Filmi Geek

Kannathil muthamittal (2002)

கன்னத்தில் முத்தமிட்டால்

As highly regarded as Mani Ratnam is, I have often been told that his Tamil movies are better than his Hindi ones. I can believe it. I have been rather hard on those of his Hindi movies that I have seen. Perhaps because they are so often ravingly praised, I have unfair expectations. They have struck me as uneven in tone, unsure what kind of movies they wanted to be, what message they wanted to send.

Kannathil muthamittal ("a peck on the cheek"), in contrast, is nearly flawless. It is a simple story, simply told, unburdened by melodramatic embellishments or unrealistic characters. These clean lines, these relatable characterizations, allow the movie to explore some large, dense themes without tying itself in intractable knots. Dil se obscures its examination of terrorism with Shah Rukh Khan's hammy and under-motivated stalker romance. Yuva is severely compromised by its absurd superman character who takes bullets and falls off bridges without ever wavering in courage or commitment. But Kannathil muthamittal ranges from an adopted child's search for her identity to the vicious horrors of Sri Lanka's internecine conflicts without ever losing its emotional mooring.

Shyam Benegal's movies often probe big, society-shaking themes and events through close studies of the experiences of a small number of people. One does not always need an expansive cast and an epic storyline to examine rangy ideas. Mani Ratnam succeeds with Kannathil muthamittal because it, too, focuses a tight lens on a small family. Thiruchelvan (Madhavan) and Indira (Simran) adopt a baby girl born in a Tamil Nadu refugee camp to M.D. Shyama (Nandita Das), who has fled the fighting in Sri Lanka between Tamil Tiger fighters and the Sri Lankan army.  On her ninth birthday, the girl, Amudha (P.S. Keerthana) learns of her adoptive origins, and demands to meet her mother.  Her parents, burdened by guilt and concern for their headstrong little girl, take her to Sri Lanka in search of Shyama.

It is arguably foolish of this family to walk straight into a war zone as they do, all for the demands of an imperious child. The film seems not to judge them for this bad decision, however.  We see Indira's anguish at Amudha's suffering, her guilt at perpetrating the implied deception of adoption, and her helplessness in the face of Amudha's drive; the little girl runs away from home twice, set on finding her own way to Sri Lanka, so it is hard to blame her parents for taking her there.  And the family seems genuinely unprepared for what they find there, as if the remoteness of the conflict from their comfortable air-conditioned Madras home left them with little awareness of it, no framework in which to form expectations.  They are naive in their bold forays, even while accompanied by a local guide (Prakash Raj).  They find themselves buffeted in the confusion of a flood of refugees, shelled by army artillery even as they flee their village.  They find themselves rubbing elbows with suicide bombers, and caught in the crossfire of rifle and grenade battles.  They even find themselves in the jungle, surrounded by suspicious fighters who point guns to their heads and demand they prove their loyalties.  In the Sri Lanka the family visits, violence is a way of life.

It is perhaps the film's main message that being aware of this conflict, telling its stories, is of crucial importance to the individual lives that are rent by it.  Thiruchelvan is himself a storyteller, a writer; if he had not been hearing and telling the stories of refugees in the camp where Shyama gave birth, he and Indira and Amudha would never have come together to form a family.  And so Kannathil muthamittal tells their story, Amudha's and Shyama's and Thiruchelvan's and Indira's.  It tells those stories, not with a sweeping focus that outlines the grand history of Tamil/Sinhalese conflicts, but with an intimate focus on a child's perspective.  In a child's eye, the violence is not only senseless, but irrelevant.  All that matters is the connections of love, the connections that bind families together. 

Much of Kannathil muthamittal's expression of the love in Amudha's family is told impressionistically during the movie's gorgeous A.R. Rahman songs.  In these stunning picturizations, Amudha dances and cuddles and plays with each of her parents (Indira in the title song, and Thiruchelvan in "Nenjil Jil Jil") across diverse, colorful dreamscapes like those of the songs of Dil se.  These picturizations are paintings in motion, visual poetry singing the family's love.   Another song, "Vidai Kodu," presents the harsh, dirty anguish of a vast train of refugees against the stark beauty of thunderclouds and wilderness.  Red clay soil and the army-green of tank convoys splash the backdrop of this canvas on which the brightly-colored clothes of the refugees are anything but cheerful.

