audiences without nuanced knowledge of India's many cultures to extrapolate from what they see in a movie like Slumdog Millionaire.  It is because of movies like Slumdog Millionaire that my mother accused me of neglecting the "real India" when I chose to take a walk on my own through Kala Ghoda and Fort rather than accompany her on a tour of Dharavi. 

After her visit to Dharavi, I showed my mother Dhobi Ghat (**), and I hope it helped her understand that the "real India" is in fact many real Indias, a layered and intertwined complex that cannot be experienced in an afternoon, whether one chooses to spend that afternoon in a poor or an affluent part of town.  But none of this means  categorically that movies about India shouldn't be made by western filmmakers and marketed widely in the west.  It has to be better for westerners to learn something about India, even if it is an oversimplified, undernuanced something, than to learn nothing at all.  Me, I would rather watch Indian movies made for Indians than western attempts at capturing Indian authenticities.  What I learn from, I suppose, is eavesdropping on the stories Indians tell each other.   But if even a small fraction of the westerners who filled theaters watching Slumdog Millionaire was inspired to go learn more, then the movie has already done more than a mainstream entertainer has any responsibility to do.

(*) I've been half-watching it while writing this, and I have to note that I am not finding it as well-acted or as moving the second time through.

(**) Once before our trip I had tried to show her Dharavi but she didn't get into it.

 

Jaanwar aur insaan (1972)

Shashi Kapoor made a lot of movies.  His work ethic is legendary, but he could not have been terribly discriminating in his choice of scripts.  The truly worst movies he ever made are probably - blessedly - forgotten, tucked away in dusty cans in some moldy storage locker in Bombay, never to be transferred to digital medium.  But others of his clunkers do remain.  And some Shashi Kapoor fans are devoted enough to be as undiscriminating in our choice of films to watch as he was in his choice of films to act in. 

When I stumbled across Jaanwar aur insaan on YouTube, I knew I had to bring it to Beth's attention.  In addition to Shashi Kapoor, it offered Rakhee, another favorite of hers.  I briefly scanned the file for subtitles.  It didn't have them, but I could tell it wouldn't matter; the scenes I watched had little dialogue, just Shashi Kapoor beating up bad guys and Shashi Kapoor stalking a tiger. This was a movie we simply had to see.

When I watched the movie in the company of both Beth and Amrita, we were not fully prepared for how dreadful it would actually be.  It starts out promisingly, with terrific overture music over the opening credits and legitimately impressive wildlife photography.  It treats you to some of the more hilarious fight choreography that Hindi films offer so richly, and Meena (Rakhee) in a memorabe sun-yellow pantsuit.  Make no mistake - the movie is stupid.  The plot, such as it is, consists mostly of Shekhar (Shashi) stalking a tiger which he remains unable to catch for much of his adult life.  There is also the obligatory "yeh shaadi nahin ho sakti" sort of story element, whereby tension is caused by Meena's father having murdered Rakhee's father. But for a while the stupidness is fun, at least when enjoyed with a like-minded friend or two.

Jaanwar aur insaan takes a decided turn for the WTF when Shekhar and Meena's child enters the picture.  Shekhar contends for father of the year in his approach to teaching his spoiled, miscreant child a lesson:  He takes the boy to the wilderness, ties him to a tree, and leaves him there to be sniffed and nuzzled by wild animals.  This is how Shekhar finally defeats the tiger that has troubled him for years: using his own son as bait.  The loyal Shashi Kapoor fan who suffers through this movie may wish that it was she tied to that tree instead. 

Namak haraam (1973)

नमक हराम

Many Hindi movies celebrate the powerful bonds of friendship between men.  And many explore  the plight of poor working folk exploited by the rich.  But few movies tackle both these themes at once.  Namak haraam ("traitor") does not simply examine both.  It pits the two themes against each other; it asks whether the bonds of friendship can survive the strain of one man's awakening to social injustice caused at the hands of the other.

The friendship at the center of Namak haraam is intense, even by filmi standards.  Vicky (Amitabh Bachchan) is wealthy and impulsive.  Somu (Rajesh Khanna) is the sort of buddy who goes where Vicky goes and does what he does. Early on, the film gives many ways in which Somu is Vicky's "chamcha," as other characters call him - Somu defers to Vicky's preference in nautch-girls at the kotha they visit, and even walks out on his job as a junior lawyer, when the indolent Vicky does the same.  In return for this excess of loyalty, Somu and his entire barely middle-class family get the benefit of Vicky's wealth, as Vicky puts both Somu and his sister through school. 

So deep runs this connection that Somu is willing to go undercover as a shop worker, to help Vicky settle an irrational score with the shop's labor leader, Bipinlal (A.K. Hangal).  Vicky, who has taken over business operations from his ailing father (Om Shivpuri), feels that Bipinlal has humiliated him, and thirsts for revenge.  Somu's plan is to gather intelligence and ingratiate himself among the workers, so that he can undermine Bipinlal and become the new labor leader while secretly shilling for Vicky.  This scheme - not to mention Vicky and Somu's relationship - is challenged when Somu begins to feel real sympathy for the workers, for the suffering and sacrifice of their hand-to-mouth existence.

