Filmi Geek

Pyar to hona hi tha (1998)

प्यार तो होना ही था

After some weighty discussions about feminism and Partition, it was definitely time to write about something with a bit more levity.  Fortunately Pyar to hona hi tha ("Love had to happen") was there to do the job.

Sanjana (Kajol), an orphaned Indian living in Paris, is engaged to her sweetheart Rahul (Bijay Anand).  Rahul's business takes him on a trip to India, where he is swept off his feet by a sexy modern vixen named Nisha (Kashmira Shah), and breaks his engagement to Sanjana.  Heartbroken, Sanjana heads to India to win him back.  On the way, she meets the roguish thief Shekhar (Ajay Devgan), on the run from his one-time friend, Police Inspector Khan (Om Puri).  Circumstances conspire to strand Shekhar and Sanjana in Shekhar's village, where she learns that inside scoundrel there beats a heart of pure gold.  Shekhar agrees to help her win back her lost love.  Sanjana and Shekhar pretend to be lovers to make Rahul jealous.  But as the film's title suggests, it's not long before the pretense becomes reality.

Pyar to hona hi tha is an innocuous and pleasant romance.  Like any romance, its charm depends upon the appeal of its principals, and they deliver well enough to make the movie engaging and sweet.  Kajol is talented at physical comedy, and that talent is put to good use in Sanjana's clumsy streak; her klutziness is cute and funny (though, unfortunately, it has no real bearing on the story).  And Ajay Devgan is better here than in some films where he broods and mopes incessantly; Shekhar is permitted moments of insecurity that show through his facade of cool.  The result is an endearing pairing that the viewer can really root for.  

I've been told that Pyar to hona hi tha is a remake of a Hollywood romance flick called French Kiss.  I've never seen the original, but most people seem to think the filmi touches are an improvement.  I guess that Bollywood really does have a way with romance.  Some of the better filmi elements in Pyar to hona hi tha are the songs, which are very cute; they are mostly innocuous pop, but surprisingly catchy.  There are entertaining picturizations too, especially the village engagement party and a trippy song that takes place on an airplane.  The latter includes segments having different musical styles, including a qawwali and a uniquely filmi adaptation of the Macarena.   The less felicitous additions from the filmi bag of tricks include a couple of lengthy car chases and a random, unnecessary shooting and hostage sequence in a shopping mall.  On balance, though, Pyar to hona hi tha offers a pleasant helping of everything one might require of a Hindi popcorn romance. 

Greta of Memsaab Story, with whom I watched Pyar to hona hi tha, considers the film a sentimental favorite; here's what she has to say about it. 

Mother India (1957)

The exquisite sacrifice that is the life of an Indian woman is a common and moving theme upon which many great Hindi films are based, from Amar Prem to Lajja.  And the mother of all these films may be Mother India, in which an Indian woman survives an almost unimaginable series of hardships and rejuvenates an entire village with her own backbreaking work, only to face the ultimate sacrifice - one she must make not only for her family, but for the good of the entire community.  

Radha (Nargis) marries the handsome Shamu (Raaj Kumar) and settles well into life with his solid agrarian family.  She soon learns, though, that her mother-in-law mortgaged the farm to pay for her and Shamu's lavish wedding celebrations.   The moneylender Sukhi Lala (Kanhaiyalal) claims three-fourths of the farm's produce, having tricked Radha's illiterate mother-in-law into signing a usurious contract.  As the family grows - Radha has three children - it becomes more and more difficult to subsist on their meager share.  The hardships multiply, leaving Radha and her children alone, homeless, and starving.  They survive through Radha's own tireless hard work, and her sons grow into strong young men, though each is scarred in his own way by the traumatic experiences of his childhood.  The spirited Birju (Sunil Dutt) is mischievous and temperamental; he is hungry to seek revenge from Lala, who still claims the lion's share of their produce.  The solemn Ramu (Rajendra Kumar) is protective of his mother and reflects her values, relying on hard work to make his way.  The tension between the two philosophies sets the stage for the film's ultimate conflict, as Birju's rash, violent nature clashes head-on with his mother's stern, grounded integrity. 

