Filmi Geek

Apne paraye (1980)

अपने पराये

Recently, thanks to a couple of thoughtful visitors, discussion has revived on my review of Swami.  By coincidence, the next movie I had in my queue to watch and review was, just like Swami, a Basu Chatterjee film based upon a novel by Saratchandra Chattopadhyay, Apne paraye ("our own and others"). 

Chander (Amol Palekar) is a bit of a layabout, a good-hearted man with a poor head for business and no taste for hard work.  He lives, on suffrance, in the household of his absent-minded elder cousin (Utpal Dutt), a wealthy and successful Calcutta lawyer.  Chander's wife Sheela (Shabana Azmi) runs the household with a stern hand, to the consternation of the laywer's weak-minded and sickly wife, Sideshwari (Ashalata).  Sideshwari can't deny Sheela's domestic competence, though, and she dotes on Sheela's children as enthusiastically as her own.  This fragile domestic peace is shattered when the lawyer's younger brother Harish (Girish Karnad), also a lawyer, arrives with his family and moves into the Calcutta haveli.  His wife Naintara (Bharati Achrekar) is jealous of Sheela, and angry that Sheela doesn't coddle Naintara's spoiled eldest child.  Naintara schemes to drive a wedge between Sheela and the impressionable Sideshwari.  This tension comes to a head when Naintara manipulates Sideshwari into having Chander and Sheela and their family thrown out of the house, and exiled to the family's farmland, where matters only get worse for them. 

Apne paraye has the potential to be the kind of movie I love - a taut, compelling exploration of the social problems of the joint family system through an intimate study of the lives of its characters.  This is the kind of movie that Shyam Benegal does so well, and I had high hopes that between Chatterjee's delicate touch and Chattopadhyay's story, Apne paraye would shine.  Unfortunately, the movie does not quite measure up.  The first half, which focuses on the relationships among the women, is unsatisfyingly superficial.  Zooming reaction shots and a booming soundtrack lends something like the feel of a saas-bahu serial to this otherwise delicately directed piece, and trivializes the tensions among the women by reducing them to catty jealousies over who is boss of the kitchen and who dotes on whose precious little offspring.  

The movie's second half fares better, as the story moves beyond the tight confines of the crowded Calcutta homestead and begins to develop some symbolism that adds richness.  Chander and Sheela are forced to face the harsh realities of the outside world, while for those who remain at home, the world almost seems to fold in on itself like a domestic ourobouros.  Naintara's bitchy manipulations escalate to fever pitch, while Sideshwari implodes in weepy dithering.  The men, especially Harish, overreact to the complaints of their wives, quite literally making a federal case out of a very ordinary domestic squabble.  The members of the household who remain in Calcutta seem to utterly lose perspective, while Chander and Sheela face the daily cold-water splash of trying to make ends meet in the real world.  Despite this potentially interesting contrast, though, the movie suffers from a facile ending, a giant "reset" in which the conflict is resolved without any sign of lasting consequences or transformation. 

The best moments of the movie are those that simply reflect domestic life without trying to wring drama from them - such as the family's meals, obviously a focus of the daily rhythm of life.  At mealtimes family business is transacted, grievances are aired, power is exerted and conceded, sacrifies are made, burdens are shared.  In the movie's only real hint of character development, early in the film Sheela manipulates her husband and sister-in-law by refusing to eat; later, she declines to eat out of sacrifice, when there is no longer enough food to go around, and Chander shows his maturation by offering to make the sacrifice along with her.

Making six adult characters all distinguishable and human is not a trivial task for a movie, and Apne paraye does a reasonably good job of it.  Naintara and Harish are a little one-dimensional in their self-absorption. Sideshwari's defining characteristic is her weakness and impressionability, but in moments when the movie is steering clear of melodrama, there is some interesting tension in her perpetually shifting loyalties.  Chander's shiftlessness is balanced by his evident good intentions and affection for his family.  Sheela is the most complex of all, and most of that complexity is thanks to Shabana Azmi's performance (and Basu Chatterjee's direction), as it is conveyed in subtleties of expression and body language.  While she is stern and dour in her direction of the household and discpline of her children (including the adult-child, her husband Chander), Sheela often betrays her tender side with a small indulgent smile. 

For every Chattopadhyay adaptation I have seen and been to some degree disappointed by - from Swami to Devdas to Parineeta - my lukewarm reviews have been met with staunch defenses based on the novel's texts.  I have no doubt that Chattopadhyay's novel (entitled Nishkriti) is better than Apne paraye, and presents the characters and their relationships with more depth and subtlety.  But I write about movies, not the books they are based upon, and I do believe that a movie - even an adaptation - has to stand on its own strengths and answer for its own weaknesses.  In its best moments, Apne paraye perhaps offers glimpses of the social insights for which Chattopadhyay is renowned.  On balance, though, it misses the mark - not by much, but by just enough to be frustrating.

 

Kalyug (1981)

कलयुग

This expansive, ambitious film by Shyam Benegal maps ancient parables of the Mahabharat onto a modern story of corporate and familial warfare.  With an enormous, gifted cast and Benegal's gift for storytelling, Kalyug is a compelling movie indeed.

