Filmi Geek

Bombay to Goa (1972)

It is sometimes commented that if you took all the extraneous side-elements out of a masala movie and focused on the plot, you'd be left with a streamlined tale that would be done in an hour. The road movie Bombay to Goa goes the other way - it dispenses with a plot almost entirely, leaving little but gags and silliness, and it clocks in at less than two hours.  While it lasts, though, it's a pretty enjoyable ride.

Mala (Aruna Irani) is beside herself with excitement when a man called Sharma (Shatrughan Sinha) promises to make her a movie star.  Her parents are not quite as thrilled, though; her father (Nasir Hussain) pops a gasket when he sees her picture in a flashy magazine.  His concern is to lock up her marriage to the young man they have chosen for her, Ravi (Amitabh Bachchan).  In the dead of night, Mala steals all her parents' cash and runs away to Sharma, handing over the bulk of the money for his bogus "production".  She soon learns that Sharma is not what he appears to be, and after she witnesses his murder of a compatriot over the loot he swindled from her, she flees.  She finds herself on a bus to Goa, under the care of its conductor, Khanna (Mehmood), and surrounded by an outrageous and rag-tag bunch of fellow-travelers.  Much wacky hijinks ensue.

Unfettered as it is by the requirements of a well-developed story, Bombay to Goa is free to focus on its humor, which derives for the most part from broad comedy strokes - slapstick and stereotypes.  The mish-mash of ethnic and regional archetypes paints a bus-bound microcosm of a nation that feels a bit like Mr. and Mrs. Iyer on crack.  But they are an awful lot of fun, and diverse and cleverly-rendered enough that it doesn't feel like ticking off the boxes on an Indian stereotype bingo card. Very funny comic performances by Mehmood, his real-life brother Anwar Ali as Conductor Khanna's bus-driver brother Rajesh (get it - Rajesh?  Khanna?), and the likes of Manorama, Lalita Pawar, Yusuf Khan, and Keshto Mukherjee as passengers ensure that the laughs keep coming. 

I'm a big fan of Amitabh Bachchan too, of course, and his earlier films are a particular pleasure.  Here he is in fine form - though I wish there had been more of him - especially in the manic song "Dekho na hai".  (His chasing down the bus on his motorcycle to rescue his lady from peril is almost certainly referenced by Arjun Rampal's similar ride in Honeymoon Travels Pvt. Ltd., another film that packs a busload of diverse Indian personae off to Goa for comedy fun.)  A delightful cameo by the adorable Kishore Kumar - with a song, of course - rounds out the fun.  It may be light on substance, but all in all, Bombay to Goa is a thoroughly entertaining way to kill a couple of hours.   

Chhupa Rustam (1973)

छुपा रस्तम

It's not quite as stylishly perfect as Jewel Thief, nor does it achieve the sublime mod-noir heights of Teesri manzil.  But if you are a fan of Vijay Anand's unique brand of caper film, Chhupa Rustam (perhaps most pithily translated here as "hep cat," but used to mean a person with a hidden or unexpected talent) is definitely one to look out for.

Greedy Vikram Singh and his hapless son Bahadur are searching for ancient treasures in the mountains of Himanchal Pradesh.  To leverage their position Vikram Singh and Bahadur have captured the wife and son of a millionaire who holds the digging rights to the valley where the ancient city is nestled - hoping to force the millionaire's daughter Ritu (Hema Malini) to marry Bahadur, giving them access to the gold.   Ritu capitulates to the cruel captors' demands, only to be spirited away from her own wedding by the qawwal hired to perform there, Natwar (Dev Anand).  Sparks fly between Natwar and Ritu despite her anger and mistrust of him - but soon it becomes clear that he is not what he appears to be, and her warm feelings for him are not misplaced.  Together with Natwar's sidekick Jimmy Fernandes (Vijay Anand), Natwar and Ritu plot to give Vikram Singh and Bahadur their just deserts. 

The plot is unmemorable, but it is of little import; style and fun are the raisons d'etre of Chhupa Rustam.  As the performers romp through their roles they seem a hair's breadth away from bursting into irreverant giggles.  Hema Malini is as adorable as ever, and Dev Anand once again somehow manages to be an engaging hero despite being old enough to be her father - and despite the air of dirty old man that lingers about him every time he unleashes his leering grin. Prem Chopra's Bahadur (the name means "brave" or "gallant") is anything but; he's a delightfully hateable mix of smarmy and stupid, tough-talking and weak.  