Mother India is a beautiful film, shot in beautiful brown and orange tones that both highlight the majesty of the rural Indian landscape and bring to life the grit and heat of working the soil.  The themes lend themselves to an abundance of iconic and symbolic images - Radha hauling a plow that is meant to be hauled by an ox; Radha standing neck-deep in flood waters, hefting her young children over her head on a pallet.  And Nargis, as Radha - really as the titular Mother India - is in absolute top form.  She is the epitome of badass filmi womanhood; she is simply fierce.  Nargis has crafted a performance that is melodrama at its finest, focused and heightened emotions that magnify the viewer's sense of Radha's experience.  Indeed, the multiplying calamities that befall poor Radha can be hard to watch - there are times when the story is so bleak it seems hard to carry on. 

Still, there is a current of hopefulness as well.  Radha's story is told in flashback; the film opens with the villagers asking Radha, now an old woman, to bless the inauguration of the village's new canal.  "You are the mother of us all," the villagers plead with the recalcitrant old woman.  And so the viewer knows, from the outset, that Radha not only will survive her trials, but will come to hold a revered place as the savior of the village.  Radha shoulders the burden of rearing her family and restoring a village upheaved, in what is surely a metaphor for the construction of modern India and healing the fresh wounds of Partition.  And so the film's message is, as it must be, that once Mother India has made the difficult decisions and painful sacrifices, those of her children that remain will be squarely on the road to prosperity. 

The film's second half is as much about Radha's sons as it is about Radha; much time is devoted to developing their contrasting approaches to reconciling with the past and preparing for the future.  The hot-headed Birju thirsts for revenge and lives in the moment; Ramu is practical, methodical, and hardworking.  The film is abundantly clear in its endorsement of the latter philosophy.  And yet as much as Birju frustrates her, Radha adores him; as in Deewaar, Mother India favors her miscreant son over her honest one.  The only limit Radha sets for her indulgence of Birju is one that reflects the film's girl power subtext:  "You may do as you like and I will always love you," she tells him, "but don't you dare ever disrespect a woman."

These comments are quite long enough, but I have to add a few words about Mother India's beautiful music.  The songs encapsulate the agrarian beauty of the film and present delightful tableaux of idealized life in a farming village.  While they don't stand alone - there are no singular dances or set pieces that stand out in my memory (except perhaps the Holi song) - they add texture, and in the film's darker moments, respite, to an already lovely movie. 

Koi ... mil gaya (2003)

कोई ... मिल गया

One of India's rare science fiction films, Koi ... mil gaya ("I've met ... someone") borrows elements from ET and Close Encounters of the Third Kind and mixes them with some more typical filmi conventions to create an innocuous and mostly forgettable drama. 

Rohit Mehra (Hrithik Roshan) is developmentally disabled; though a full-grown adult, he has the innocence and the intellect of a not-terribly-bright child.  He has a very sunny disposition, though, and a happy life, well cared for by his mother Sonia (Rekha) and loved by his friends, a group of young boys with whom he attends school.  When a young woman named Nisha (Preity Zinta) arrives in his town and strikes his fancy, Rohit's attempts to impress her raise the ire of the jealous bully Raj (Rajat Bedi).  Raj's taunting and harassment cast a cloud over Rohit's bright days.  One day, though, Rohit discovers and activates the apparatus his deceased father - a maverick scientist - had used to attempt to communicate with other worlds.  Rohit's transmission summons an expedition of aliens, one of whom befriends Rohit.  The alien's otherworldly power transforms Rohit from an awkward naif into a remarkable man of super-human strength and intelligence.  Rohit needs all that and more to put Raj in his place and protect his new alien friend from the destructive curiosity of the Earthly authorities who seek to capture and dissect him.   

Like its more action-oriented sequel Krrish, Koi ... mil gaya has something to say about the abuse of innocence at the hands of the hard, cruel world.  But the sentiment is an easy one, presented without the kind of sophistication that would challenge the audience to any kind of introspection.  There is nothing wrong with that - a film doesn't need to be hard-hitting and provocative to be entertaining.  And Koi ... mil gaya is endearing enough, though some would certainly find it unbearably cloying, and its unbeguiling tone makes it, at base, a film whose greatest appeal will be to children.  It's a fairy tale in which bullies are unrealistically mean, revenge is exacted in improbable ways, and fantasies are fulfilled without cost.