The scions of a great family are at war.  The two branches of the family, Puranchand and Khubchand, celebrate life cycle events together - but the engineering firms run by each are bitter rivals in the marketplace.  The Puranchand company is led by Dharamraj (Raj Babbar), with the help of his younger brothers Balraj (Kulbhushan Kharbanda) and Bharatraj (Anant Nag).  At the helm of the Khubchand company is their cousin Dhanraj (Victor Banerjee) and a close associate of the family, Karan Singh (Shashi Kapoor).  The two companies compete fiercely for lucrative government contracts.  The Khubchand company wins a tender due to high-tech machinery that Karan Singh procured.  The Puranchand company appeals the grant and succeeds in wresting back the contract.  The dispute escalates, driven by Bharatraj and Dhanraj, who take the rivalry most seriously - and most personally.  Karan Singh's manipulations on behalf of the Khubchand company incite labor infighting in the Puranchand shop, through the volatile labor leader Pandey (Om Puri).  Karan and Dhanraj even scheme to frame the Puranchand company on charges of insurance fraud.  Soon the rivalry turns violent, and both sides of the family are caught in a terrible storm of bitterness and grieving.

What makes Kalyug a wonderful film is Shyam Benegal's gift for telling intense stories that are very intimate, even while being totally allegorical.  The dramatis personae of Kalyug is packed with many players, most of whom do not get more than a few minutes screentime.  But each is so delicately characterized, and the movie conveys enough of their lives and personalities, that they remain distinct, and the anger and anguish of each is keenly felt as the internecine conflict grows.  The older generation grieves to see their children warring with each other; the Puranchand matriarch Savitri (Sushma Seth) is especially troubled, and the pain is written on her face and in her futile pleas to her sons and nephews to reconcile.  Bheeshanchand (A.K. Hangal), uncle to both sides of the family, is perplexed by the battle; though he works for the Khubchand company, he carelessly reveals confidential information to the Puranchand side, throwing gasoline on the flames. Khubchand himself (Vinod Doshi), wheelchair-bound and ailing, can do little more than watch, tragically helpless as his family disintegrates around him. 

The tensions take their toll on the younger generations as well.  The older Puranchand brothers do not share Bharat's intense focus on the business.  Dharamraj only wants to watch his race horses train, and takes a "jo bhi ho so ho" attitude toward losing the contract to Khubchand company, to Bharat's great frustration.  Balraj is a cheerful fellow, more interested in his still-steamy relationship with his wife Kiran (Reema Lagoo) than in anything to do with tenders and profits.  The tenderness with which their relationship is portrayed early in the film makes it that much more heartrending when the escalating rivalry hits them personally.  And perhaps most compelling of all is the stark contrast between Dhanraj's response to the escalation, and Karan Singh's.  Dhanraj begins the film an intense personality, and he only becomes darker, more brooding, and more raging as the battles wear on.  Karan Singh enters as a cool manipulator, driven only by profits - but comes to find himself seeking redemption, and holding a more personal stake than he ever imagined.

Kalyug's atmosphere and visuals, too, are remarkably rich and interesting.  Providing a constant backdrop are the quotidian pleasures of wealthy life; horse racing, badminton games, golf.  Karan Singh returns to his richly appointed bachelor pad after a long day's work to pour himself a glass of scotch from a crystal decanter and listen to Bach.  Scenes of family meals and gatherings add texture, conveying both the tendernesses and the tensions among the many members of the extended families.  Juxtaposed with these are engaging shots of the working factory; heavy machinery manipulating flaming iron pigs and clanging out the companies' unspecified, weighty products.   

Despite all this delicate storytelling, though, I can't help feeling that there is still a great deal of shorthand built into the film, on the assumption that its viewers are intimately familiar with the Mahabharat. The movie opens with a family tree that neatly sets forth the relationships among characters.  My guess is that viewers are meant to map the Puranchand and Khubchand relationships directly onto the Pandavas and Kauravas of that epic - and that without that knowledge, I am missing even more depth and richness in the film. To highlight just one example, Dharamraj's wife Supriya (Rekha) says little but hovers dark and glaring through many scenes, and I feel I would understand her better if I knew where her character fits into the mythological structure.  Some day I would like to return to Kalyug with the Mahabharat under my belt.  The movie's complexity rewards repeat viewing, and I imagine I would get even more out of it with a better understanding of its antecedents. 

***

I don't often provide lots of screen captures in my reviews, but Kalyug's cast is so large and magnificent that I don't want to give them all short shrift, so here is an additional selection - click the thumbnails for a larger view.