Somu is in a unique position to be torn between his loyalty to his friend, and the moving stories of the workers:  Somu is from the middle class.  Vicky's father believes that the middle class cannot be trusted.  They have designs on our wealth, he says, and the desire to be important; yet they are also burdened by a conscience that will inevitably lead them to betray us.  In this declaration - the assertion that conscience requires the middle class to betray the interests of the rich - Vicky's father explicitly admits that the conduct of the business elite is inherently amoral.  Vicky, at least at this point in the film, is oblivious to that conclusion.  But Somu, removed from the insulation of Vicky's great wealth, and living, working, and drinking with people who struggle for survival, sees a there-but-for-the-grace-of-God-go-I connection between himself and the beleaguered poor.  He is genuinely shocked to meet a worker who his thankful to have lost his hands in an accident on the job, because the modest settlement Vicky pays to the worker allows him to get his daughter married.  And Somu begins to question how he and Vicky can so cavalierly drink a month of such a worker's wages in one glass of imported whisky.

Somu's developing conscience is indeed what ultimately drives him.  Whether Somu can transfer that conscience to Vicky, via the vector of friendship, is less clear.  When Vicky chooses to go to prison for a terrible crime committed by his own father, he does not take the fall out of conscience.  Rather, it seems to come from the same overinflated urge for revenge that sent Vicky scheming against Bipinlal earlier in the film.  The serene, contemplative Vicky who emerges from prison - his girlfriend (Simi Garewal) calls him a "philosophy professor" - seems finally to have learned how to let the benefit of others inspire his actions, instead of being driven by the desire to destroy.  Friendship, it seems, can teach populist values - but it takes a lot of time.

Hrishikesh Mukherjee's movies are often distinguished by a delicacy of performance, a touch that is tender and relatable, gentle and real.  Namak haraam delivers this in parts.  Surprisingly, the most off-kilter notes are sounded by Amitabh Bachchan.  He is usually so compellingly intense in his pre-stardom roles.  But the intensity is too manic here, and too weird.  His responses to everything - to friendship, to perceived humiliation, to perceived betrayal - seem disproportionate, and is maturation likewise disproportionately beatific.

Rajesh Khanna, in contrast, who can be so offensively beatific at times, is very effective here, registering in pensive expressions the dawning realization of the true hardships his fellow workers and slum neighbors face. The real scene-stealing performances, though, are among those workers and neighbors.  Asrani always shines in his supporting roles, and he delivers here as one of the shop workers.  Rekha steals Somu's heart in a small but pleasingly earthy part.  And standing out above all - even upstaging Rajesh Khanna - is Raza Murad, playing Alam, a depressed and drunk poet and kitemaker whom Somu befriends.  His angular, striking face is utterly compelling as he delivers the sad poetry of working-class hopelessness to an awed Somu.  Namak haraam is a good enough movie, and Vicky's journey from clueless trust-fund baby to sensitive socialist is not without its appeal.  But I would pay twice to see the story told again from Alam's perspective. 

 

Chor sipahee (1977)

चोर सिपाही

When I read about how Hindi movies were made in the 1970s, I can't help but be impressed by the alacrity with which the Bombay studios churned out product. Actors shuttling between three shootings a day and dubbing sessions in the evening; dialogue writers cranking out lines on set; stories resketched on the fly as actors' schedules conflicted or productions ran out of money - it's miraculous that movies of any quality were produced at all. Many a masala movie with an exciting cast and a promising first hour falls casualty to the risks of that kind of improvisational, shoestring filmmaking. The "curse of the second half" bumps more such movies than I can count right off the rails.

Chor sipahee ("thief and officer") is a textbook case of this, stylish fun masala with a lot going for it before it disintegrates into incoherence. You can feel the production becoming more rushed and careless as the film wears on. Twists in the story become more ad hoc and less clearly rendered; characters recede into the background or disappear altogether. And yet there is enough of both style and substance to redeem these sins of sloppy production, yielding sufficient reward for the masala connoisseur.

On the side of substance, Chor sipahee - like all the best masala films - hangs its wacky trappings on a profound social theme. In this case, the theme is the nature of criminality and redemption, and whether punishment or rehabilitation is the better philosophy for stopping and deterring criminal behavior. Shankar (Shashi Kapoor), a maverick but effective police inspector, believes so firmly in the principle of rehabilitation that he actually undermines attempts to punish criminals. When he encounters Raja (Vinod Khanna), an unrepentant gang leader, Shankar sees the ultimate opportunity to put his views into practice, and vows to reform Raja. Shankar is willing to go to great lengths to secure Raja's turnaround - he joins Raja's gang, renounces family ties, and apparently becomes a vicious evildoer himself. This is a subterfuge intended to show Raja the error of his ways.

Naturally, the plan is effective, and by out-badding the bad guys (including Ranjit as a gang leader who is either an Arab or peculiarly Arabophilic), Shankar convinces Raja that a life of crime is no life worth living. I would be lying if I said I understood the logic here, either of Shankar or of the script. For an alternate view, though, do see the excellent exegesis by Post-Punk Cinema Club, which finds remarkable depth and coherence in what seems to me slapdash filmmaking at its most joyously ad hoc.

On the side of style, Chor sipahee is 70s masala at its full-bore best.  From Vinod Khanna's superb high-heeled boots, to Shashi Kapoor's badass leather jacket (he is decked throughout in fantastic costumes designed by his wife, Jennifer Kendall), there's no shortage of awesome to feast your eyes on.  It's almost  a waste to write a review of a movie such as this when I don't have a DVD to take screencaptures from.  Fortunately Post-Punk and Memsaab are both on the case; see their posts for the full complement of visual goodness. 