Even though the script doesn't give him much opportunity for nuance, Hrithik Roshan certainly earns high marks for the effort he puts into playing Rohit.  Hrithik's greatest strength as a performer is his outstanding physical skill; he is a superb dancer with masterful control of his body.  Here he uses that control to give Rohit an idiosyncratic physicality that is reminiscent of Dustin Hoffman's performance in Rain Main.  Rohit child-like mind is driven by emotion, and Hrithik translates that emotion into body language, throwing his shoulders back and his chin high in the air when Rohit is happy, slouching with despair when something doesn't go his way, wearing his constant puzzlement at the complex world of grownups.  It would be a treat to see Hrithik Roshan apply all this skill in a subtler vehicle. 

In Koi ... mil gaya, though, the important thing is that the meanies get what's coming to them and the cute little alien gets home, and there's never any doubt that these things will happen.  First, though, the audience must wait patiently through an improbable basketball match (why on Earth would a gang of 20-something bullies think that beating a group of tiny children at basketball was necessary to prove themselves reigning champs of cool?) and a few unnecessarily violent fight scenes.  Eventually, innocence and purity wins out, and justice is done - with a little magical help - with a few sweet and colorful songs along the way, like Haila haila.  You can't ask much more of a simple, derivative fairy tale.

Awara (1951)

आवारा

When I saw Raj Kapoor and Nargis in Shree 420 I was astonished in equal parts by the magnetism of the stars and by Raj Kapoor's mastery of the art of entertainment.  So I had high expectations for Awara ("vagabond") - perhaps too high, because while Awara was certainly an excellent film, it left me somewhat unengaged and disappointed.

Raghunath (Prithviraj Kapoor) considers himself a forward-thinking man, and bucks tradition and his family by marrying a widow.  When his wife Leela (Leela Chitnis) is kidnapped and then mysteriously returned, though, Raghunath is overwhelmed by the wagging tongues of his community.  He concludes, in shades of the Ramayana, that her honor is sullied, and casts her out of his household; she bears his son in squalor. 

Raghunath continues to rise in esteem and eventually becomes a judge who deals harshly with criminals, believing them born of bad blood and incapable of rehabilitation.  His son Raj (Raj Kapoor), meanwhile, under the influence of the same thug Jagga (K.N. Singh) who kidnapped his mother, grows up to be a crook and a bank robber.  When he is reunited with his childhood friend Rita (Nargis) - who happens to be Judge Raghunath's ward - sparks fly, and Raj is torn between his desire to be good enough for her and his belief, fostered by Jagga, that he is no good for anything other than crime.

Like Shree 420, Awara explores a wide range of social themes.  Dominated by ruminations on the question of nature versus nurture, it also addresses classism, injustice toward women, and other weighty issues.  But where Shree 420 clothes its missive to post-partition India in a truly entertaining package, watching Awara it is difficult to shake the feeling of being educated.  Everything, and everyone, is deadly serious.  The tone is set by Prithviraj's clenched jaw and furrowed brow and carried through Raj's dour sarcasm, a bitterness that sours even the film's tender moments.  The result is a movie that, despite the excellence of its craft, feels like work to watch. 

There are unquestionable strengths to Awara.  Raj Kapoor and Nargis turn in subtle and emotional performances.  And Nargis's character Rita is a rare treat - a young woman who also happens to be a lawyer.  She is cautioned against allowing her emotions (presumably a feminine weakness) to interfere with her rationality, but her introduction of compassion into the cold calculus of criminal justice is presented by the film as an unambiguous asset and the key to both Raj's and Raghunath's redemption.  This is possibly Awara's most radical idea, the notion that criminals should be treated as redeemable individuals with the potential to rehabilitate, rather than as the mechanical sum of their breeding and past bad actions. 

Awara also features a beautiful evergreen soundtrack, whose highlights include the title song, a creepy and gorgeous dream sequence in "Tere bina aag yeh chandni," and - especially - the cheeky "Dum bhar jo udhar munh phere,"in which Rita implores the bright full moon to give her and Raj some privacy for an amorous moment.  But the film's sweet, engaging, or moving moments just aren't enough to overcome the general tone of gloom and preachiness.  I realize that Shree 420 is an impossible standard to hold any film against (and that it was made after Awara), but Awara just misses striking that balance of offering its substantial message in a package that would make me want to watch the film again.  It's a great film in many ways, but just a little ponderous, a little off. 