Savitri, Supriya, Kiran

Another cousin, Kishanchand (Amrish Puri), and Bharatraj

Most of the greater family - Karan Singh, Kishanchand, Balraj, Kiran, Dhanraj's wife Vibha (Rajshri Sarabhai), Dharamraj, his son Parikshit (Urmila Matondkar plays the little boy), Supriya, Balraj's son Sunil (Sunil Shanbag), Subhadra, the youngest Khubchand brother Sandeep, Bharatraj, and Dhanraj

Balraj

Pandey, the labor leader who opposes the official Puranchand union

Karan Singh

Dhanraj

 

Mixed Doubles (2006)

Hindi movies do a lot of things very well, but frank investigations of mature sexual relationships aren't usually considered to be one of those things.  It's a difficult subject for any movie - in any language - to handle well, with the right mixture of humor, sensitivity, and sexiness.  Rajat Kapoor's Mixed Doubles, despite choosing the absurdly sensational device of spouse-swapping as its point of departure, manages reasonably well.

Malti (Konkona Sen Sharma) and Sunil (Ranvir Shorey) have been married for ten years, and they are content in their domesticity - but their sex life has gone to sleep.  Malti feels frisky, but Sunil isn't interested.  Sunil is troubled by his absent libido, but unsure how to spark it - until a boastful friend plants the idea of spouse-swapping in Sunil's mind.  Sunil becomes obsessed with the idea, and through advertisements placed in the back of salacious magazines, discovers a willing couple, Vinod (Rajat Kapoor) and Kalpana (Koel Purie).  But Sunil has to convince Malti to go along with the plan.  And even if he can wrangle a way to do that, there's the matter of the fateful night itself, and the consequences for Sunil and Malti's marriage.

This plot is a minefield, in which a misstep could cause an explosion of bad taste or juvenile tittering.  For the most part, though, Mixed Doubles hits the right notes.  Its portrayal of Sunil and Malti's marriage is natural and believable enough to balance out the squirmy gratuitousness of the notion of spouse-swapping.  It's wonderful - not to mention, a refreshing twist on the steretypical bed-death scenario - that Malti is a mature, faithful wife with a healthy sexual appetite.  And, of course, the performances are excellent - especially Konkona Sen Sharma, whose mixture of concern, indignation, disgust, and love is just pitch-perfect.  

Most of the movie's laughs are of the awkward variety, where the audience laughs because of character's discomfort.  I am not usually a fan of this brand of comedy - The Office is the canonical example, a show that I know is good but that I simply cannot watch.  Here, though, it works, as a source both of comedy and of pathos.  There is something ineffably sympathetic in Sunil's irrational obsession with the spouse-swapping scheme; I can identify with his restless pursuit of an outrageously bad idea.  Ranvir Shorey's confused everyman performance helps keep him sympathetic - up to a point.  Indeed, the deception with which Sunil convinces Malti to accede to the plan is the movie's only real wrong note. 

Sunil's maladroit encounter with the bizarrely fascinating Kalpana is another source of awkward humor.  Kalpana is an extremely irritating character, childish and impulsive, a caricature of a Bohemian free spirit - but also, at least to me, wildly physically appealing, and that juxtaposition is oddly engaging.  Her husband Vinod is bland and formal by comparison.

The ending of Mixed Doubles doesn't offer much in the way of resolution, but that probably makes for a better film than any attempt to wrap the extreme emotions of Sunil and Malti's mutual misfires into a too-tidy package.  Each of them has deceived and deeply wounded the other, and the damage of that is just too heavy to try to fix in one movie.  The final scenes offer a gentle settling back into the quotidian domestic routine, suggesting that a peaceful resolution is possible for them, even if it hasn't yet happened by the time the credits roll. 

Dhobi ghat (2011)

धोबी घाट

Aamir Khan productions come with a lot of baggage, given his reputation for being self-consciously highbrow, condescending toward the cinema traditions that made him famous, and caring too much about what the West thinks of his movies.  Whether that's deserved or not - I don't follow his interviews closely enough to weigh in on that - his latest release stands on its own merits.  Written and directed by his wife Kiran Rao, Dhobi ghat ("washerman's wharf") is at its best an engaging meditation on the ephemeral nature of life in Mumbai.

Shai (Monica Dogra) is an American-born banker on a sabbatical of self-discovery in Mumbai.  An aspiring photographer, she combs the city looking for subjects to shoot.  She befriends a hard-working washerman named Munna (Prateik Babbar), who introduces her to some of the city's grittiest and most colorful quarters.  She also meets a brooding artist, Arun (Aamir Khan) - they have a one-night stand, and after an awkward, angry morning-after parting, she retains an attraction and curiosity about him.  Meanwhile Arun, moving into a new apartment, discovers some video letters shot by a girl named Yasmin (Kriti Malhotra), intended for Yasmin's brother but evidently never sent.  Arun becomes engrossed in Yasmin's story, raptly studying the letters, taking inspiration for his new set of paintings, and eager to discover what happened to her. 

One of the themes of Dhobi ghat is that the city exists in multiple layers, both physical (shore, gutter, house, high-rise) and class (rat-killer/dhobi, servant, wealthy educated classes).  The movie happens in the spaces where these strata meet and slide against each other.  Only the American-born character, Shai, willfully and self-consciously disregards this stratification, nudging herself into Munna's spaces.  Apart from Shai, the only customer who invites Munna into her home is a dour woman who, it is implied, wants him for sex, and dismisses him as a dhobi when she realizes he will no longer provide that.  For upper-class Mumbai-walas, Munna is a service provider, not a person.  Shai uses him as well, in her own way, but she also genuinely cares for him, especially by the film's end.  Yet their friendship, like nearly everything else in the film's Mumbai, is transient.