But the film's real treat is Vijay Anand himself, who not only lends his directorial vision to the film (see Greta's review for a generous look at the film's fantabulous style) but is also laugh-out-loud hysterical as Natwar's big-hearted pal Jimmy.  He falls in love with Bahadur's moll (the delectably curvaceous Bindu) and the pair's two scene-stealing songs are among the highlights of the movie.  Actually all the film's songs are delightful, including this one in which Natwar wins over a recalcitrant Ritu with his ode to the humble bedbug.

Shaque (1976)

शक़

A story of a marriage worn down by fear and suspicion, Shaque ("doubt") has a very strong start but takes a few unfortunate turns that leave the film overall with a very unsatisfying heft. 

Vinod Joshi (Vinod Khanna) is a witness to a murder in his workplace.  He cooperates with the police investigation; there is an arrest and a trial at which Vinod testifies; and Vinod's colleague Subramaniam is convicted of the crime.   Vinod  and his wife Meena (Shabana Azmi) do their best to forget the harrowing incident, thinking it is behind them.  Ten years later, Meena receives an ominous letter from a man called Maan Singh (Utpal Dutt), who claims that Vinod was more involved than he let on and allowed an innocent man to be convicted in order to cover his own crimes of embezzlement from the company.  Meena is troubled by the letter, but while Vinod assures that it's nothing but the baseless ravings of disturbed old man, Meena can't shake the dreadful feeling that Vinod hasn't told her the whole truth.  She launches an investigation of her own, behind Vinod's back - but their marriage bends under the strain of her suspicions.

Shaque is at its best when its focus sticks to the relationship between Vinod and Meena and the strains placed upon it by Meena's suspicions.  Vinod Khanna and Shabana Azmi are understated and sweet in the scenes establishing their relationship early in the film, and the realist style of their performance lets tensions grow between them without too much overwrought dramatizing.  The tension is delicately enhanced by some very nice camera work, framing shots like the one pictured above.  Their tenderness and passion is apparent too, illustrated in a handful of touching, intimate scenes.

Unfortunately, the film's masala elements - especially the supposedly suspenseful confrontations towards the film's end - contrast with the delicacy of its study of the marriage, in a distracting rather than an effective way.  And Meena makes some very questionable judgments that make it hard to identify with her.  Her poor judgment about Maan Singh when it's painfully obvious that he's blackmailing betrays her as naive, and her incomprehensible suicide attempt seems like drama-mongering.   Neither paints a sympathetic heroine.  The film would have done better to give us a sensible woman caving to the temptation of doubt, rather than Meena almost wrecking her own marriage through stupidity.   In the end, the weaknesses outweigh the strengths, and even though Shabana and Vinod give the best performances they can under the circumstances, Shaque isn't much more than a forgettable timepass, despite its well-crafted moments. 
 

Anand (1971)

आनंद

This is one of the most difficult reviews to write of any since I started this blog.  I usually get a perverse kind of pleasure from writing about films I didn't enjoy, but this has not been the case with Anand ("joy," as well as the lead character's name), which I watched months ago and haven't brought myself to review until now. 

Dr. Bhaskar Banerjee (Amitabh Bachchan) is a young physician with a gloomy outlook.  A workaholic, he takes his work to heart and doesn't see much to enjoy in life.  Then his mentor introduces him to Anand (Rajesh Khanna), a cheerful soul who brightens the spirits of everyone he meets, including the dour doctor.  But Dr. Banerjee is dismayed to learn that Anand has an inoperable, terminal cancer, and a prognosis of only a few months to live.  Anand is determined to spread as much joy as he can in the short time he has left, and from him Dr. Banerjee learns to appreciate all aspects of life. 

I wanted to like Anand; I love so many of the films of its director, Hrishikesh Mukherjee, and I adore the performances of young, pre-stardom Ambitabh Bachchan.   And The film is so widely loved, and had been recommended to me by so many different people, that I feel like an insensitive philistine for failing to appreciate it.