Jab jab phool khile (1965)

जब जब फूल खिले

Sometimes a film can leave the thinking and feeling portions of my brain disaligned.  Such films are hard to write about.  Jab jab phool khile ("whenever flowers may bloom") is one such, with an anti-modernity  and possibly anti-feminist message that is hard for me to swallow.  And yet I loved the film for its emotion and tenderness, and I'm inclined to give it a pass for any moral aspects that don't set right with me. 

Rita (Nanda), having finished her studies in America, ventures to Kashmir for a little vacation time, and rents a houseboat from a simple local boy named Raja (Shashi Kapoor).  Raja is smitten instantly, and eventually a mutual affection develops.  Rita's vacation eventually ends, but she returns the following summer, this time in the company of the irritating Kishore (Jatin Khanna), the self-important dandy Rita's father wants her to marry.  After a showdown with Kishore, Raja declares his love, and travels to the city to present himself to Rita's family.  Rita dresses him in western finery and instructs him in some of her family's modern customs, but when Rita's father sets him up for an embarrassing evening, Raja realizes that he cannot adjust to Rita's world.  It's up to Rita to figure out a way to keep their relationship alive.

Jab jab phool khile pits the emancipated go-go 60s against good old fashioned country conservatism, and it's in no way a fair fight.  On the side of traditionalism we have the charming Raja, earnest, innocent, and handsome.  He looks after his pre-teen younger sister and manages their houseboat rental business with an ethic of hardworking honesty; he's not even comfortable accepting tips.  Meanwhile, we are shown very little of value in modernity and Westernization.  Rita may be educated, but she's vapid and selfish.  It's not Raja the country rube who is a boor, it's Rita, who abuses servants and whines petulantly each time she doesn't get her way.  Also on the side of modernity is the sniveling, entitled Kishore, not to mention Rita's wealthy scheming father, who is not satisfied merely to refuse to his daughter to Raja but must also put the rustic in his place.  The deck is stacked so heavily in favor of Raja's simple country living that there's no question which kind of life the film is advocating.  In one song, expressing his discomfort with the modern trappings, he even makes an explicit contrast between Rita's milieu and what is properly Indian life, asking "kaise bhuul jaaun ki main huun hindustani" - how can I forget that I am Indian? 

It's statements like that which make it hard for me to judge the apparently anti-modern, anti-feminist sentiments of the movie.  How can I forget that I am not Indian?  In the end, it's not my place to declare that this cautionary tale is too cautionary.  Rita's over-accessorized, Audrey Hepburnized 1960s splendor is appealing, but I don't know what the threat of western homogenization really looked like from the perspective of this film's original, intended audience.  And I don't think the film is necessarily saying that all Westernization or modernization is bad, just the all-or-nothing, un-nuanced brand adopted by Rita and her orbit. 

In real life, if a relationship between a "sophisticate" like Rita and a "bumpkin" like Raja were to have a ghost's chance of success, a great deal of compromise on both sides would be required.  It's certainly problematic and perhaps a little dissatisfying that in the end of Jab jab phool khile, it's Rita who makes all the sacrifices.  (Beth has more about this.) And yet somehow in the film's own narrative context it makes perfect sense.  Both Raja and Rita are extremely naive and narrow-minded; neither one of them is particularly good at seeing the perspective of the other.  But at least Raja has an excuse for his simplicity; in Rita, supposedly so worldly and educated, the presumption is less forgivable.  And Raja does try to join Rita in her world, even though he discovers that it doesn't suit him.  Of the two, he seems to be the one who has tried harder, done all the work, and done all the thinking for the both of them.  It seems only just that in the end he gets all the reward.