No masala movie worth its salt is complete without an outlandishly-costumed qawwali, and Chor sipahee delivers with "Duniya hai aati jaati," in which Shashi Kapoor and Vinod Khanna, in identical qawwal outfits, repeatedly exchange places via cleverly executed backflips. This song, only about 45 minutes into the movie, also marks the last interesting thing my beloved Shabana Azmi gets to do in it. 

 

As often happens in her masala turns, Shabana Azmi is woefully underused in Chor sipahee.  She has a terrific scene very early in the movie, in which she outwits Raja while he tries to rob her father's safe.  (At this point in the film it must be admitted that Raja doesn't seem terribly smart for a successful recidivist crook.)  Parveen Babi gets a bit more substance to her role, as Raja's righteous sister Bharti.  In a delightful bit of masala melodrama, Bharti, disgusted by Raja's criminal pursuits, refuses his angry demand that she demonstrate her love by tying a rakhi on his wrist.  Durga Khote gets a marvelously filmi turn as well,as Raja and Bharti's mother.  In one terrific scene, she demonstrates her loving forgiveness for Raja by fixing him a bowl of kheer, and he demonstrates his unrepentant viciousness by refusing to eat it.  Fortunately for everyone, Shankar turns up and eats the sweet with relish, to mother's wide-eyed delight.

On reflection, especially after reading the other reviews I've mentioned, I feel I should have found Chor sipahee more satisfying than I did.   As Memsaab enumerates, it hits all the required masala elements and then some.  70s masala is a little bit like pizza - even when it's mediocre, it's still pretty good while it's happening.  Chor sipahee is a good time, even if there's not much to remember the next day.  And Shashi Kapoor does look mighty groovy when he dons appropriate threads for joining a smuggling ring:

(Thanks to Memsaab for the shamelessly purloined screencaptures.)

Hera pheri (1976)

हेरा फेरी

My movie reviews here at Filmi Geek usually hew to a standard format.  An introductory paragraph like this one is followed by a brief plot summary - often just the first third of the story, enough to lay the foundation for a discussion of the movie's portrayals and themes.  Then, the bulk of the text is devoted to just that discussion.

With Prakash Mehra's Hera pheri ("monkey business"),  though, that format just won't fit.  This movie is, at its best, a series of reasonably entertaining bits that tell a barely-coherent story about the power of friendship.  But that is a very charitable reading.  I watched the movie twice - paying fairly close attention the second time - and I still don't think I followed the plot all the way through.  And since the story really has no bearing on one's enjoyment of this otherwise largely satisfying masala jaunt, I won't spend any more words on it.

At the core of Hera pheri is one of Hindi film's epic buddy-pyaar jodis, Amitabh Bachchan and Vinod Khanna.  Their Vijay and Ajay (no points for guessing which one is Vijay) do not quite reach Jai and Veeru territory when it comes to lifetime devotion and finishing one another's sentences.  But what they lack in longevity they more than make up for in homoeroticism.  

Isn't it romantic?  The gay subtext is so strong that (as either Beth or Amrita put it, may they forgive me for not remembering which) it isn't even really subtext - it's just text. In one scene, Ajay and Vijay curl up under a blanket together to sleep on the living room floor, while Kiran (Saira Banu) sleeps in their bedroom.  Vijay gets up in hopes of a rendezvous with Kiran, only to discover that Ajay has tied the two of them together with a bit of rope.  ROPE.  Later in the movie, they tearfully embrace and declare that their love for one another transcends all other relationships.  Coupled with Ajay in hot pants and that knotted blouse shirt, one has to conclude that at least some of the crew of this movie knew exactly what they were doing.

Buddy-pyaar romance aside, Hera pheri offers plenty in the way of satisfyingly fun masala antics.  A hilarious extended sequence in a casino features Vijay pulling a magnificent card-table scam against Asrani, in which he coolly scams the casino manager at the same time.  The casino itself is one of those superb sets that one only finds in masala movies of the 1970s.  The set is showcased well in Padma Khanna's item number, "Aapka sarkar kya kuchh," where the playing-card decor of the casino is reflected in the playing-card design of Padma's outfit. 

And there's nothing quite like a song in which the heroes pull off a supreme con job by posing as holy men.  I loved this gambit in Shaan and it works brilliantly here as well, in the movie's indisputable highlight, the qawwali "Darbar mein uparwale ke."

 

In another hilarious sequence, the boys set up a whole cadre of smugglers, thugs, and all around nasty guys with threatening phone calls, hoping to ambush them at the casino.  After some first-class sneaking around...

...the fellas get caught out, and what follows is a terrific Keystone-Kops-esque chase with some quality comedic fight scenes.  (Incidentally, comedy dishum-dishum beats earnest dishum-dishum hands down.) 

One of my favorite sequences comes during the breakup phase of the romance - the inevitable down-point late in the film where Ajay and Vijay have had a falling out, and Vijay mourns the loss of his true love.  Vijay wanders through dark streets, past a long sequence of movie posters plastered to a wall - posters that alternate between the titles Dost and Dushman.  At one point Vijay rips one of the posters, and the word "Dost" floats dejectedly down a culvert.  It's really quite an elegant series of shots, perhaps the most artful in the film. Technical problems prevent me from putting a screencapture here, but you can see it about three and a half minutes into this song.