Yet just about everything about it grated, starting with the hyperactive cheerfulness of Anand himself.  I've not found a single appealing quality to Rajesh Khanna, between his froggy smile and his mumbly, droopy-eyed diction; here, he combines these traits with a ferret-like energy that is by multiples more annoying than charming.  But it's not merely that Anand's idea of cheerfulness is too shouty and bouncy to appeal to me; it's that everyone in the film is as delighted by it as I am irritated.  Even the somber doctor, a man who looks like he should be getting migraines from Anand's very presence, is instead moved to the depths of his soul.  I understand how I am supposed to feel, but I can't get on the train; instead of being charmed by Anand's joy, I just want him to shut the hell up.  Anand is not merely terminally ill; he's terminally annoying. 

Beneath the surface - of course - Anand harbors some melancholy, which shows itself only in quiet moments when he thinks he's not being watched.  This feature of Anand's character is such an obvious cliche that it adds no depth to him at all, and I found myself only rolling my eyes when it was revealed.  It's just one more predictable step in the very predictable arc of this entirely by-the-book story.  Anand's inevitable end - the conclusion is painfully apparent from the moment Anand is introduced - brought me no tears, just relief that it was finally over. 

I suppose the saccharine sentiments would have been forgivable if the characters had worked, but between Anand's hysterical babble and the doctor's sour-lemon demeanor there wasn't much to sink my teeth into.  The entire experience was like biting into a puff of cotton candy and finding it artificially sweetened, bitter with aspartame aftertaste.  Though one of the best-loved emotional tear-jerkers of Hindi cinema, Anand's delicacy was completely lost on me.   

ETA:  I feel somewhat less self-conscious and thick about disliking this film after reading Philip Lutgendorf's astute (as always) comments on it.  He notes, as I did, that whether one is moved by the film depends upon whether one is charmed or irritated by the character of Anand; he also observes that Anand is an archetype of the manic, self-centered embodiments of romance heroes all over Hindi cinema. 

Satyam shivam sundaram (1978)

सत्यम शिवम सुन्दरम

Beauty isn't skin deep - it isn't in the skin at all, but comes from somewhere else, someplace within.   It isn't merely a matter of physical appearance, but finds its source in the goodness of the soul, the mind, the heart.  This moral - one that most everyone believes, even if it's a challenge to live by -  is the message of Raj Kapoor's Satyam shivam sundaram ("Truth, godliness, beauty"), served up in a package that is sometimes alluring, sometimes confusing, and occasionally nearly beautiful.

Rupa (Zeenat Aman) is star-crossed.  Born on Krishna's birthday to a mother who died in childbirth, Rupa's bad-luck curse takes physical form when as a child her face is scarred with scalding oil.  She grows up a lonely temple servant, shunned by the other girls of her village and lamented by her father.  One day a dashing engineer Ranjeev (Shashi Kapoor) comes to the village to work on a dam project and all the village girls are in his thrall.  The one thing Rupa has that the rest of them lack is a heavenly singing voice, and when Ranjeev hears her he falls madly in love.  Though she hides her face - and her disfigurement - beneath a chunari, Ranjeev is sure that a voice so perfect must come from something equally beautiful, and so he asks for Rupa's hand.  Unveiling her on his wedding night, Ranjeev is horrified by what he sees; he is convinced he has been duped, that another Rupa is out in the village waiting for him.  Though his family prevails on him to let the disfigured bride remain in his home, he rejects her completely and wanders in search of "his" Rupa. Rupa sneaks out of the house to rendezvous with him, continuing to hide her face.  Eventually, though, Ranjeev may have to accept that there is only one Rupa. 

Satyam shivam sundaram's "it's what's on the inside that counts" message is obscured a bit by the broad strokes with which Ranjeev is drawn.  "I cannot tolerate any form of ugliness," he declares, planting him firmly in the realm of peculiar and extreme characters.  Indeed, his aversion seems to be more pathology than mere preference; when he gazes on Rupa's scars, he perceives not just her minor disfigurement - not all that repulsive on the scale of things - but a horrible sight of deeply torn and rotting flesh. And his mistreatment of Rupa after their marriage solidifies him as a very unsympathetic character.  I can't help but think the film would have done better to present, instead of someone to dislike, a hero in whom the audience can see themselves reflected.  That would have forced viewers to face their own prejudices, rather than giving them the reassurance that whatever their particular bigotry might be, they are not as intolerant as all that.