This thematic juxtaposition between the vastness of the civil war and the depth of the family's love is what makes Kannathil muthamittal its own effective and moving story.  It is how the movie can say so much, without trying to do too much. Mani Ratnam's Bombay takes a similar approach, and is equally effective.  It is not for nothing that these are by far the two best I've seen of his movies.  It may also be not for nothing that they are both written and shot in Tamil.

Parash pathar (1958)

পরশ পাথর

Though perhaps lacking in the depth and multi-layered richness of his later films or his Apu Trilogy, Satyajit Ray's Parash pathar ("Philosopher's stone") is a simple, familiar story, delicately and charmingly told. Its everyman protagonist, Pareshchandra Dutta (Tulsi Chakravarty), is middling in every way - middle class, middle aged, spreading around the middle, a middling bureaucrat with a better than middling chance of losing his job in the near future.

When Pareshchandra finds a stone that can transform ordinary objects into gold, he begins to fantasize about how the windfall can change his life, and even his daydreams are modest. He imagines himself saluting an honor guard of Indian soldiers; he dreams of a garlanded statue in his memory standing humbly in a city park. Even when he leverages his easy wealth to a place of recognition and adulation in high society, he does so with positive, not negative, influence:  He supports cultural programs that celebrate Bengali heritage, and makes generous charitable donations even to the most humble of causes.  While he moves himself and his wife into a gracious bungalow, he maintains the same solitary servant (Jahar Roy) who had worked for him in his cramped, crumbling flat. This servant - hilariously - hurries to change clothes as he rushes from one role to the next, driver to butler to chai-server. Even as a grand man, Pareshchandra remains simply hewn and relatable.

How far out of his element Pareshchandra has ventured becomes clear when his young assistant Priyotosh (Kali Banerjee) tells him he has been invited to a cocktail party.  Pareshchandra beams like a child; he seems never to have experienced anything as thrilling as a cocktail party in his life, and he skips from the office exclaiming "Cocktail! Cocktail!", trying on the unfamiliar idea with delight. At the party, though, he is awkward and unsuited.  He fails to make conversation with any of the other guests. He becomes desperately drunk (in a drunk scene too vividly real and viscerally stomach-churning to be especially funny), and in a frantic bid to remain interesting to the high-society crowd, reveals the supernatural source of his wealth.  Pareshchandra's downfall from here is unsurprising to anyone familiar with this kind of story, from any culture.

In the greater society's response to this revelation of instant gold for the taking, Parash pathar finally begins to take on some of the broader allegorical significance that one expects of Ray films. The rich react with greed (which the modest Pareshchandra had himself mostly avoided), and society at large reacts with hysteria, throwing the gold market into chaos.  It is easy to read this as a thin allegory for the function of world economies, especially for a film made at a time when many nations were debating the abandonment of the gold standard (though India itself was on a different precious-metal standard, silver).

For the most part, though, Parash pathar is a straightforward, unnuanced, and very funny fable about the dangers of greed and the non-negotiable truth that there is no such thing as a free lunch. What makes it most enjoyable are the touches of Ray's nascent craft - his use of surprising camera angles, a restrained and unusually light and evocative soundtrack, and his willingness to let Tulsi Chakravarty play to the cheap seats. Chakravarty is by no means a pretty man, but he is a master of broad, expressive physical comedic acting. His bulging eyes, fishy, fleshy lips, and enormous pot belly are almost characters in their own right. The way Charkavarty controls them, delivering their lines in perfect complement, elevates this simple fable into memorable cinematic and comedic art.

Bhumika (1977)

भूमिका

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

Charulata (1964)

চারুলতা

Among the many trademark expressions of Satyajit Ray's artistic genius is the exploration of a singular imprisonment:  that which confines the minds of bright young women in the households of rich, intellectual, Victorian-era high society.  Ray's sumptuously-appointed Victorian interiors stifle sumptuously-dressed young Bengali women, and hint at a kind of oppression particular to the upper classes.