With all of this and more masala goodness going for it - including a filmi-insane maa, Ajay's dubious parentage cemented by a long-lost pendant, and a villain's lair tricked out with numerous images of the famous Trimurti from the Elephanta cave - Hera pheri could have been a repeat-watcher as satisfying as Parvarish, Manmohan Desai's gem featuring the same pair of actors.  What holds it back - and ultimately drags it down into the realm of mere rainy-afternoon, half-attention timepass - is its terrible C-list female stars.  Saira Banu is rarely that appealing even in her prime, and here she is well past it, bringing very little life or energy to the screen.  I hate to have to say this.  Saira Banu was only in her mid-30s when this movie was made, and I want very much to favor female stars as romantic leads up to and well beyond this age.  But Saira Banu doesn't make my case for me.  Her first appearance in the movie, which doesn't come until a full hour in, is just puzzling - a squealing, appalling attempt at playing the ingenue.  This is forgivable as it becomes clear that her character is not meant to be ingenuous.  But it doesn't offset one's gut reaction that she be muted and removed from the screen as quickly as possible.

The other lead, Sulakshana Pandit, is utterly forgettable.  This poor-woman's Neetu Singh may as well be a cipher; she is thoroughly lacking in charm, appeal, charisma, or any of the other qualities that make her contemporaries so enjoyable.  Indeed, one wonders how excellent this movie could have been if the budget had room for, say, the real Neetu Singh in Sulakshana's place, and Parveen Babi in Saira Banu's.  That would have been a masala flick for the ages.  As it stands, Prakash Mehra seems to have known what he had - that is to say, what he lacked - in these two, as they get relatively little screen time between them.  And so, for the first time ever, I can say of a masala movie that it did not need to give its female leads more to do.  If nothing else, Hera pheri is an object lesson for directors in just how crucial women are when it comes to elevating a movie into something truly memorable.  Neglect them, and your movie withers on the vine.

 

Hira aur patthar (1977)

हीरा और पत्थर

When I visited Beth, we watched a whole mess of movies.  "Mess," it turns out, is an apt description of Hira aur patthar ("diamond and stone"), about as disappointing an attempt at masala as I've ever seen.  Beth and I figured we could not go wrong with a movie that featured each of our respective fake-pretend movie significant others, Shashi Kapoor and Shabana Azmi.  As an added bonus for me, there is also Ashok Kumar, my recent fascination.  When "with Asrani and Bindu" came up in the credits, Beth and I actually high-fived each other.  A short time into the movie we caught a glimpse of Manorama as well.  "This is going to be great," we thought.  What better way to spend our visit together than with this cast?  Alas.

As a young boy, Shankar loses his faith in God - particularly Jagdishwar, worshiped in the temple high on a clifftop overlooking his village - when his mother is fatally wounded in a fire and the boy's prayers fail to revive her.  The fire was set by a cruel zamindar, Vikram Singh (Raj Mehra), bent on extracting as much money as possible from the farmers who work his land.  Shankar's father and uncle (Bharat Bhushan and Chandrashekhar), now without their farm, take up the work of carrying pilgrims up to the temple on a doli.  Even when he grows to adulthood, though, Shankar (Shashi Kapoor) still refuses to visit the temple, and won't even mount the steps - despite the entreaties of his cousin Tota (Asrani), Shankar refuses to carry a doli of his own.  To shoulder his share of the family's debts to Vikram Singh, Shankar plans to make his fortune in the city.  On the eve of his departure, though, he meets Gauri (Shabana Azmi), the daughter of the security officer who guards the temple.  Smitten, Shankar relents - he stays in the village, agrees to carry the doli, and gladly climbs the steps each day to visit Gauri.  But he still refuses to enter the temple, enraging Gauri's father.  And when Shankar and his friend Dr Anand (Ashok Kumar) learn of Vikram Singh's thievery against the village and the temple, Singh's son Pratap (Narendranath) plots to put Shankar's life and liberty in peril.  Pratap has another reason to want Shankar out of the way - the girl he loves, the vampish Rupa (Bindu), favors Shankar over him.

Hira aur patthar starts off with so much promise.  The seeds of masala goodness are sown early and one expects them to sprout richly.  There is terrific trauma-drama-o-rama as young Shekhar bounds up and down the temple steps screaming pleadingly for Jagdishwar to save his mother's life.  There is a marvelously filmi passage-of-time sequence, in which the frustrated boy shows his anger with God by casting stones at his reflection.  Ripples spread, the credits roll, and soon we see the grown Shankar sitting on the very same riverbank, still casting angry stones. 

This is the kind of foundation that great masala films are laid upon.  There is a charming meet-cute sequence between Gauri and Shankar at a vegetable stand, in which she accidentally squirts him with tomato seeds, and smiles that bashful, tooth-covering smile characteristic of Shabana Azmi when she was this young and self-conscious.

There is even a pretty decent first action sequence - Shankar takes on Pratap Singh in the open market, knocking over vegetable stands and snack carts to rescue Gauri from Pratap's harrassment.  (This is after Pratap manhandles Gauri in the street and a bunch of men stand around just watching.  Just like real life!)

Reminiscing about these early scenes with Beth, I described them as "back when we still thought this was going to be a good movie." 

"We were so young and naïve," Beth replied.