Pairing the supposedly unbearably damaged face with Zeenat Aman in all her shapely, wet, clingy-clothed glory is another odd choice.  Raj Kapoor gives us a very sexy and sensual Rupa, clad in skimpy and thin temple cottons, perhaps unaware of just how hot she is - but then, no one else seems to notice either.  It strains credulity that there is no man who would want a wife who is that sexy from the neck down (not to mention all of Rupa's other gifts), even if someone as weird as Ranjeev finds her scars repugnant.   Still, Zeenat's va-va-voom certainly contributes to the visual sumptuousness of the film.  And Zeenat plays Rupa with a subtle and sympathetic touch, now fragile and insecure, now instinctively protecting herself.  Her best moments come in Rupa's girl power turning point toward the end of the film, and what a turning point it is - Rupa seems to command the forces of nature to teach Ranjeev his lesson.

The best use of all the pretty - and between Zeenat and Shashi there's plenty of pretty to go around - comes in the gorgeous songs of the unusually classical-style Laxmikant-Pyarelal soundtrack.  The songs are lushly picturized with trippy visuals - the fabulous "Chanchal sheetal nirmal komal," Rupa's fantasy, is a particular standout, with its outlandish multicolored abstract sets, giant mushrooms, moonscapes, and other acid-trip accoutrements.  Somewhat more down to earth but still lovely is "Bhor bhaye panghat pe," shot in pink filters to evoke the light of dawn.

Swami (1977)

स्वामी

Should a spirited, intelligent young woman follow her heart and trust it to lead her to the right place?  Or should she submit to her duty, and trust that doing so will lead her to the right place?  This is the question raised by Basu Chatterjee's Swami ("master"), but the film's answer is ambiguous.

Mini (Shabana Azmi) is a bright village girl with academic ambitions and an appetite for literature and philosophy.   Her intellectual uncle (Utpal Dutt) indulges her brainy bent, encouraging her studies and running interference between Mini and her mother (Sudha Shivpuri), a pious widow whose only concern is to see Mini married, and quickly.  Mini has a nascent love affair with her neighbor Narendra (Vikram), the zamindar's son, a student in Calcutta who on his frequent visits brings her Victorian literature, listens raptly to her discourse, and is bold enough to kiss her opportunistically when they are caught together in a rainstorm.  Circumstances  conspire against Mini and Narendra, though, and soon Mini finds herself married against her wishes to a wheat trader Ganshyam (Girish Karnad) from a neighboring village.  Plunged into despair, Mini struggles to become accustomed to life in her unwanted marriage and her new home, where Ganshyam's stepmother seems to favor Mini's sisters-in-law and where her new husband treats her with a patience that she finds perplexing. 

Swami feels like an artier version of Hum dil de chuke sanam; though it differs in the details, the basic elements are quite similar:   A spunky but fundamentally immature young woman falls in love with one man but is impelled to marry another; she mopes miserably for some period of time while her husband is kinder to her than she is in any state to appreciate; and when her husband, astonishingly, lets her follow her heart, she  comes to realize which man she truly belongs with.  And like Hum dil de chuke sanam, it's an engaging story (so much the more so when one imagines watching it from the perspective of a society in which many marriages are arranged).  The first 45 minutes are the most entertaining, as we get to know Mini and her uncle, and watch her relationship with Narendra blossom.  Mini is full of life, cheeky and smart; she takes as much pleasure in gathering jasmine flowers and weaving them into garlands as she does arguing the finer points of philosophy, and it is a joy to watch her enjoying her life.

After Mini's marriage, Swami bumps off the rails a bit.  It's somewhat interesting to see Ganshyam tolerating her sullen, withdrawn behavior, and once she starts to appreciate his extraordinary kindness the film picks up again.  But there's only so much petulant moping we need to see, and Mini's interactions with the other female members of her household are grating.  As the film's conclusion is inevitable, it could be a bit swifter about getting there.  The highlight of the second half is a surprise guest appearance by Dharmendra and Hema Malini as a pair of cheery wedding dancers, whose jaunty song about a young woman running away with her love not only foreshadows the film's climax, but also comes closest to bringing a smile to Mini's face as anything else in the second hour of the film. 