In both Ray's Ghare baire and Charulata, a man concerned about the loneliness and intellectual satisfaction of his young, intelligent wife attempts to broaden her sphere by introducing her to a vibrant outsider.  In both movies, the foundations of identity and home and marriage are shaken, with catastrophic results.  And in both movies, the counterpoint of relationships is a proxy for the the complex dance of East and West.  In Ghare baire, the tension is epitomized in the woman's English studies and repetition of an English song.  In Charulata, it is captured in (among other ways) a scene very early in the movie, in which the titular Charu (Madhabi Mukherjee) peers through lorgnettes between the slats of the shuttered windows, watching a stereotypically ordinary Bengali man strolling by.  Something about him - his freedom, his ordinariness, his Bengaliness - captivates her attention, and she flits bird-like from window to window in her lushly filigreed European parlor to keep her gaze fixed upon him.  

Charu's husband Bhupati (Sailen Mukherjee), insted of inviting her to join his world of politics and newspaper editorials, indulges Charu's love for literature though he does not share it.  Curious to know whether she harbors real literary talent, Bhupati enlists his dreamy, indolent cousin Amol (Soumitra Chatterjee) to teach and encourage Charu to write.  The result of this experiment is both affirming for Charu, when her writing is successfully published, and devastating, when her growing love for Amol threatens her identity and her marriage.  The movie concludes on an ambiguous note, without resolution for Charu and Bhupati.  And Charu's literary and emotional awakening reminds me - as stories in this vein so often do - of Kate Chopin's The Awakening, whose protagonist has nowhere to go but into the sea once she has tasted freedom of spirit and body and mind.  Charu's ending is less tragic, but it carries just as strong a sense that there is no returning to her old life.  It takes only a tiny gesture to release a bird from its cage; coaxing her back in is another matter entirely.

As for the catalyst of Charulata's awakening, Amol himself is detached, sarcastic, even bratty.  Charulata's love for him reflects  her own immaturity more than a real emotional connection.  This is not a tragic love story of soulmates kept apart by the deep injustice of circumstances or society.  Rather, the story presents a talented but incompletely formed young woman with a sort of jealously competitive crush on a young man whose only advantage over her (and it is not an inconsequent advantage) is that he is male, and therefore more worldly and educated and confident than she.  Despite his own immaturity and indolence, however, Amol represents the hometown side in the East-West struggle that threads through the film. He wears Bengali clothes and writes in Bengali.  He sings Rabindrosangeet - even his "Ami chini go chini," nominally a love song to a foreign woman, is delivered with a sarcastic, mocking air.  He even refuses a generous opportunity to travel and study in Europe.  All of this is in stark contrast to Bhupati, in shirtsleeves and suspenders, penning English-language newspaper editorials about the English politics of the English rule over Bengal.  When Bhupati chides Amol for his literary passions, insiting that politics is far more important and real, Amol smirkingly plays "Good Save The Queen" on the piano.

The pleasure of Charulata, and indeed the pleasure of any Ray film, lies in the density of content and meaning that is packed into a movie of relatively few words. An incredibly rich, layered assemblage of visual imagery, subtle cues, and symbolism paints a story that operates on multiple canvases at once.  Commentaries on the value of literature and the futility of politics, on the tension between Bengali and European modes of thought, on the nature of youthful infatuation and ambition, on the frustrations of the idle upper-class life especially for women, all these threads mingle and cross at many points of juxtaposition and harmony.  Recurring symbols like Charulata's birdcage, stormy weather, and the newspaper itself highlight the movie's important themes.  One of the most touching visual metaphors contrasts Amol's confident, fluent writing with Charu's initial halting effort; when he writes, the words flow out of the pen in an effortlessly beautiful script, while her words scratch and blot the page.

Unlike movies made by mere mortals, where emotions are too often spelled out in explicit, expository dialogues, Ray requires you to divine characters' internal states of mind from expressions and circumstances.  He demands of his audience a great deal of thought, empathy, and theorizing.  The result is a movie-watching experience more akin to voyeurism than to being told a story.  It is both unsettling and compelling, and it is what makes Ray's movies so deliciously rewarding of rewatching.  Ray's films are packed with overloaded symbols, subtle cues of meaning, visual metaphors, and allegories that operate on multiple levels.  Charulata, in this respect, is perfect vintage Ray - a beautiful and beautifully crafted movie that reveals more and more of its richness with every viewing.