Jab jab phool khile is quite clearly the antecedent of the 90s hit Raja Hindustani, but it is by far the better and more delicate movie, without the masala excess of the more recent film.  The greatest strength of Jab jab phool khile is this:  Shashi Kapoor is simply a superb actor.  He registers Raja's emotional  transitions in the subtlest changes in his face - from wide open, boyish innocence to wounded mistrust to anger.  The scene in which he chastises Rita after his humiliation in the company of Rita's urbane family and friends is among the most moving in the film - the most explicitly anti-modern, anti-western views are given voice here - and Shashi delivers it perfectly, wringing tears from me even as I squirmed at his sentiment.  In the film's songs he is a bit raw and unformed; having not yet developed his own style, he channels his brothers in turn, now Raj's smooth sophistication, now Shammi's wild gyration.   In the dramatic scenes, though, he is fully in his own element, one of the finest actors there is.  Jab jab phool khile is a Shashi fan's film - he looks beautiful and does all the emotional heavy lifting - and it's as a Shashi fan that I most enjoyed it. 

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.

Maine pyar kiya (1989)

मैंने प्यार किया

Boy meets girl and they fall in love - but their fathers don't approve.  Driven by the power of their love, they determine through hard work and honest living to prove to their skeptical fathers that they are a worthy and true match.  Supported by the sympathy of a soft-hearted mother figure, a reliable friend or two, and even some assistance from the animal kingdom, love conquers all.  If Maine pyar kiya ("I've fallen in love") sounds like a film you've seen a few times before, that's because it is - there are no twists, no unpredicted outcomes, no surprises.  But that doesn't mean it can't be enjoyable. 

Kishen (Rajiv Verma) and Karan (Alok Nath) are old school friends who were once inseparable.  Now, though, a distance has grown between them, as Kishen has risen to success at the top of an urban industrial empire, while Karan toils away in his village mechanics' shop.  Still, some vestigial bond remains to connect them, and when Karan takes itinerant work abroad, he sends his daughter Suman (Bhagyashree) to stay with Kishen and his family.  Suman's warmth and sweetness makes her an instant hit in the household, as she charms Kishen's wife Kaushalya (Reema Lagoo), family friend Monahar (Laxmikant Berde), and, especially, Kishen and Kaushalya's son Prem (Salman Khan); Prem and Suman's instant friendship turns quickly to love.   While Kaushalya delights at their plans for engagement,  though, Kishen's scheming, greedy business partner Ranjeet (Ajit Vachani) throws a spanner into the works - he wants Prem to marry his own mercenary daughter (Pervin Dastur), so he convinces Kishen that Suman is a golddigger and Karan is trying to take advantage of Kishen's friendship by using Suman to get at his wealth.  Enraged, Kishen ejects Suman from his home.  Prem follows Suman to her village but finds that her father Karan is not any more inclined to the match than Prem's father Kishen was.  Prem sets out to show that he's no spoiled rich boy, proving his love for Suman through backbreaking hard labor - but the barrier of unwilling fathers may be more than even his strong arms can break down. 

Maine pyar kiya was a massive hit in its day, igniting the Suraj Barjatya hit machine that a few years later perfected the art of delivering sugar-coated confections in cinematic form with Hum aapke hain koun...!  If Maine pyar kiya stands up today at all, though, it is due to the infectious adorableness of its principals.  As a young man, Salman Khan on the screen is fresh-faced, earnest, and sweet; his shaky attempts at keeping "cool" don't even begin to hide his tender heart.  Meanwhile Bhagyashree shines with the cutest smile this side of Hema Malini - I could just have watched her beam for three hours and thoroughly enjoyed the film.  It's a shame that Bhagyashree's big screen career sputtered and stalled, as here she is every bit as radiant and cute as the likes of Juhi Chawla and Kajol, and she perhaps could have had a similar career arc to theirs. 

Bhagyashree's character, Suman, lacks much of a personality - though she's loyal, dependable, and gentle, there's not much fire or willfulness to her.  But no matter - Maine pyar kiya is not about people, it's about Themes - about the power of love, about the value of hard work, about the parental generation trusting young people to find their own way, and about the importance of being loyal to one's friends even in hard times.  And it's about kindness to animals - Suman and Prem are aided by a pigeon (called "Handsome") to whom Suman has been kind, and, notably, to whom Prem's nemesis (Mohnish Behl) has been cruel; the pigeon carries messages of love between Prem and Suman when they are separated, and takes a pivotal role in the film's climactic melee.  It's not at all hard to imagine why a film like Maine pyar kiya would have resonated with its audience; it's a film in which young people exercise their autonomy with resourcefulness and love, transcending barriers of wealth, and achieve an autonomous happy ending.