Indeed, the loveliest moments in Dhobi ghat are its many symbols of the transitory nature of city life - characters move house and leave scant artifacts behind; names are scratched in sand and washed away by the waves; construction sites stand for the relentless pace of change.  Even the videos, paintings, and photographs that drive the film's stories can only imperfectly capture moments; the records may remain, but like Arun's elderly neighbor they are mute and leave questions unanswered. 

The weak link in the script is Arun; the brooding, temperamental, loner artist is a cliche and just a flatter character than the others.  His obsession with Yasmin's letters is meant to add depth, but it doesn't tell us much about Arun, it's not personal enough to him - who would not be bewitched by such a vibrant young woman, by the mystery of her unsent letters and her unknown fate?  Arun only takes on dimension at the very end of the film, as he deduces the logical conclusion of Yasmin's story and wordlessly struggles with the possibility that the art she inspired him to make is an exploitation of her suffering. 

The performances in Dhobi ghat range from adequate (Aamir Khan, Monica Dogra) to exquisite (Prateik Babbar and Kriti Malhotra); the latter do as much with their faces as their dialogue and are as engaging and believable as the script allows.  Kriti Malhotra renders especially well the slow choking of Yasmin's spirit, as her bright, vivacious smile early in the film fades to a haggard exhaustion by its end.  At any rate, criticizing minor weaknesses in characterization or performance feels like nitpicking a film that is as much impressionist painting as tightly-woven text.  On balance, Dhobi ghat is delicate, touching, visually rich, a pastiche of engaging stories very well told. 

 

Welcome to Sajjanpur (2008)

Shyam Benegal's tales of village life are mostly tense, dense, gritty affairs.  Welcome to Sajjanpur, though, is none of the above.  Though not without substance or statement, the movie is light for the most part, and sometimes laugh-out-loud funny.  Neither is it a wry, dry humor like Benegal's Mandi. It is jaunty, airy, even self-consciously silly - the sort of film where characters have theme melodies that chime as they strut onto the screen. 

Mahadev (Shreyas Talpade) longs to write novels, but to make ends meet he charges a small fee to write letters for the largely illiterate residents of his village, Sajjanpur.  It seems a simple enough job, yet it lands him in the middle of several sticky situations.  A local thug Ramsingh (Yashpal Sharma) uses Mahadev's services to manipulate local politics to favor his wife's bid for village head.  Her opponent in the election, the hijra Munnibai (Ravi Jhankal) hires Mahadev to write a catchy campaign song - and also to write to the state government for protection when Ramsingh threatens her.   A superstitious mother (Ila Arun) has him write to her brother as she schemes to break a curse against her ill-starred daughter Bindiya (Divya Dutta) by marrying her to a dog - against the modern, sensible Bindiya's wishes.  And Mahadev's childhood sweetheart Kamla (Amrita Rao), now grown and married, engages him to write to her husband, who is working in Bombay.  Mahadev, attracted to Kamla, tailors the letters in hopes of driving a wedge between them and winning Kamla's heart.

The best thing about Welcome to Sajjanpur is Shreyas Talpade, whose performance is comic, physical, and likeable.  Many movies tell stories in which terrible things happen to loveable people.  Mahadev, by contrast, is a loveable person who does a reprehensible thing - and it speaks to both Benegal's and Talpade's own deft touch that Mahadev remains so darn cute even when you want to smack him upside the head for his wrong-headed attempts to sour Kamla's marriage.

Backing up Talpade is the colorful parade of side characters, also all perfectly cast and rendered.  Welcome to Sajjanpur is far from the first movie to provide a series of village vignettes or a pastiche of village archetypes, but I never tire of seeing such stories when they are as well-executed as this.  Ila Arun fills the screen in her appearances with a performance that is loud, and physical - she seems to never stop talking and her scenes are incredibly funny.  After just a few lines, Divya Dutta as the scowling, scolding Bindiya had me wanting to see a whole movie about her.  Other characters add more hues, as well as more comic situations for Talpade to work for all they are worth - like the peculiar snake-charmer (Daya Shankar Pandey) who keeps offering virility potions in payment to a very uncomfortable Mahadev.  The weak link in this bustle of villagers is, unfortunately, Amrita Rao, whose demure, rural mannerisms never quite stop feeling affected.  

Despite all the levity, Welcome to Sajjanpur is grounded - or, arguably, burdened - by a number of polticial statements.  Indeed, you can play "Shyam Benegal bingo" while watching it, checking off the social issues it systematically touches - anti-Muslim prejudice; corruption in the election process; the effect of big-business development on rural life; various traditions surrounding the rights and treatment of women, especially with regard to marriage; and polilical enfranchisement of marginalized communities, embodied in this case by the hijra leader Munnibai.  I never quite know what to make of hijras in the movies, largely because of my near-complete ignorance of them and their standing in different quarters of Indian society.  Sometimes they are portrayed as vile, sometimes as pitiable; Benegal here walks a fine line between these two, eventually landing firmly on the side of respecting them both as human beings and as a political force. 