Sadma (1983)

सदमा

When I was in college, I participated in a group-authored comic-fantasy story.  We would gather in the dorm lounge and scribble in our large notebook, sometimes collaborating, sometimes each of us writing a chapter on her own.  Once, one of the authors wanted to change the sex of her character from male to female. To make this happen, she caused his horse to gallop through a "Plot Device" - that is what she called it in the story, a cloud of mist into which Lord Brandon rode, and from which Lady Brendan emerged.

Balu Mahendra's Sadma ("blow, shock, trauma") relies on an equally expedient plot device, a bit of filmi-medicine sleight of hand that turns Nehalata (Sridevi) from a vibrant young woman into a mental seven-year-old trapped in a grown-up's body. A similar device repairs her mind at the film's end, with a convenient amnesia for the time she spent mentally as a child.  But if these absurd expediences are forgiven, if one gives oneself over to the conceit and goes with it, the reward is a touching, subtle, and moving story about love, and bonding, and the nature of nurture.

I went into Sadma with unfairly low expectations.  Beth had seen the Tamil original, Moondram pirai, and had some serious problems with it. Meanwhile, I was fettered by the assumption that even Sridevi's best movies are dire and unrelatable to non-Indians like myself; my experience with Lamhe, another movie so often cited as a highlight of Sridevi's career, had confirmed this feeling. As I began watching the movie, I tweeted:

I was quite wrong; Sadma is not downhill from there.  It is often disturbing and hard to watch; the ending is magnificently brutal.  But it is marked by splendid performances and a surprisingly delicate touch.  I have seen a few people comment that Kamal Haasan's character, Somu, is creepy and inappropriate in his care for the childlike Nehalata.  But I do perceive no creepiness in Somu at all.  To the contrary, he is consistently shown to be a good-hearted, straight-laced fellow - he eschews alcohol, is inexperienced with sex, and refuses the aggressive advances of his boss's wife Soni (Silk Smitha).  His concern and caring for the fragile, damaged Nehalata is evident from the moment he encounters her in the brothel she was sold to after being kidnapped by some unnamed evildoer.  And throughout the film, Somu's love is patently paternal, never lewd or inappropriate.  In just one sequence does Somu view Nehalata as a lover, and this comes in a dream, which he seems eager to shake off on awakening.  The fantasy seems to make Somu as uncomfortable as it makes the viewer.

The sweetness of the relationship between Somu and Nehalata is epitomized the adorable song "Ek dafa ek jungal tha," in which Somu acts out the panchatantra fable of the jackal who fell into a vat of blue dye and briefly fooled the rest of the jungle's animals into treating him as a god.

 

I am not crazy about the filmi mode of presenting mental illness (or in this case, traumatic brain injury) in the form of arrested development, even though I have seen it used in some very good films.  Diya Mirza plays such a character in  Tehzeeb, where the device a bit of a weakness and distraction in an otherwise excellent movie. In the much older Bahurani, Guru Dutt's rendering of the same deficit is touching, and works as well as it does partly because of its allegorical value.  Here in Sadma, it is more contrivance than symbolism; it does not seem to carry any particular emblematic meaning, but rather provides a canvas on which the movie's touching relationship is painted.  Sadma is widely viewed as one of the best performances of Sridevi's career, perhaps because of the challenge of portraying the unrealistic deficit in a believable way.  Sridevi meets that challenge more than adequately; even in her more typical roles she often has a woman-child quality to her performance, and Nehalata is the quintessence, the distillation of such characters to pure crystalline form.  Sridevi's performance is remarkably consistent and unselfconscious, free from winks at the audience or inappropriate moments of preternaturally adult behavior.  The performance works, and is satisfying, sympathetic, and moving, despite the inherent weakness of the device itself. 

Woven through Sadma are several coarse threads that contrast with the fine tenderness of the relationship between Somu and Nehalata.  The sad, desperate Soni flails about for escape from her decidedly untender marriage to Somu's employer.  Her breathless, brazen attempts to seduce Somu are distressing to watch.  And Soni's erotic dream about him, which from a pure marketing point of view is merely an excuse for a sexy Silk Smitha item number, nevertheless highlights the extreme disconnect between her desires and the plodding reality of her life. 