So where does it all go wrong?  It's hard to say exactly where Hira aur Patthar bumps off the rails.  It just loses steam and takes a turn for the boring about halfway through.  Bindu lacks her full glory as a vamp, and Pratap is about as mealy and unsatisfying a villain as I've ever seen. The movie lacks any kind of connective tissue, any grand masala theme to tie all the elements together.  It flirts with a couple ideas - Shankar's steadfast denial of religious faith is one, and a false start in which it appears Shankar will organize the doliwale into some kind labor force is another - but nothing crystallizes.  There are no great songs, no boisterous qawwali, no costume-donning antics, no climactic set-up to chase the villain down in his lair.  In short, Hira aur patthar is not grounded enough to be a passable serious movie, and not silly enough to be a passable masala movie.  To misapply Gertrude Stein, "There is no there there."

There are just a couple of moments worth their masala salt that lift Hira aur patthar out of Filmi Geek's new "Execrable" category and into "Timepass".  One comes in service of Tota's quest to marry a village girl named Chanda (Jayshree).  This hilarious scene features wedding rites performed in the back of a speeding truck driven by the stereotyped friendly Punjabi truck driver, while the bride's father and his choice of groom follow in a car that falls apart piece by piece.  There is also some elegant suspense in a fight scene between Pratap and an unruly customer who tries to rape Rupa - a stabbing occurs behind an upturned couch, and for quite a long effective moment it is not at all clear who died.

But that's about it, and it's just not enough to sustain.  It's telling that this far into the review I haven't had much to say about either of the principals, for whom Beth and I ostensibly chose this movie.  That is because even they don't have a lot to offer.  Shashi Kapoor comes as close to phoning it in as I've ever seen him do, and Shabana Azmi - my dear, beloved Shabana Azmi - just doesn't have a whole lot to do save some flitting (and as much as I adore her, she's not really much of a flitter) and some fretting. They look pretty, though, and Shabana always gives good sari.

And if nothing else, the Hira aur patthar offers a generous helping of the marvelous Manorama and the faces she pulls like no other.  So I leave you with a sampling of that - a Manorama panorama, if you will. 

Kab? Kyoon? Aur kahan? (1970)

कब? क्यों? और कहाँ?

I like thrillers, and Hindi thrillers of the 60s and 70s can be especially delicious.  The license to take filmi liberties that stretch the edges of plausibility, combined with the nifty mod style of that era, can, in the hands of someone like Vijay Anand, yield results that effervesce and sizzle.  Unfortunately, Arjun Hingorani's Kab? Kyoon? Aur kahan? ("Who? Why? And where?") does not measure up to that sparkling standard.  Dharmendra, a few cute songs (including one with Helen), and a fun incarnation of villainous Pran are just not enough to save this otherwise bland, forgettable, unsuspenseful movie.

Asha (Babita) is thrown together with C.I.D. inspector Anand (Dharmendra) when the two are improbably booked into the same cabin on a sea voyage.  After Anand proves his worthiness by protecting Babita in a ballroom brawl, Anand and Asha fall in love.  Returning home after the journey, Asha discovers that her father, a wealthy philanthropist, has died in an apparent car accident.  But there is something fishy about the accident, and Anand is assigned to investigate it.  Asha's creepy step-uncle Daljeet (Pran) has designs on both her fortune and her attractive friend Lata (Ashoo).  Asha discovers Daljeet apparently forcing himself on Lata, and shoots him dead in the ensuing melee.  Asha and Lata dispose of the body.  But Asha's conscience pricks at her, tormenting her with terrifying ghostly apparitions of Daljeet. And, Asha conceals her terrible truth from Anand, driving a wedge between them. 

The most charitable description of Kab? Kyoon? Aur kahan? is that it is a handful of somewhat entertaining moments, strung loosely together long stretches of weakly plotted and poorly paced filler that more or less passes for story and romance.   In a movie like this, the difference between entertaining timepass and boring time-waste can be made by the strength or weakness of the stars.  Dharmendra is always an asset; here, while he is not at his most delightful, it's likewise not his most phoned-in performance ever, and he's serviceably appealing.  Babita, however, ought to have been named "Blahbita" - she brings absolutely nothing to the party - though she does give lots of good "nahin face:" 

So desperate is the beleaguered audience to find anything of interest about Babita, that we resort to examining the vicissitudes of her hairstyle - Beth remarks on it in her comments on this film, and Memsaab, with whom I watched the movie, couldn't stop herself from analyzing in every scene whether we were seeing Babita's real hairline or a wig. Not to say that such questions aren't entertaining - but they don't particularly sustain.

The movie also suffers from a touch of expositionitis in its climax - it makes for a dreary thriller when a character explains the mystery verbally, as Anand does at the end of Kab? Kyoon? aur Kahan?  Whatever surprises there may be in the raveling of the threads is undermined by presenting them this way, instead of letting the audience see how it all happened.  It's not the worst sin a thriller can commit, if the other elements are engaging, but in a movie already teetering on the brink of utter forgettability, this device is the coup de grace.

There are, however, a few redeeming features.  Top among these is the return of Daljeet in the film's climax, where he pivots from prone to standing in the horrific apparition of Zombie Pran and creepily peels bugged-out false eyeballs out of his orbital sockets.  It's one of the strangest and best instances of Pran villainy I've ever had the pleasure to see. 