The film's ending puts a puzzling twist on the notion that life is stranger than fiction, and muddies the social message a little by pulling a switcheroo, where one side character's happy ending turns tragic, and another character's tragic death is undone.  Perhaps Benegal is saying that it's not the destination that matters so much as the journey; that regardless of whether these specific individuals live or die, the social issues raised by their stories remain real and meaningful. 

 

Yashpal SharmaYash

Peepli Live (2010)

पीपली लाइव

The best political satires, like Jaane bhi do yaaro, handle challenging subjects with wry humor, and yet manage to leave the audience feeling sad and aware.  Anusha Rizvi's debut film Peepli Live treads a similar delicate ground, offering a successful farce that nevertheless packs a meaningful punch.

Brothers Budhiya (Raghuvir Yadav) and Natha (Omkar Das) are struggling to stay afloat; the bank is about to foreclose on their farm.  They learn of a government program that pays a substantial sum to the families of farmers who commit suicide due to debt, and Budhiya convinces the hapless, melancholy Natha that taking advantage of this program is the best way forward.  A local newspaper reporter Rakesh (Nawazuddin Siddiqui) publishes a small piece about Natha's intentions, and before long the story is picked up by a star television reporter Nandita (Malaika Shenoy).  A vast media circus follows Nandita into Natha's remote little village as hundreds of reporters descend hoping for a piece of the sensational "live suicider" story.  But reporters aren't the only ones hoping to make hay out of Natha's plight - state politicians fighting a bitter election and even the national Minister of Agriculture, Salim (Naseeruddin Shah), all leap on the opportunity to spin the Natha story to advance their own agendas.  Meanwhile, Natha is bewildered by the flurry of attention - and doesn't want to die.

A subject like the problem of farmer suicides almost has to be handled with a satirical edge, or the film would be unbearably depressing.  And really Peepli Live is more about the press's sensationalist mentality and the government's fundamental insincerity than it is about farmer suicides or the plight of poor rural Indians.  Budhiya and Natha, while sympathetic, seem rather indolent; they are never once shown working a field, but are often shown smoking and gabbing with their neighbors.  Meanwhile the circus swarms around them.  The press are so desperate for an angle that reporters shoot film of Natha's clothesline and analyze his excrement.  The politicians scramble to one-up each other in disingenuous concern, showering Natha with useless gifts.  Everyone capitalizes on Natha's plight - reporters grabbing ratings, electioneers grabbing votes, and even Natha's fellow villagers who pitch vendor stalls and carnival rides to entertain the visiting throngs. Peepli Live presents all of these maneuverings with a healthy dose of humor, and the movie does offer quite a few wry smiles and even genuine laughs among them. 

Another of the movie's themes is the great gulf that exists between India's urban, urbane middle class and its rural poor.  On this theme Peepli Live's exploration is most layered - it relies not only upon the obvious clashes of culture, but also on subtleties of casting, costuming, and performance that make the audience's experience of this disconnect almost visceral.  In one scene the flawless line of trimmed whiskers of the Chief Minister's moustache presents a stark contrast to Budhiya's grizzled face and Natha's wild unkempt curls and beard.  The farmers stand rooted and hunched while the slick, tall Nandita strides around them.  Even the putative leader of the backward castes wears slick aviator sunglasses as he presents Natha with a gift of a television that Natha's hut lacks electricity to run.  The politicians wear neat, high-quality, expensive clothes; the reporters wear slick modern-style shirts and designer jeans; the villagers wear moth-eaten sweaters and rags.  In one scene, Natha slips and falls in a pile of dung, and then just gets up and keeps on walking.  It reminded me of the exchange in Monty Python and the Holy Grail - "How do you know he's a king?"  "He hasn't got shit all over 'im." 

Among the outsiders, only Rakesh begins to see across this great gulf, and to recognize the depth of the villagers' poverty not just as a vehicle for political advancement or ratings, but as a deep injustice and a real national crisis.  He takes an interest in the story of another Peepli farmer who lost his land to foreclosure, and now digs ditches just to sell the dirt - but, Nandita tells him, marketing research says the only bankable story is Natha's threatened suicide.  Peepli Live deals Rakesh an unutterably cruel blow that is both sucker-punch and wake-up call to the audience.  The abrupt change of tone is jarring, and yet it would be disingenuous of Peepli Live not to end with a dark and serious turn.  After all, if the audience gets to laugh all the way through the story and leave feeling cheerful, we've exploited Natha's misery just as surely as Nandita, Salim, and their ilk do. 

 

Garm hava (1973)

गरम हवा

While many fine movies have addressed the disruptive forces of Partition, M.S. Sathyu's Garm hava ("hot wind") is almost unique in its focus on the experiences of Muslims.  It is not by any stretch a cheery film - but there are some heartrending stories that nevertheless need to be told. 