The most problematic aspect of Swami is the price that Mini pays for the reward of Ganshyam's gentle protection.  It's not the loss of Narendra that is troubling - young love comes and goes - but rather the sacrifice of what really set Mini apart from her sisters-in-law and presumably from other village girls as well: her love of books and studying.  At the beginning of the film, Mini announces proudly that she is in the middle of her B.A. studies; these are dropped without a word.  Without Narendra running errands to Calcutta, Mini's supply of new books is cut off; even if Ganshyam is kind enough to supply them for her, though, with whom is she going to debate them?  It is no wonder that Mini is still crying and depressed, even after the story's resolution. 

It is this confusion of message that leaves me most perplexed about the film's intentions.  Mini has certainly come to appreciate Ganshyam's warmth, but the overwhelming sense is that she has chosen him out of duty and propriety rather than out of love - and worse, has forfeited any venture outside the traditional woman's sphere.  The film seems to say that doing the dutiful thing will get a girl a kind husband who buys her saris and electric fans, and that should be a sufficient reward. 

(A more Shabana-oriented look at Swami will be posted in the next few days at Sounds Like Power.) 

Deewaar (1975)

दीवार

There is a reason that the classics are the classics, that seminal films are seminal, that genre-defining films define genres.  When I sat down to watch the classic, seminal, genre-defining Deewaar ("wall"), I expected to enjoy it, but I didn't think I'd be blown away.  I should have known better.

Anand Verma (Satyendra Kapoor) is a labor organizer who is viewed as a hero by the workers in his area - until he backs down in the face of threats against his family. Then the workers' admiration quickly sours to revilement and Anand flees, leaving his family to bear the burden of his disgrace.  His wife (Nirupa Roy) takes their two boys to Bombay in hopes of rebuilding their lives.  The boys grow up together, but on very different trajectories.  Ravi (Shashi Kapoor), ever pious, joins the police force at the encouragement of his warm and perky girlfriend Leena (Neetu Singh).  Vijay (Amitabh Bachchan), more deeply scarred by their early struggles, renounces God as well as the straight and narrow path; he takes a more thuggish (he might say practical) approach to problems.  When he single-handedly beats up a cadre of gangsters who were extorting wages from his fellow dockworkers, he becomes a hero among his colleagues - and attracts the notice of an underworld don (Iftekhar), who hires Vijay to protect his shipments of smuggled gold.  Vijay proves a natural talent, and the don soon decides to retire, leaving Vijay in charge of operations.  It's not long before Ravi and Vijay find themselves in direct opposition on either side of the law, with their mother caught in the middle.

The plot summary might sound like a recipe for masala; brothers on opposite sides of the law, saintly mothers, gangsters, thugs, and pretty girls call to mind masala classics like Amar Akbar Anthony and Parvarish, for example.  But Deewaar is not a masala film.  It is hard and gritty and at the same time deeply symbolic and emblematic.  And there is very little to distract from the core narrative, no subplots or comic diversions, just the unflinching, driving force of a story that is bigger than the sum of its parts. 

Vijay is an anti-hero par excellence, a resourceful and principled fighter who loves his mother and enters the underworld not out of greed or lust but only because he sees it as the most efficient means to provide for his family. His disillusionment and frustration are fully motivated; early in the film, after his father's disgrace, the little boy Vijay suffers a trauma that stays with him for life when angry villagers waylay him on his way home from school and tattoo his arm with the legend "mera baap chor hai" - my father is a thief.   That tattoo is both Vijay's humiliation and his motivation, and he returns to it again and again as he chooses his destructive path. This is what makes Vijay the seminal, quintessential "angry young man" of Hindi film.  He is not a mindless thug or a rebel without a cause.  He is sensitive, tortured, and scarred.  Vijay is at his most heartbreakingly compelling in his quiet interactions with his girlfriend Anita (Parveen Babi).  She probes his suffering, and he pours out his heart to her.  It is difficult to imagine a Hollywood tough-guy hero baring his soul to a woman as Vijay does; the corresponding western archetype is a calloused, hardened loner, the kind of man who would yell at his girl if she tried to get at his emotional core.  And so Vijay is a revelation, a marvel of compelling cinema, brought vividly and ruggedly to life by Salim-Javed's expertly crafted dialogues and a dense, earthy performance by Amitabh Bachchan, whose superstardom was just then coming into its full force. 