 

Soni's pathetic overwrought worldliness casts Nehalata's innocence in sharp relief.  Contrasting along a different axis is the lecherous Balua (Gulshan Grover), who exploits Nehalata's childlike mind to take advantage of her adultlike body.  There is contrast, too, between Somu's earnest goodness and the boozy appetites of his friend Paintal, who drags Somu to the brothel where he first encounters Nehalata and resolves to rescue her.  The roughness of these stories makes the warmth and sympathy between Nehalata and Somu that much more gentle in contrast; Somu's home becomes a haven in which gentle fables can be told and puppies played with in peace, while the harshness of the world remains outside.  These tendernesses - especially the tenderness with which Kamal Haasan renders Somu - makes the unutterable cruelty that the film does to Somu in its climax all the more vicious a sucker punch.  Haasan's performance in the film's final minutes is truly memorable, rendered in pure emotion and without background score apart from the driving beat of the rain and the engine of the train taking Nehalata away from Somu forever.

 

 

Kismet (1943)

क़िस्मत

Gyan Mukherjee's taut, bold drama Kismet ("fate") was a mega-hit in its time, and held the crown of the longest-running movie for more than three decades before being deposed by Sholay.  Even 70 years later, it's not hard to see why.  Kismet is fascinating, influential, and even subversive.  Ashok Kumar delivers an engaging performance as a morally ambiguous character.  The songs are stirring - and, in one case, gutsy.  And the film introduces Hindi-movie audiences to a number of devices and themes that resonate through the movies for decades to come.

Shekhar (Ashok Kumar) is an unrepentant thief.  Released from his third stint in prison, he banters with the inspector (Shah Nawaz) that he'll be back soon enough, and heads right back to his pickpocketing life on the streets of Bombay.   Soon Shekhar meets a sad theatrical performer named Rani (Mumtaz Shanti).  Rani, a former lead dancer, suffers from a leg injury that relegates her to the side of the stage, as a backup singer.   Shekhar is moved by Rani and her troubles, and gives her an extravagant necklace that he steals from the wife of the theater owner, Indrajit (Mubarak).  When this thievery is discovered, Rani feels betrayed by the man she thought was an angel.  But Shekhar is determined to care for her - he wants to steal enough to pay for a surgery that will restore Rani to her former glory as a dancer.  Shekhar escapes from custody, intending to turn himself in after carrying off one last heist for Rani's sake. 

Roshmila Bhattacharya's article on Kismet (captured and linked by Memsaaab) notes that Shekhar is not a hero but an anti-hero.   A nearly remorseless criminal, Shekhar is nevertheless a charming gentleman with a heart readily moved by the suffering of others.  Shekhar's sympathy for the sad plight of Rani's father (PF Pithawala), an alcoholic former music-master who holds himself responsible for Rani's injury, leads him to his initial acts of kindness.  And Shekhar's love for Rani drives him both to donate the proceeds of his thievery and, eventually, to go straight. There are some genuinely touching scenes as Shekhar, the criminals he associates with, and even the police inspector realize that love for a woman has inspired him to mend his ways where even multiple imprisonments could not.  Bhattacharya credits the fresh, bold, subversiveness of this character with the immense and unexpected popularity of the movie.

Much of what is moving about Shekhar emerges from the gentleness of Ashok Kumar's performance.  Writing on Indian films tends to indelibly attach certain labels to certain actors; Ashok Kumar is often heralded as a "natural" actor, but nowhere more than in Kismet is the aptness of this label apparent.   Kumar has crept up of late to become one of my favorite actors.  Here, in the rising arc of his stardom, he is no less fascinating.  His performance in Kismet has less gravitas than he shows later in his life; the performance is more tentative, and perhaps more deserving of the tag of "natural" acting.  Despite the drama inherent to his profession and the melodrama that swirls around him, Shekhar moves through the story like an ordinary man.  His young face is fresh, open, and honest - Kumar emotes, but does not play to the back of the house, does not amplify emotions in the classic melodramatic style.