The Mirza family is divided in the aftermath of Partition.  Though they have long made their home in Agra, the prospects for Muslims in post-Partition India are not encouraging, and some of the family want to start anew across the border in Pakistan.  Halim Mirza (Dinanath Zutshi), once a political leader fiercely determined to preserve a Muslim presence in India, has finally given up and fled.  This leaves his brother Salim (Balraj Sahni) as head of the household, looking after the family's shoemaking business and the haveli in which they live.  The business is struggling - many of the workers have left India, and some Hindus refuse to do business with Salim.  He cannot secure financing - lending to Salim is too risky, the bankers say, because other Muslims haven taken loans and disappeared across the border.  Soon the family loses the haveli as well - its deed is in Halim's name, and because of his emigration the government claims the haveli as abandoned property. 

As time goes on, the family's lot only worsens.  Unwilling to join a shoemakers' demonstration in favor of a lucrative government tender, Salim is locked out of the tender when it is granted.  Meanwhile, Salim's daughter Amina (Geeta Siddharth) nurses a heart broken by Partition.  She is in love with Halim's son Kazim (Jamal Hashmi), who is arrested when he crosses the border back into India to marry her.  Salim's son Sikandar (Farooq Shaikh), a recent graduate, cannot find work because of both anti-Muslim prejudice and the unstable economy, and becomes increasingly involved in politically radical activities. As the hardships mount, Salim and his wife (Shaukat Kaifi) consider joining Halim in Pakistan, but Agra is their home, and they are determined to stay as long as the dire circumstances will allow.   

The repercussions of Partition through the Mirza family are like fault lines, cracks in firm earth resonating outward from a single point of thunderous impact.  Though Garm hava traces each of these lines, it places the burden of all of them on Salim, and they are beautifully rendered in the sad creases of Balraj Sahni's face.

The Hindus who impede the Mirza family's efforts to right their economic ship are, for the most part, disembodied voices.  A banker who refuses to lend, a landlord offering exorbitant and discriminatory rental terms, an employer advising Sikander to go find work in Pakistan "among your own kind" - all these are dehumanized forces denying the Mirza family an honorable livelihood.  One of the few Hindus who is given a face, and some depth, is the wealthy businessman Ajmani (A.K. Hangal).  Ajmani certainly takes advantage of the Mirza family's straits - he buys the haveli on the cheap after the government confiscates it - but he also shows ambivalence about doing so, and attempts to support the family in other ways. His personal kindness to them, however, does not outweigh the demands of business.  The message may be that even Hindus who wish to extend a cordial hand to Muslims are constrained by the broader post-Partition climate. As a voice-over announces in the beginning of the film, "No one heeds the Gita; no one heeds the Koran" - and yet, the difference between these two texts both drives and limits the conduct of everyone in the new nation. 

The visual style of the film is arresting - artfully framed scenes full of contrast and visual symbolism reminiscent of Satyajit Ray.  Some of these scenes make use of the fine slits and shadows of the haveli's old purdah, which only the family's frail, aged matriarch still sits behind - the other women of the family move about the house freely among the men. The purdah itself represents the sharp line between the old and the new - the matriarch, too weak to leave the haveli much less flee India, cannot (or refuses to) fully fathom the depth of the changes wrought by Partition; on the other side of the curtain, the rest of the family struggles to adapt to them.

Garm hava also makes exquisite use of the beautiful monuments in and near Agra that were built by Muslims, such as the Taj Mahal and Fatehpur Sikri.  The explicit citation of these Muslim contributions to Indian pride and history is unsubtle, and the film acknowledges it explicitly in one of Halim's fiery political speeches shown in flashback early in the film. But it does conjure a pointed image - the possibility of India completely empty of Muslims, with these grand, breathtaking monuments standing in mute or even mocking testimony to the memory of an erased people.  The conclusion, in stark apposition to that image, must be that Muslims are too tightly woven into the fabric of India's history and greatness for there to be any sense or justice in driving them all out. 

The Blue Umbrella (2005)

Like his film Makdee, Vishal Bhardwaj's The Blue Umbrella is a story about a child, though it is not as explicitly a children's story as that wonderful fable.  Nor is it as decidedly a grown-up story as his Shakespeare adaptations Omkara or Maqbool.  However one characterizes this film, though, one thing is certain - I need to see more Vishal Bhardwaj films.  

In a picturesque town in the mountain state of Himachal Pradesh lives a little girl named Biniya (Shreya Sharma).  Biniya does what most little girls do - runs around and plays with the other children, and bargains for candy and treats with the keeper of the local snack stand, Nandu (Pankaj Kapur).  One day, on the mountainside outside the village, Biniya finds a beautiful umbrella, and is entranced by its sky-blue watercolors, delicate papery canopy, its bamboo ribs and sensuous ruffles.  When the Japanese tourist to whom it belongs finds her, Biniya trades her precious good luck charm - a bear claw - for the umbrella, and brings the marvelous artifact back to the village. 