Ravi is a complete contrast.  While he isn't overly cheerful - the burden of his family's suffering and their sacrifices for his education have shaped him as a serious and determined man - he is always bright-eyed, straight-spined, and clean, in palpable opposition to Vijay's heavy-lidded eyes and smudged, sweaty face.  In confrontation with his brother he seems almost idealist as he clings to his commitment to honest, hard work within the system.  But while Vijay's unlawful pragmatism may put a luxurious roof over his head and a fancy set of wheels in the garage, Ravi's constancy earns for him the one thing that really matters, which he asserts with the film's most famous line:  Mere paas maa hai - "I've got mom."

All told Deewaar is as taut, tense, and lean as Amitabh Bachchan himself.  There is very little fat in this film; I understand that even Salim Khan and Javed Akhtar, those quintessentially populist poet-entertainers, originally intended that the film be songless, and only relented upon the director's insistence that songs be accommodated.  And the songs - there are only three of them - are the only points where the intensity lets up for even a moment.  They're good songs - especially the charming Kishore-Asha duet "Keh doon tumhe", and the sexy uncredited item number by the fiery Aruna Irani.  (Check out Sanket's concurrent post on Bollywood Music Club for more about Deewaar's music and lots more about the movie as well.)  Even with the songs, Deewaar is as tight and relentless and compelling and emotional a mainstream Hindi film as I've ever seen.  Though the outcome holds no surprises - it's easy to guess where it has to end - so perfectly wrought is Vijay's trajectory toward redemption and resolution that tears sneaked into my eyes several times as the film's climax approached.

Chupke chupke (1975)

चुपके चुपके

I always enjoy coming across an Indian comedy that doesn't rely on the slapstick and shouting that tends to characterize the genre and that isn't really to my taste.  Chupke chupke ("secretly") is a funny, cute comedy that works because of a wacky script, the natural direction of Hrishikesh Mukherjee, and, most of all, because of the engaging and adorable charm of its leads.

Parimal (Dharmendra) and Sulekha (Sharmila Tagore) meet on a hill station holiday in which Parimal, a professor of botany, impersonates hill station's caretaker in order to give the real caretaker a few days off.  Parimal and Sulekha fall in love and marry - they are joyful and playful in marriage, but Parimal finds himself half-pretend jealous of Sulekha's brother-in-law Raghav (Om Prakash), whom she idolizes.  So Parimal hatches a scheme - with Sulekha's full cooperation - to play a practical joke on Raghav, whom he hasn't yet met.  He poses as a driver and gets himself hired to work in Raghav's household.  Then Sulekha comes for an extended visit - ostensibly while her husband is away on business - and together they fool Raghav into thinking that they are having an illicit affair.  Parimal has a couple of friends who are in on the joke - Prashant (Asrani), a Bombay businessman, and his colleague Sukumar (Amitabh Bachchan), a professor of English.  Wacky hijinks ensue -  Sukumar turns up impersonating the real Parimal, and falls in love with Prashant's sister Vasudha (Jaya Bhaduri).  It's a massive prank for the ages.      

It's a totally stupid plot, and that's part of what makes it so funny - the other part is the utter good-enough-to-eat cuteness of the characters.  Dharmendra and Sharmila, as Parimal and Sulekha, have a delightful tenderness and mischief that just bursts out of the screen every time they give one another a naughty look. It's clear that they have fun with the pretense - as Darshana keenly observed on BollyWHAT, all the indiscreet sneaking around turns them on, so making their hosts think they are having a reckless and improper affair is easy.  Parimal sneaks into Sulekha's bedroom nightly, once "accidentally" leaving his monogrammed hanky outside her door where Raghav will find it.  And they gallivant openly in front of their hosts' five-year-old daughter, knowing that the little girl will tattle on them.  The film is full of cute moments like that - the best of them is the song "Ab ke sajna sawaan mein," in which Sulekha sings a passionate song of longing to Parimal while Raghav looks on, vibrating as though he is about to pop a gasket.