The naturalness of Ashok Kumar's performance is even starker in contrast to Mumtaz Shanti, who as Rani gives a true midcentury melodramatic turn.  Her performance is classic soft-focus tragic acting, gazing moist-eyed at an imaginary horizon while delivering words of hopelessness in slow, gauzy, breathy tones. This is not a style I normally find effective; it tends to feel anemic and mealy, and here it renders Mumtaz Shanti the weak link in an otherwise superb movie.  But it is a matter of style; it is certainly of its time and place, and in the context it is not too terribly distracting.  And on the rare occasions when she smiles, as in the movie's gorgeous lullaby "Dheere dheere aa re badal," Mumtaz Shanti is radiant.

Shekhar's heroic criminality is not the only boldly subversive element of Kismet.  Rani's sister Leela (Chandraprabha) becomes pregnant by her lover Mohan (Kanu Roy), the son of Indrajit, who opposes their marriage because of Leela's poverty; he cruelly informs Rani that he can get a 10,000 rupee dowry from another girl.  Not only is Leela not punished for this transgression, but her pure heart earns her a happy ending with Mohan.   (It is both moving and fascinating that in confessing her pregnancy to Mohan, Leela cannot bring herself to say she is going to be a mother; instead, she scratches the word "maa" into a wall with her fingernail.) 

Even more subversive is the magnificent patriotic song, "Door hato aye duniyawalo, Hindustan hamaara hai."  Bhattacharya's article claims this aggressively nationalistic and anti-colonial song got past British censors because the only nations it identifies by name are Germany and Japan, Britain's enemies in the war which was then raging around the globe.  This seems too facile to me; that one line doesn't erase the otherwise obvious pro-independence message of the song (whose set features an enormous map of pre-Partition India).  Perhaps the censors were somewhat sympathetic to the cause of independence; or, perhaps they really were too complacently paternalistic to see the song as a rabble-rousing threat. 

 

Finally, Bhattacharya credits Kismet with introducing Hindi cinema to a number of tropes and themes that resonated so with Indian audiences as to become a staple of Manmohan Desai and other filmmakers throughout the years.   Principal among these is the backstory of Indrajit's wayward son, Madan (Mehmood in his first role!), who disappears as a young boy and is reunited with his family at the movie's end, identified through such devices as a tattoo and a locket, which are now masala clichés.  (No points to the seasoned filmi fan for guessing which character Madan grows up to be.)  It may be correct that Kismet marks the first time such a story was presented in an Indian movie.  But given the strong cultural resonance and enduring popularity of such concepts, it's difficult to believe that they don't have their origins in older stories that are woven into the tapestry of India's many cultures.  Isn't Karna of the Mahabharata raised apart from his brothers, only to learn of his true parentage as an adult? 

Even if it does draw on earlier sources, though, Kismet clearly blazed a path that thrilled audiences and that filmmakers returned to for decades to come.  Shekhar is a model for numerous filmi incarnations of the rogue with a heart of gold (surely also an ancient archetype).  For instance, a scene in which he pleads with the inspector to release him - asking for 48 hours to save Rani with a promise to turn himself in -  is nearly quoted in Tezaab with Anil Kapoor.  There must be countless other references over the past 70 years, direct and indirect, to this fascinating and influential  movie. 

For information on how to watch Kismet with subtitles, see Memsaab's post about the movie. 

 

Aradhana (1969)

आराधना

There is a subgenre of Hindi movies in which horrible things happen to blameless, flawless women.  Canonical among these is the classic Amar prem, in which Sharmila Tagore plays a saintly prostitute with an apparently limitless capacity to endure pain, and Rajesh Khanna plays her philosophizing patron.  Aradhana ("worship") features the same stars and explores similar thematic space - a woman endures terrible misfortune, yet maintains grace and dignity throughout. Her reward for all this forbearance is the ultimate prize for women in this sort of movie: recognition of her status as a mother.