It's not a Suraj Barjatya film without an excess of cheerful songs, and Maine pyar kiya delivers, with a soundtrack by Raamlaxman that the composer raided freely for melodies and themes when writing the songs for Hum aapke hain koun...! some years later.  I like HAHK's songs better, but that may just be because that movie is a cherished favorite that I viewed early on in my filmi perambulations - or maybe because their picturizations have the benefit of the incomparable Madhuri Dixit, whom even Bhagyashree's undeniable cuteness can't touch.   Still, the music of Main pyar kiya is an overall plus for the film,  showcasing the sweetness of the actors and adding frosting to very, very light substance of the plot.  My favorite songs include "Kabutar ja ja ja" ("Go pigeon go," in which Suman's animal friend gets put to work), and a fantastic antakshari medley of classic songs.  (The weakness in the soundtrack is the opening song, a shameless rip-off of Stevie Wonder's "I just called to say I love you," which is a cloyingly bad song to begin with.)  For more on the music, please visit Sanket at Bollywood Music Club, who has also written about Maine pyar kiya today. 

Gunga Jumna (1961)

गंगा जमना

Some movies, I find, do not translate very well.  Gunga Jumna was a massive hit in India - but it left me somewhat cold. 

Ganga and Jumna are brothers living a hardscrabble village life.  Ganga spends his days working with his mother as a servant in the home of the zamindar's obnoxious family, while Jumna, a promising student, focuses on his schoolwork.  After their mother passes, Ganga pledges himself to supporting his younger brother as they grow to adulthood.  The adult Ganga (Dilip Kumar) is a spirited and hardworking fellow, unafraid to take on the zamindar when necessary, while his brother Jumna (Nasir Khan) is more measured and cautious.  Ganga sends Jumna to the city to study, and supports him with funds that he earns driving an oxcart and making deliveries for the zamindar.  But things get complicated when Ganga saves a local girl, Dhanno (Vyjayanthimala), from the zamindar's lecherous assault.  The zamindar (Anwar Hussain) gets his revenge by trumping up a robbery charge against Ganga, landing him in prison.  Upon his release, Ganga learns that his brother has become destitute, and attacks and robs the zamindar in a rage.  Soon Ganga finds himself an outlaw, and, with Dhanno at his side, he joins a gang of bandits camping out in the wilderness.  In the meantime, Jumna meets a fatherly police officer (Nasir Hussain) and becomes a police officer himself.  It isn't long before Jumna's professional wanderings take him back to the village of his birth, where he must square off against his outlaw brother, in a showdown between duty and family.

With its tale of brothers on opposite sides of the law, Gunga Jumna perhaps resonated with the house divided that was India in the years following independence and partition.  There's an allegory in the divergent personalities and approaches to life of the two brothers.  The social message is hinted by the brothers' names - they are named for the Ganges and Jamuna rivers, the mythological and geographical axes of India, the junction of which has a rich symbolism in Indian tradition and culture.  The suggestion may be that the nation's vitality springs from the juncture of the fiery passion of Ganga and the steady, duty-bound earnestness of Jumna. 

For me, though, the film's symbolic content was obscured by the fact that it was just a chore to watch. There were times when I was tempted to fast-forward through some excruciatingly slow, yet utterly predictable, sequences.  And the characterizations were too indelicate; Ganga is an unthinking idiot - he reacts to offense like a three-year-old, except that he's violent and anti-social - and Jumna is a feelingless android.  The result was that I didn't terribly care what happened to either of them, and couldn't get caught up in the allegory either.

Gunga Jumna does have its qualities.  There is enough substance to the story to make it compelling at times.  Dilip Kumar's performance is quite good, despite a lot of shouting - it is not his fault that his character is obnoxious.  Vyjayantimala's performance is outstanding - only during her emotional scenes did I feel any stirring within myself.  And the music is stellar.  A highlight in that department is a mujra by Helen - I've only ever seen her perform this kind of dance once before, and she's great at it. 

Helen:

(Gunga Jumna is available for download at Jaman.com.)