(To see Zombie Pran in action, have a look at this video, starting around the 46-minute mark.)  The delight that is Zombie Pran follows a series of "Telltale Heart"-esque scares to Asha that amount to this thriller's only suspenseful element.  There is also a superb underwater fight sequence that must have been a real technical challenge to shoot - it lasts much longer than the actors (Pran and Babita) could possibly have stayed underwater, so it must have required many dives and many takes.  Beth captured a screenshot of this (to highlight the stylish swimsuit) which I shamelessly steal here:

The movie also includes a Helen song, "Yeh aankhein jhuki jhuki si," which while not the best use of Helen in a thriller (see the aforementioned Vijay Anand flicks for much better) is still far superior to no Helen at all.  It's quite a good song, featuring the terrifically large and elaborate stage set that one expects of Helen songs of this era.  

And finally, Kab? Kyoon? aur Kahan? is not without its own sense of supermod visual style, starting from the very beginning, with the lushly-decorated midcentury modern stateroom that Asha and Anand share on the cruise ship.  When I mentioned that I was finding the movie rather unremarkable, Beth replied, "OMG BUT THE STYLE!"  At the moment I was not feeling particularly wowed by the style, but in hindsight it is, in fact, one of the few aspects that make Kab? Kyoon? aur Kahan? worth the time, especially when watched with a similarly-inclined friend.  Beth's review has more on the visuals. 

 

 

Sachaa jhutha (1970)

सच्चा झूठा

My favorite Manmohan Desai movies, like Amar Akbar Anthony and Parvarish, cloak grand allegorical themes in glorious wackadoodle masala trappings.  Continuing the unorthodox Rajesh Khanna retrospective that I began with Haathi mere saathi, I went into Desai's Sachaa jhutha ("truth and lies") hoping for more of the same.  What I got doesn't quite measure up in substance - but it is nevertheless a satisfying masala meal.

Bhola (Rajesh Khanna) is a simple village guy, a musician who wants nothing more than to see his beloved sister Belu (Kumari Naaz) happily married.  Suitors demand a hefty dowry, though, because Belu is lame, dependent upon crutches for mobility.  So Bhola heads to Mumbai in hopes of making enough money to get Belu settled.  Once there, Bhola is mistaken for an eccentric millionaire, Ranjit (also Rajesh Khanna), for whom he happens to be a dead ringer.  Ranjit happens to moonlight as a serial jewel thief, and he sees an opportunity - he hires Bhola to impersonate him, duping the innocent fellow with a sob story about his mother, so that he can pull off big heists with Bhola supplying his alibi.  Meanwhile, police inspector Pradhan (Vinod Khanna) suspects Ranjit for the larcenies, and sets his colleague Leela (Mumtaz) to go undercover and get close to Ranjit.  But it's Bhola, not Ranjit, that Leela gets to know - and naturally, sparks fly.

Where Haathi mere saathi was all about the elephants, Sachaa jhutha is mostly about Rajesh Khanna and his double role.  And I have to get this out of the way:  I still don't much like Rajesh Khanna.  If I have to watch him, though, Sachaa jhutha is the best way I can think of to do it.  As Ranjit, Khanna's role demands that he be smarmy and repulsive - so my usual response to him suits quite nicely.  And the double role, requiring him to distinguish Bhola from Ranjit, gives him more opportunity for range, for projecting a state other than droopy, froggy, and supercilious.  Bhola is, on the whole, more wide-eyed, ingenuous, and energetic than most Rajesh Khanna characters.  Which is not to say Bhola is entirely consistent - he may be a bit too smooth in his wooing of Leela than his character, otherwise a guileless bumpkin, really should be.  But these are minor critiques of a pair of performances that are fun and more than adequately appealing even to this decided non-fan.

As to the film as a whole, one does have certain expectations of Manmohan Desai masala, and in that I can't fairly say that Sachaa jhutha disappoints.  The movie may lack the grand philosophical scope of some of Desai's more expansive films, but it nevertheless does have - as the title promises - a minor point to make about the triumph of truth and guilelessness over deceite and subterfuge.  The two adorable and hilarious sequences in which love is confessed and blossoms under the influence of a truth serum (really!) underscore this point.

And substance aside, Sachaa jhutha is crammed full of juicy masala morsels.  There are unexplained, inexplicable dopplegangers and ensuing mistaken identities; a hilariously stylish costume party (see this song); a villain's teched-up, tricked-out underground lair.  There is a cute gender-reversed Pygmalion sequence, reminiscent of one in Jab jab phool khile, in which Ranjit's moll Ruby (Faryal) teaches Bhola to behave like a gentleman.  And the climax relies on the mass administration of a stupefaction drug - in a movie that already contains a truth serum.  (Soul-baring and stupefaction? That sounds like the effect certain women have on me...) 

Desai's masala Bombay is a city of magnified coincidence, one in which the same half-dozen people run into one another again and again - or nearly miss doing so, as the story demands.  And that doesn't even reach the village side of the story, which features Belu's smart and loyal dog, as well as Belu and Bhola's cruel, wretched stepmother (Praveen Paul) who gets her just deserts in a magnificent filmi flood.  She goes out in grand, symbolically-charged Desai style, with nothing left as she sinks beneath the surge but a few floating Rupee notes, notes she earlier snatched from Belu's hand and stuffed into her greedy choli. 