 Aradhana's first hour is an appealing, uncomplicated romance in a picturesque mountain town. A dashing air force officer, Arun (Rajesh Khanna), falls in love with Vandana (Sharmila Tagore), the charming daughter of a doctor. Not a lot of substance happens, but the courtship is a pleasure to watch, packed with lovely songs and glorious scenery. And I mean glorious scenery even apart from Sharmila Tagore herself, who certainly is good enough to eat, whether being coyly charmed by Arun as he serenades her on a train in "Mere sapnon ki rani kab aayegi tu,"

 

or dancing playfully in the snow in "Gun guna rahe hain bhanware."

 

After a whirlwind courtship of just a few days, Arun and Vandana are caught in a rainstorm, and allow their passion to get the better of them in one of the hottest sequences I have ever seen in any movie, Hindi or otherwise - the superb song "Roop Tera mastana." Go ahead and watch this one. Really. I'll wait. If you've not seen it before, you need to, and if you have, isn't it time you watched it again?

 

This gorgeously erotic single-cut sequence conveys tremendous desire and intensity. The dim firelight, the fine sheen on the actors' skin, the slow deliberation of their movements, their locked gazes - all these elements combine for a sensuous, thrilling several minutes of cinema.  I've said before, I am not a great fan of Rajesh Khanna, but even I have to admit that he's downright spicy here.  Even throughout the rest of the movie he's not that bad - he occasionally flirts with the kind of droopy-lidded, mumbly frogginess that I dislike about him - but in this song he simply fires on all cylinders.  The song isn't lip-synced - Arun doesn't sing it to Vandana, it's just playing as the backdrop for their desire - and this enhances the intensity and realism of the sequence. It's just phenomenal.

It is also very nearly the last happy moment of Aradhana. Arun is killed in action before he and Vandana can be married, but she is carrying his child.  The boy is adopted by a sympathetic man, Saxena (Abhi Bhattacharya), who allows Vandana to serve as the boy's nurse and governess, so that she can stay close to him and help fulfill Arun's dream that the boy grow up to become a fighter pilot.  Soon, Saxena's lecherous brother-in-law tries to have his way with Vandana, and is killed in the resulting scuffle with Vandana and the child Suraj. Vandana takes responsibility for the death, and is thrown in prison for a dozen years.  Now she has no way to watch over Suraj, and no hope that Suraj will ever know that she is his mother.

Vandana's suffering is tempered by the extraordinary kindness shown to her by two men.  The first is Saxena, who allows her to stay close to her child and care for him.  Saxena continues to believe in Vandana after her conviction for murder, saying that he can see in her eyes the purity of her soul and her intentions.  Then, on her release from prison, her jailer (Madan Puri) extends another remarkable kindness, inviting Vandana to join his household, as his "sister", to help look after his daughter Renu (Farida Jalal).  Like Saxena, the jailer perceives and is moved by Vandana's purity and dignity, despite the poor hand she's been dealt.  These phenomenal kindnesses temper the harsh cruelties that Vandana endures.  The universe is not blind to Vandana's goodness, and this fact balances Aradhana's tragic elements and makes the message bearably somber, rather than unbearably sad.  Even though life may take dreadful turns, if you endure them with a pure heart, the karmic balance is restored over the course of a lifetime. 

The tone of Aradhana shifts between realism and melodrama, sometimes abruptly, but the changes are not distracting.  Rather, they make the movie operate on two levels.  In its more delicate, realistic moments, Aradhana is a sad story about a very likeable woman and the losses she endures over her liftime.  The movie also invokes some of the usual improbable filmi tropes, the most notable of which is that Renu's beau is Vandana's lost son, Suraj, now grown into a dashing fighter pilot who is the spitting image of his father (and is of course also played by Rajesh Khanna).   When it becomes more filmi, Aradhana evokes its grander themes of balance, purity, and the dignity of motherhood.  And it works splendidly on both levels, not least because Sharmila Tagore is a skilled actor who shifts effectively between these two storytelling modes.

Just as the mean realities of Vandana's life are tempered by the kindnesses and redemption she experiences, so the tragic second half of the movie is balanced by the frothy, adorable charms of its first half.  Although there is a part of my brain that feels I should not be thoroughly charmed by a movie in which a woman's only joy and ambition is to be recognized as a mother and fulfill her dead husband's egotistical dream of molding his male child in his own image, I just can't get too worked up about that.  After all, it's just one story about one woman, and given everything that she endures, it's not a terrible thing for her to have a relatively simple and sacrificing approach to happiness.  And besides - Sharmila Tagore! 