There, Biniya becomes the center of all attention, as children and adults alike are fascinated by the umbrella.  Nandu covets it, and offers her all the toffees and biscuits she can eat in exchange for it - but Biniya isn't selling.  Then one day Biniya's heart breaks - she turns her back on the umbrella for a few short moments, and it vanishes.  When Nandu obtains a nearly identical umbrella - his is red - from a foreign seller, Biniya vibrates with rageful suspicion, and determines to prove that Nandu is a thief. 

There are so many marvelous touches in this short little film that it's difficult to single out a few without feeling guilty for giving others short shrift.  It is visually stunning, with a rich palate and carefully-constructed shots that deliver beauty and symbolism in equal parts.  In one scene, Biniya brandishes the umbrella like a kung-fu master to protect her older brother - himself a powerful champion wrestler - from a coiling cobra.  In another of the many lovely scenes, Nandu tries, without success, to bribe Biniya with a bunch of balloons.  The brightly colored balloons float slowly away like Nandu's dreams as he stands, small and beige and still, before the grey backdrop of a rocky waterfall. 

Indeed, Bhardwaj uses the picturesque village and its breathtaking natural surroundings to great effect, creating a dreamlike or fable-like quality even while presenting day to day village life in charming and engaging vignettes throughout the story. And while most of the characters are not fleshed out - the 90-minute running time does not afford very much deep character development - Nandu and Biniya are, as much through expressive silences as through any dialogue.  In this way, the film bears some similarity to Bhardwaj's delicious Makdee, presenting village life with some vividness, along with the maturation of a child's spirit in opposition to a stubborn and cruel adult.  Unlike the witch in Makdee, though, Nandu has some nuance of his own.  Sour as the pickles he relishes, this bitter little man is nevertheless moved to poetry by the beauty of the umbrella, which he rhapsodizes in loving terms.

The film has some themes in common with The Gods Must Be Crazy and other stories of that ilk, in which a mysterious and desirable object of foreign origin invades a peaceful, tightly knit community and breeds unrest and mistrust among its residents.  The umbrella surely carries the allegorical force of the variety of outside influences that exert themselves on Indian village life, both foreign influences and those from other sectors of Indian society.  And in Biniya's village, where the villagers routinely entertain tourists (and sometimes even con them), there is enough resilience that in the end, the umbrella's upsetting influence can be calmed, and the umbrella integrated into the village's peaceful fabric, as Nandu changes the name of his snack stand from his surname "Khatri stall" to "Chatri stall" (umbrella stall).  

Katha (1983)

कथा

With Sparsh and Chashme buddoor, director Sai Paranjpe had already proved to me her great skill at presenting down-to-earth, real, sweet stories about believable characters, so I came to Katha ("fable") with high expectations.  I was not disappointed.

Rajaram Purshottam Joshi (Naseeruddin Shah) lives in a chawl, a kind of boarding house common in Bombay.  A hardworking office clerk, Rajaram is pleased when he is promoted to permanent status at his company, and looks forward to celebrating with his neighbor Sandhya (Deepti Naval), a charming girl with whom he is quite obviously smitten.  Soon Rajaram's childhood friend Vashudev (Farooq Shaikh) - he prefers the hip nickname "Washu" - arrives, and casts a spell over all the residents of the chawl - including Sandhya.  He even cons Rajaram's boss, landing himself a job as Rajaram's superior.  Rajaram sees through his friend's slick-talking charm, but with his gentle demeanor he is powerless to stop the juggernaut that is Washu in pursuit of something - or someone - that amuses him. 

Just as in Sparsh and Chashme buddoor, Sai Paranjpe shows her gentle touch in Katha, offering characters who are real, relatable, and engaging.  In particular, just like Chashme buddoor, Katha offers adorable humor without outlandishness, real-life believable situations that make the audience laugh because it's not difficult to project them onto ourselves and our neighbors.  The portrayal of life in the chawl is particularly charming and satisfying, and is itself a reason to see the movie for anyone interested in workaday Indian life.  The chawl is a tight-knit community is like a small village or, as one character in the film analogizes, a great joint family, in which individuals and families live in small flats centered on a common courtyard and shared water and other utilities.  There is a bitter barren woman who yells at children playing in the courtyard; a newlywed couple who rarely emerge from their rooms but whose giggles can be heard through the closed shutters; a disabled man who asks incessant favors from every visitor; a grandma who cooks yummy snacks for every young visitor she receives; a couple, whose son is a doctor in Canada, who love nothing more than to show off their richly appointed flat and their refrigerator and television; and more.  Paranjpe paints the inhabitants of this microcosm with great vividness and affection, and their interactions are tremendous fun to watch. 