Amitabh is also wonderful as the nerdy, shy intellectual Sukumar.  I love Amitabh's trademark angry young man persona, but even more than that I love his early roles where he gets to really show his range in a role that is different.  Chupke chupke is one such -  Sukumar is bumbling and bookish and not at all comfortable with the charade he's taking part in (unlike Parimal and Sulekha, who lie through their teeth with natural ease), and he's simply adorable.

Adding to the comic absurdity of the whole situation, Raghav wants a driver who speaks perfect shuddh Hindi (why is not entirely clear - perhaps to protect his young daughter from the rough tapori spoken by the laborers available to him in Bombay) and the erudite Parimal, in his charade, is more than happy to oblige, offering language so pure and high-tone that others in the household can't always understand him - he takes Raghav's desire for pure language and throws it back in his face, with hysterical results.  Obviously, to appreciate fully this set of running jokes, some knowledge of Hindi is helpful.  But even without, if the basic idea is grasped - that there are different registers of Hindi, some perceived to be coarser and others more refined - then the humor is clear enough, and the subtitles on the edition I had (Bollywood Video) do work hard to make the concept clear, translating Parimal's high-register Hindi into overbearingly purple English.

As enjoyable as it is, Chupke chupke isn't perfect.  The songs are fine, but they lack the wacky energy of the most sparkling portions of the film.  Moreover, there are a couple of spots where the pacing is off - the opening scenes at the hill station could have been expanded to show more of Parimal and Sulekha's nascent romance, while other parts drag with needless exposition.  But when it fires on all cylinders, Chupke chupke shines - the weak parts are only so-so, but the good parts simply outstanding.

Mausam (1975)

मौसम

For all the zany masala and bombast of Hindi film in the 1970s, there is a subtler side as well, a delicate strain of films that explored the raw places where human emotions intersect.  Setting the standard in this kind of sensitive cinema are films by the likes of Hrishikesh Mukherjee and the brilliant Gulzar, who was the auteur of Mausam ("season").

Dr. Gil (Sanjeev Kumar), a successful doctor and marketer of an eponymous pain remedy, arrives in Darjeeling for an extended vacation - with a mission.  His objective is to track down the love of his life and seek forgiveness for abandoning her nearly a quarter of a century before.  In flashback we are shown the nascence of that old romance, between the young medical student Gil and the the village pharmacist-healer's daughter, Chanda (Sharmila Tagore).  As the middle-aged Gil follows the trail of Chanda's life since he left her, he discovers that she has died after a prolonged descent into madness brought about, Gil is horrified to learn, by her miserable pining over the false promises of her faithless lover.  Forced into an abusive marriage, Chanda left behind a daughter, Kajli (also Sharmila), who Gil finds plying the world's oldest trade in a coarse, ratty brothel.  Gil - without revealing his connection to her mother - buys her time indefinitely, dresses her in good clothes, and attempts to mold her into the upstanding girl her mother had been when he knew her.

Stories about rich men attempting to transform prostitutes into proper ladies are usually unappealing to me, as they are often sodden with obnoxious moralistic subtext:  a sexually uninhibited woman needs a male savior to rescue her by teaching her to conform to societal norms.  But Mausam is a little different.  Gil seeks his own redemption, not Kajli's - he is trying not so much to repair Kajli for her own good, but rather to reconstruct her mother, so that he may ask her forgiveness for the wrong he did her so many years before.  This lends a sadness and desperation to his efforts at rehabilitating Kajli, a very different approach to the Pygmalion-esque elements of the tale.

Mausam also works because Sanjeev Kumar is one of the finest actors in Indian film.  His controlled touch ensures that the film remains sensitive even as Dr. Gil leans heavily toward the paternalistic.  Gil is wounded and confused; he comes to Darjeeling hoping to ride off into the sunset with his beloved Chanda - not to rescue from brothel life a daughter he never knew Chanda had.  Sanjeev Kumar's nuanced performance preserves Gil's pain and uncertainty as he navigates the unexpected twists in his own fantasy.  It also makes plain Gil's implicit sexual attraction to Kajli, who is after all the doppleganger of her mother as Gil last saw her.  There is an everyman quality to Sanjeev Kumar that makes his portrayal of human pain that much more effective and real; this is as evident in Mausam as it was in Silsila, in which he stole the show from stars with much more conventional charisma.