Shree 420 (1955)

श्री ४२०

This is the second time in a couple of months that I've watched a movie and loved it so much that I had to wonder why I didn't get to it sooner.  While the other one, Parvarish, was only a silly, fun piece of masala candy that tickled me for personal reasons, Shree 420 is one of the all-time classics of Hindi cinema, one that helped me understand why Raj Kapoor is Raj Kapoor, and why Nargis is Nargis.  And I can't believe I waited this long.

Raj (Raj Kapoor) is a guileless, carefree vagabond, wandering the streets of Bombay in search of work.  He has a college degree - he carries his diploma in his pocket, along with a medal for honesty that he earned as a child.  In his wanderings Raj meets a merry band of beggars and working folk, the den mother of whom (Lalita Pawar) is charmed by his innocence and takes him under her wing.  They live on the footpath in front of the home of the blustery tycoon Seth Dharmanand (Nemo), who is kept awake nights by the vagrants' cheery singing.  Raj also encounters the beautiful Vidya (Nargis), a down-to-earth schoolteacher who has fallen on hard times, selling her books and her trinkets to the local pawn dealer to make ends meet.  Sparks fly between Raj and Vidya, but Raj frets that he cannot offer her a financially stable future. Opportunity knocks when Raj meets the vampish, scheming Maya (Nadira), a greedy socialite who recognizes in Raj a talent that she can exploit to separate others from their money.  From Maya's small-time cons Raj graduates into full-scale employment as a master of fraud with Seth Dharmanand, selling bogus shares in bogus companies and running other big-time schemes.   (The film's title, "Mr. 420," refers to section 420 of the Indian penal code; "420" is vernacular shorthand for a crook or a con.)  Raj is making real money, but it may cost him Vidya, who doesn't fit into his high-rolling world - and who anyway wants nothing to do with Raj as long as he is a con-artist and a fraud.

Shree 420 is rich with symbols of the promise and pitfalls of post-partition India.  Raj's emergence at the beginning of the film from his rural ramblings into the hard bustle of Bombay represents the country's transition from its traditional grounding to modern government and economics - and it is no coincidence that Raj is immediately taken advantage of upon his arrival in the city.  There is a running semiotic pun based around Raj's honesty medal as he pawns it and redeems it; Raj's honesty itself is for sale.  For most of the film, Raj is caught between a traditional simplicity, represented by Vidya (whose name means "knowledge") and the glitter and spangle of high-tone, high-stakes capitalism, represented by Maya (whose name means "illusion, trick, deceit").   The film pits pure, hardworking, homegrown virtue directly against the exotic, westernized world of greed and fraud.   Ultimately the film weaves a complex and powerful social message, exhorting the everyday people - who in the film literally sleep on the doorstep of the fat-cat's opulent home - to work together to build an India that is modern and yet free of exploitation by that greedy element. 

The richness of the narrative and its symbolic arsenal is matched - even exceeded - by Shree 420's pure entertainment value.  Raj Kapoor is a masterfully physical performer, moving fluidly between Chaplinesque antics and Cary Grantish suavity as quickly as changing a mask (another of the film's recurring symbols).  He is a delight to watch.  Nargis, one of the greatest stars of the era, has an ineffable grace that transcends beauty, a riveting poise and a presence.  She ranges from firmly proud in her early meetings with Raj, to bashfully passionate as their romance develops, to heartbreakingly wounded when she is insulted by Maya.  In either of the stars' performances it is clear why this film is a revered classic.  Nadira is car-wreck compelling (and maddeningly sexy) in her career-defining vampish turn as the bitter, manipulative Maya (screencap below).  Finally, there are the film's timeless songs, from Raj Kapoor's iconic "Mera joota hai japani," to the tender declaration of love in "Pyaar hua ikraar hua," to the exuberant peasant dance of the vagrants in "Ramaya vastavaya," to Nadira's seductive call to the dark side, "Mud mud ke na dekh".   I haven't named them all and I don't doubt that someone will chime in with another favorite - they are all that special.   My friend Sanket at Bollywood Music Club has more about the delicious music of Shree 420

There are volumes more that could be said and have been said about this film, its place in Hindi cinema, and the significance of its social commentary.  But if you haven't seen Shree 420, don't spend any more time reading about it - just go and watch it. 