Yet with all that going on, Sachaa jhutha is surprisingly taut for 150 minutes of masala.  Rounding out the fun is a terrific appearance by a young, dashing Vinod Khanna as the serious Inspector Pradhan.  This is first class Action Vinod stuff - he provides most of the movie's dishum-dishum, while putting nary a crease in his expensively-tailored suits.  And then there is the delectable Mumtaz, adorable as a cupcake.  She, of course, is at her best in the movie's many fabulous songs.  From her groovy moves in "Pyar karle pyar" to her superfab outfit in "O tum jo kehdo," Mumtaz makes sure there is no shortage of eye-candy. But the hottest song of all is "Yunhi tum mujhse baat karti ho," in which, under the influence of the truth serum, Bhola and Leela confess their love on the deck of a boat in the harbor.

 

Sachaa jhutha is simply great fun to watch, as any masala movie should be.  And, as many good movies do, it just gets better and better in memory - writing this review has made me itch to return to it and revisit the all grooviest, funniest, wackiest, sexiest scenes.  Thanks to Memsaab (from whom I cribbed the screen-grab at the top of this post) I may do just that ...

Haathi mere saathi (1971)

हाथी मेरे साथी

There is a vanishingly small number of Hindi movie stars that I actively dislike.  A few are neither here nor there, but one of the great joys of Hindi films for me is that most of the stars are so generously appealing.   Despite that, though, I have never been a huge fan of Rajesh Khanna.  The better movies of his that I've seen (Bawarchi, Amar Prem) I saw too early in my experience of Hindi movies to fully appreciate them, and his heavy-lidded, mumbling performance style did little to distinguish him for me.  I watched Anand on the strength of many recommendations of that revered movie - and I absolutely hated it, enough to cement him as the rare fillum star whose name in the credits is a deterrent to viewing.

On the news of his passing, though, I knew I had to give Rajesh Khanna another chance.   He is too important and beloved a superstar for me to keep avoiding his movies just because I find him a little froggy.  So I dug into my stack of unwatched movies looking for something with enough fun and delight to overcome the weight of my least favorite star this side of Shah Rukh Khan.   I begin my commemoration of the career of Rajesh Khanna with Haathi mere saathi ("elephants my companions").  Salim-Javed, Tanuja, and four elephants to the rescue!

Four friendly elephants rescued Raju as a child, and as he grew up they protected him and became his constant companions.  Now an adult, Raju (Rajesh Khanna) loves the elephants and cares for them as family.   Even when he loses his home and becomes destitute - thanks to the machinations of an envious carnival owner, Kumar (K.N. Singh) - Raju won't part with the elephants.   Raju performs a successful street show with the animals, and parlays that success into an enormous animal theme park, Pyaar ki duniya ("world of love"), featuring lions and tigers and Mehmood Jr (oh my!).  He also wins the heart of Tanu (Tanuja), whose otherwise kindly father (Madan Puri) had been reluctant to approve of the match when Raju was penniless.  Their marriage, though, brings new problems along with the joy of it - Tanu is jealous of the attention Raju pays to his beloved elephants.   And, she begins to fear for the safety of their son, despite Raju's protestations that the elephants would never harm him.  Is there room for everyone in their happy home?

Okay, for a Salim-Javed movie, Haathi mere saathi doesn't offer a ton of depth.  This is not a movie with the raw intensity of a Deewaar or the culture-defining resonance of a Sholay.   With his massive, sparkling bungalow and magical animal-charming powers, Raju is hardly the gritty face of passionate young India.  But it's not hard to see why Haathi mere saathi was a huge hit all the same - it is delightful and simply a whole lot of fun.  The elephants easily steal the show, and they are charming and adorable - even more adorable than Tanuja, and that is saying something indeed.

Haathi mere saathi's story, such as it is, is all over the place.  It veers from episode to episode, some without much coherence or payoff.   There is an elephant race, a traiterous family accountant giving false testimony in a crucial court case, a seemingly star-crossed romance, some fist fights (including one where Raju pauses to fix his hair), and even an outrageous circus-stunt sequence in which Raju, desperate for money, sets himself on fire and leaps from a 100-meter platform into a tiny pool of water.  Pure entertainment, for sure. Still, there are a few consistent threads - Raju's love for his elephants, his relationship with Tanu, and Kumar's jealous scheming to acquire the elephants for his own carnival.  The last 45 minutes of the movie focus on the repercussions of Tanu's entirely rational fear of sharing her home with enormous wild animals who could crush her small child like a bug. In one of Haathi mere saathi's unintentionally hilarious moments, Tanu encounters one of the elephants smooshing a doll, and imagines, in terror, that the doll is her child.   It is, I have to admit, a rather funny sequence - but at the same time, I can't say I blame her!

And then, there is Rajesh Khanna, nominally the reason I chose to watch Haathi mere saathi just now.  I can't say I like him any more in this movie than in any other - he is as smug, supercilious, and mumbly as ever.  But none of that detracts from a movie that is cute and fun and really more about the elephants than anything else.  Really - how can a mildly unappealing star get in the way of a movie in which Mehmood Jr. leads a parade of elephants, tigers, and lions into a function hall in an orderly line to partake of a wedding feast?

Besides, there are lots and lots of pink suits.  Rajesh Khanna wears a pink Nehru most of the time (except when he wears a blue one).  And Madan Puri sports a dazzling array of very fine suits in shimmering jewel tones, including this magnificent crimson.

What can I say?  Haathi mere saathi offers no purchase for biting analysis, no syncretism or social message to subject to withering close critique.  What it does offer is simply a silly, sweet, adorable movie full of fun animal tricks and goofy bad guys of varying degrees of haplessness.  Oh, and cute, cute, CUTE songs.  How can you not love a song in which four helpful elephants tow Tanuja in a disabled red convertible?