The enjoyable bustle of the chawl forms a delightful backdrop for the interactions of the main players (they even serve as a Greek chorus of sorts, especially in the film's wonderful songs).  The principals' performances are all executed without flaw, especially those of Naseeruddin Shah and Farooq Shaikh.  Naseeruddin Shah is at his droopy, sad-sacky best; Rajaram wears his frustration physically as Washu runs circles around him, projecting a confused and adorable mixture of disdain and admiration for his friend's antics.  And Farooq Shaikh nails Washu's puff-chested confidence to perfection.  In Chashme buddoor, Farooq's character was charming in part because despite being marginally smarter and more competent than his friends, he was still mostly a dork.   The same is true here, with a faintly sinister edge since Washu is, at base, a con-man.  But the joke which Paranjpe lets the audience in on - a joke that escapes Washu - is that Washu is nothing more than a small-time con, not half the player he thinks is.  For example, while Washu both cons and cuckolds Rajaram's boss, it's established early on that the boss is a weak target, not a very bright guy to begin with.  The result is a sense of desperation and cheapness about Washu, as if he's conned his own low-watt self right along with the easy marks he chooses.   

And so, as in the titular fable that provides the film's bookends - the story of the tortoise and the hare - Katha ends with the satisfying feeling that the wheel will turn and both Washu and Rajaram will get what they deserve from the universe.  And we, the audience, get a warm, delightful, and utterly charming film, another very, very fine feather in Sai Paranjpe's cap. 

Mandi (1983)

मंडी

Shyam Benegal films often explore broad social themes through a closely focused lens, in detailed studies of relationships among a handful of people.  Mandi ("market") is broader in scope, featuring a large number of characters whose relationships form an intricate web in which concepts like loyalty, morality, and duplicity are tangled.  A wry film with a healthy dose of black comedy, Mandi presents a sarcastic look at the tension between venerable but questionable traditions and modernity in its various forms. 

Rukmini bai (Shabana Azmi) is a madam who runs her brothel with a stern and demanding hand.  Aided by her melancholy houseboy Dhungrus (Naseeruddin Shah), Rukmini is protective of her girls, especially the brothel's virginal prize, Zeenat (Smita Patil), who is permitted to spend her days practicing her music and kathak instead of submitting to the kotha's more lascivious customers.  When a sanctimonious moralist, Shanti Devi (Gita Siddharth), flexes her political muscle in an attempt to drive the brothel out of town, Rukmini turns to her landlord Mr. Gupta (Kulbushan Kharbanda) for assistance, but finds in him only a conditional ally.  Caught in the crossfire is the town's mayor, Agrawal (Saeed Jaffrey), who is under the powerful Shanti Devi's thumb but also beholden to Rukmini, lest she air his own dirty laundry.  Rounding out the vast network of players is a terrified mute girl (Sreela Majumdar) married under pretext and sold by her new husband to Rukmini; a dirty-minded photographer (Om Puri) who prowls around trying to snap naked pictures of the tawaifs; a police-wala who does his "night duty" at the brothel; Agrawal's son, engaged to Gupta's daughter but madly in love with Zeenat; Shanti Devi's beleaguered assistant (Pankaj Kapur); a crazed and pious hermit (Amrish Puri) who shows Rukmini how to extract wishes from a variety of holy objects; and all the girls of the brothel (including Soni Razdan and Ila Arun), with their varying levels of satisfaction and loyalty to Rukmini.

That's an awful lot to squeeze into a film, and the squeezing does, to some degree, compress Benegal's characters into two dimensions.  The outstanding talent of the cast offers some compensation, though, allowing each character to be vividly rendered despite the tendency toward archetypy.  The darkly comic tone of the entire film enhances the vividness of the characterizations.  Without it, the film would collapse under the weight of its themes.  Delivering the tale with archness, teetering on the brink of tumbling over the top, allows the actors a breadth of expression that helps them pop out of the screen.  Amrish Puri's bug-eyed ascetic, Saeed Jaffrey's nervously buffoonish aristocrat, Naseeruddin Shah's droopy drunk - each plays to the back of the house in a departure from Benegal's usual hyper-realist style, yet the broad style is precisely what renders each of them memorable. 

Shabana Azmi's turn is the broadest of them all, and her performance is deliciously physical and yet still evoactively subtle.  Rukmini flits between angry snarls and obsequious smiles at a moment's notice, one minute dripping with maternal concern and the next barking orders like a foreman.  And she cannot resist a mirror, interrupting herself often, whether mid-tirade, mid-sob, or even mid-prayer, to smooth a stray strand of hair.  If there is an overarching mood to the changeable Rukmini, it's that she never for a moment displays an ounce of sincerity.  Indeed, most of the characters in Mandi are somehow scheming, double-crossing, or working both sides against the middle.  From the brothel girls whose loyalty to Rukmini is fragile and fleeting, to Zeenat who is not nearly as ingenuous as she seems, and even to the pompous Shanti Devi who (we learn from a throw-away line of Rukmini's) is having an affair with her own son-in-law, each of the characters is concealing a card or two.  And it is this ubiquitous duplicity that gives Mandi its entertaining edge -  it's hard not to laugh watching these colorful characters squirm, hedge, and lie through their teeth. 

Mandi's final scene is a little bit puzzling, but the ultimate message may be that degradation is in the eye of the beholder, and that perhaps the concealed hypocrisy of those who call themselves modern and upright is just as oppressive as the ancient traditions of the kotha.  Whatever the true moral of this amorality tale may be, though, it is a terrific film.