Kuch kuch hota hai (1998)

कुछ कुछ होता है

When I sat down to watch Kuch kuch hota hai ("something happens"), although I had seen nearly 100 Indian films, I was a Karan Johar virgin.  "K-Jo," as the filmmaker Johar is sometimes called - both affectionately and contemptuously - is a polarizing figure  among Bollywood fans.  He has created a number of massive hits, but some dismiss his work as "candyfloss" - emotionally manipulative, saccharine fluff.  Others adore it in spite of - or perhaps because of - the very characteristics that engender those criticisms. 

There was no particular reason that I'd missed the K-Jo boat; I hadn't deliberately avoided his films.  For a while I was under a self-imposed moratorium on Shah Rukh Khan (who stars in every one of Johar's films), but if a friend had invited to me to watch a K-Jo movie I would not have refused.  I just never got around to it.   When I decided it was time to take the plunge, I chose Kuch kuch hota hai, because it is the beloved favorite of several people who I think are really, really smart.  What I found in Kuch kuch hota hai is a film that is cheesy, sentimental, and manipulative - in all the right ways. 

Rahul (Shah Rukh Khan) and Anjali (Kajol) are college students, best friends, and friendly rivals.  The tomboyish Kajol is forever challenging Rahul to games of pick-up basketball - and winning - while Rahul, for his part, teases her mercilessly.  Enter Tina (Rani Mukherjee), the glamorous foreign-educated daughter of the school's principal (Anupam Kher).  She brings out the gentleman buried beneath Rahul's rough-and-tumble, boys-will-be-boys exterior.  Inevitably, they fall in love, leaving poor Anjali out in the cold, as she realizes that she is in love with Rahul as well. 

We know from the film's opening sequence - the college story is told in flashback - that Tina died shortly after giving birth to a daughter, whom she instructed Rahul to name "Anjali" after their college friend.  On her deathbed Tina wrote eight letters to be given to little Anjali on each of her first eight birthdays.  Now eight years old, little Anjali receives the final letter, setting forth her mother's dying wish: that Rahul be reunited with the elder Anjali.  Little Anjali hatches a scheme to fulfill Tina's request, with her spunky grandmother (Farida Jalal) as her partner-in-crime.  The conspirators have their work cut out for them; while it doesn't take much for Rahul to realize what he could have had in grown-up Anjali, in the meantime she has become engaged to a gentle sweet fellow named Aman (Salman Khan). 

The story may not sound like much, and its resolution holds no surprises, but the film's message is a bit refreshing.  Rather than supporting the romantic but depressing notion that there is just one perfect match, one true love, for everyone, Kuch kuch hota hai acknowledges that even romantic love can come in different forms, and losing one's true love doesn't necessarily mean never having true love again.  Rahul recites the old saw a couple of times, insisting that love is a once-in-a-lifetime venture - but he's proven gloriously wrong.  (The bloom comes off this rose somewhat when it is considered that the mature Anjali has shed her track suits and tomboyish ways for a sari and a job as an instructor of Indian classical dance; Rahul never noticed her until she transformed into a girl who couldn't beat him at basketball.) 

For me - as neither Shah Rukh Khan nor straight-up romance is really my cup of tea - Kuch kuch hota hai is not more than a solid timepass.  Still, I appreciate some of what sets it apart from other films of its ilk.  It has the standard college film conceits - the college is a place for basketball, track meets, cheerleaders, and dance competitions, but not much in the way of classes or studying.  There's also a comically bumbling principal and an overly flirtatious sexy teacher (who even gets her own leering sound-effect every time she takes the screen).   And it seems that every stop is pulled out in achieving the apex of Bollywood bombast - ominous thunderclaps to signal significant moments, swelling music playing out the characters emotions, glorious and lush wedding preparations, even divine intervention when needed.  Somehow, though, the film maintains a sense of humor, a tone of self-awareness.  It's over-the-top, but it's over-the-top with a wink at the audience.  Combine that with the sweetness of the story, and the result is that it's very easy to play along. 

(For a terrific analysis of Kuch kuch hota hai through the lens of postmodern theory, have a look at Meredith's post on the board she runs, the BollyWHAT? forum.)