 

A friend of mine told me that after she saw this movie as a child, she threw a pachydermed-up version of the classic "I want a pony!" fit for weeks on end.  She told me that she wouldn't rest until her parents took her to pet the elephants at nearby temple.  That image alone was worth the price of the DVD - if only she had home movies!  But in their absence, at least we have Haathi mere saathi - lots of silliness, and lots of smiles.

Chhoti si baat (1975)

छोटी सी बात

Don't ever let anyone tell you, as one of my guides in India claimed, that all Hindi movies are the same.  We know better.  They are not all bombast and melodrama, improbable dance numbers and dishum-dishum.  Not that there's anything wrong with that!  But there has long been a place in Hindi cinema for sweet stories adorably and delicately told.  Taking pride of place alongside charming gems like Chashme buddoor and Katha is Basu Chatterjee's lovable, scrumptious, and hilarious Chhoti si baat ("a little thing"), truly one of the cutest, most delightful Hindi movies I have ever had the pleasure to see.

Arun (Amol Palekar) is a mild, bashful accountant with an all-consuming crush on Prabha (Vidya Sinha), a woman who works in a nearby office building and takes the same bus as Arun to work.   Arun can't bring himself to speak to Prabha, but his adoring gaze on the bus - and his habit of following her all the way home - tips his feelings to Prabha.  She indulges him, and even seems rather to like him - but she can't resist teasing him a little, too.  Soon, though, a rival arrives on a shiny yellow scooter and forces Arun's  hand - the breezy, confident Nagesh (Asrani), a lawyer in Prabha's office who takes an obvious shine to her and leaves Arun in the dust.  Desperate, Arun turns to a famous fixer, retired Colonel Julius Nagendranath Wilfred Singh (Ashok Kumar), who dishes out advice to everyone from lovelorn office workers to superstars like Amitabh Bachchan.  The Colonel takes a fatherly interest in Arun's case, and gives him a month-long crash course in suavity and confidence.  But it remains to be seen whether following the Colonel's sometimes questionable guidance will do the job to help Arun turn the tables on Nagesh, and win him Prabha.

If I weren't already firmly on the Amol Palekar train after Golmaal, Chhoti si baat would certainly have done the trick.   The guy is flat adorable.  From his first appearance minutes into the movie, with his sweet anxious demeanor and nervous smile, I was grinning like a dope and didn't stop until long after it was over.  He renders Arun's docile sweetness just perfectly, and is a complete delight to watch - and to root for - as he stumbles through his courtship of Prabha.  Palekar brings a charming physicality to this role, adjusting his posture and mannerisms almost continuously as his confidence grows and wanes and grows again.  And Arun's Walter-Mittyish fantasies add to his charm and make him thoroughly relatable to a daydreamer like me.  In one fantastic sequence Arun, in a cinema hall, watches a song featuring Dharmendra and Hema Malini.  He squirms jealously in his seat as Hema morphs into Prabha in Dharmendra's arms - and then relaxes into a contented smile as the image of Arun takes Dharmendra's place.

 

Vidya Sinha brings her share of adorable to the show, too - Prabha sports a magnificent smile (not to mention a vast collection of fabulous sarees), and it's not difficult to see how Arun could be utterly besotted by her.  Especially charming are the scenes where she recounts Arun's fumbling attempts at stalking and courtship to her coworker (Nandita Thakur), who cracks slightly racy jokes as the clearly smitten Prabha blushes.  Indeed, most wonderfully portrayed is that Prabha actually likes Arun, right from the very beginning, and is fairly unwavering in that - Nagesh's smooth talk and slick scooter may seem a threat to Arun, but the audience is in on the secret that as far as Prabha is concerned, it's Arun all the way.

The best treat of all, though, is Ashok Kumar, who is simply hilarious as the avuncular Colonel Julius Nagendranath Wilfred Singh (I never tire of that name, and neither does the movie).  I chronicled my ever-growing appreciation for Ashok Kumar when I recently wrote about Ek saal - it's hard to imagine a more different role from that of the Colonel, but here he is just a riot.  He spews an endless stream of advice that is somewhere between platitudes and complete nonsense, and then chides Arun for answering "yes" when the Colonel asks "samjhe?"  "Khak samjhe!" the Colonel spits, "main khud nahin samjha maine kya kaha!" ("Like hell you understand! I myself don't even understand what I said.")  And as humorously and broadly-drawn as he is, the tenderness with which the Colonel realizes, toward the end of the film, that he might have steered Arun wrong is genuinely touching.

Chhoti si baat offers some visual treats too, including a fun hillside trek through Khandala.  And, of course,  there are marvelous street scenes of Bombay that made me long for more time there, after my very abbreviated visit a few months ago.  These are crowned by this wonderful sparkly poster for an Amitabh and Saira Banu film that adorns the bus stop where Arun and Prabha meet:

Among Chhoti si baat's pleasures are a number of cameos, including a hilarious appearance by Rajendranath as a fake sadhu who pulls out a lemon out of his rear with a ridiculous "look what I did!" grin, bilks Arun out of a tidy sum, and steals his pen to boot.  I first saw Rajendranath in his riotously cute role in Tere ghar ke samne, and I laughed like a loon through his entire scene here.

What can I do besides gush?  Chhoti si baat is a thoroughly delightful film, one I'll watch over and over again, and one that is available in reasonable quality with subtitles on YouTube.  What are you waiting for?