Sharmila Tagore's performance stands up as well; after seeing her astonishing performance as a young teenager in Apur sansar, her deep sadness in Amar Prem, and her jaunty work in another double role in An Evening in Paris, I am starting to believe in her completely as an actress.  Here, she ranges from coarse crossness to wonderment to confidence, doubt, tenderness, resentment.  There is a palpable difference between Chanda's flouncy innocence and Kajli's world-weary demeanor, exhausted and broken, until she is refreshed by her bond with Gil.  The result of all this fine work by both actors, together with Gulzar's script and direction, is a touching and lovely film; at its climax I wept as I rarely have at a movie.  It is a delicate story, about delicate characters, delicately told.

Finally, Mausam is rounded out by some truly wonderful songs, especially "Dil dhoondta hai," in which the middle-aged Gil reminisces, watching a younger version of himself frolicking in the woods with Chanda. There is also an adorable song in which Kajli tries to entertain Gil with a jaunty mujra.  Her dance is both sensuous and a little bit graceless; by Kajli's own admission she is not a very good dancer, but she is clearly in her element performing for Gil, and it makes for a charming scene.

The Great Gambler (1979)

With its exotic locales, scheming baddies, long-lost brothers, nonsensical plot, and smitten heroines, there is little to set this film apart from dozens of other masala movies of its era.  Yet the charisma of its stars - Amitabh Bachchan in a dashing double role, and Zeenat Aman as smoking hot as ever - is enough to seat The Great Gambler solidly in the category of light, fun timepass.   

Jai (Amitabh) is a gambler, a man with the power to make the cards dance for him, hired by casino owner Ratan Das (Madan Puri) to separate rich businessmen from their money.  Ratan Das hatches a scheme to marry Jai to Mala (Neetu Singh), the daughter of another wealthy businessman (Iftekhar), and sends Jai to Lisbon to meet her.  Jai doesn't know that Ratan Das is engineering a scheme to steal the plans for the government's powerful new defense technology and sell it to the highest bidder.  His contacts in this scheme include a gang boss named Saxena (Utpal Dutt), whose henchmen Ramesh (Prem Chopra) and Marconi (Sujit Kumar) carry out his dirty work. 

Meanwhile, a police officer named Vijay (also Amitabh) is hot on the trail of Saxena's gang and eager to recover the stolen secrets.  Vijay is a dead ringer for Jai, of course, and when Saxena's gang realizes this they - with the help of their moll, Shabnam (Zeenat Aman) strongarm Jai into taking over Vijay's identity and helping them complete their transaction.  While Jai is diverted from his journey to meet his betrothed Mala, she finds Vijay instead and - once she's mistaken him for Jai - sparks fly. 

The story is much less coherent than that description, with numerous details, twists, and complexities that don't fit together and make little sense.  But the plot is not where The Great Gambler's entertainment lies.  It lies rather in odd scenes and fun moments, driven by Amitabh and Zeenat looking their best.  The henchman Marconi, who lives in Rome, speaks Hindi with a lilting Italian accent.  Jai and Vijay, once united, pull of a hysterical bamboozle in the guise of an impulsive emir and his bumbling secretary.  There is a stomach-churning fight scene that takes place in a meat locker.  Zeenat melts the screen with a hotter than hot belly dance in "O Rukasa mera naam".  Asha Bhosle sings the plaintive "Do lafzon ki hai," gorgeously picturized on a Venetian gondola.  Moments like these are the glue that holds The Great Gambler together when the plot gets too nonsensical or the chase scenes and fight scenes too repetitive. 

Amitabh did not do enough with his double role - it was too difficult to tell his characters apart, unless there were some linguistic cues that escaped my rudimentary Hindi comprehension.  But that didn't detract too much from the fun of watching Amitabh just do his thing.  If you're a fan of his, or of Zeenat's, there are worse ways to spend a rainy afternoon than watching The Great Gambler.