As if the pleasure of Sharmila Tagore weren't enough, there's a charming appearance by Filmi Geek favorite Ashok Kumar as Arun's commanding officer, who seems mostly to drink scotch, play billiards, and dispense avuncular advice.  This role is delightful, very similar to his hilarious role in Chhoti si baat.

The result is a very satisfying movie with lots to sink one's teeth into, the perfect blend of romance, tragedy, levity, and sexiness, all packaging a thoughtful message and showcasing a whole lot of pretty. 

 

Satte pe satta (1982)

सत्ते पे सत्ता

As I mentioned in my recent review of Sridevi's superb English Vinglish, as a non-Indian, an  outsider and relative newcomer to Hindi movies, I lack the nostalgic perspective that infuses and informs the desi experience of certain movies.  It is a great pleasure and fascination for me to learn about the movies that give my desi friends and acquaintances that magnificent nostalgic thrill. And so I love to watch the old favorites that would have been a part of my childhood had I grown up with Hindi movies.  When I tweeted about watching Satte pe satta ("seven for seven"), I learned that this outrageously silly movie was one of those favorites so cherished by Indians roughly my age, and their delight in remembering it made watching this movie even more fun than it already is on its own.

Amaluu's thorough and loving tribute to this movie handily provides a detailed summary of its story along with many screencaptures.  In short, the movie starts as a quotation of Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, and then takes a decidedly filmi turn.  Ravi (Amitabh Bachchan) is the eldest and closest to civilized of a pack of seven brothers who literally live in a barn.  Ravi's six brothers are poorly socialized squabblers who are pathologically afraid of bathing.  Ravi meets Indu (Hema Malini), and woos and weds her.  Indu is horrified by the pigsty of a homestead and its denizens, but she gamely sets about civilizing them.  Meanwhile the boys meet a group of girls they take a shining to, who are caretakers to a paraplegic heiress named Seema (Ranjeeta Kaur).  Seema's uncle, Ranjit Singh (Amjad Khan), wants her dead, hoping to get his hands on her fortune.  Singh hires a vicious mercenary, Babu (also Amitabh), who just happens to be a dead ringer for Ravi.  Singh's men kidnap Ravi, and Babu infiltrates the family hoping to get his chance to off Seema.  But the warmth of the family's love for each other gets under Babu's skin, and his second thoughts lead him on the road to redemption.

There is so much to love in this hilarious, delightful movie.  The antics of the six brothers are a riot, from  prancing about in their chaddees to wrecking the house in sprawling melees in which they hurl food, flour, and even livestock at one another.  These scenes are marvelously choreographed and a pure belly laugh to watch.  All six of the brothers are terrific, but Shakti Kapoor especially stands out in a rare nonvillanous appearance. Amitabh is a treat, too, showcasing his talent for comedy instead of his angry young man avatar.   The scene in which Singh gets Ravi drunk is an absolute scream, one of the funniest drunk scenes I've ever seen in any language.  And Amitabh delivers as expected the film's many songs - his arms really do go on for ever and ever.       

 

Hema Malini is a perennial favorite in Filmi Geek's house, and she delivers amply here, funny, charming, gorgeous, and sweet. 

(I want to be that rose.)  Indu's arc, of course, is problematic if one thinks too hard about it.  Ravi marries her under rather false pretenses - she believes that she is joining a quiet, idyllic household of just Ravi and his sweet youngest brother Sunny (Sachin Pilgaonkar).  Ravi's nervousness as she is about to learn the truth about the chaos that awaits her is quite hilarious, but one can't help but bristle a bit at the deception.  And naturally, Indu's role in the household is somewhere between housekeeper, babysitter, and den mother.  She takes over the kitchen duties the moment she arrives, almost without changing out of her wedding sari.  She forces the boys to wash and shave, and teaches them some manners.  The movie tempers the nauseating sexism of these tropes by couching them in so much humor and charm that one just has to laugh along and forgive.  The sequence in which she marches the brothers off to the bath with military precision is riotous.  And the song in which she teaches them how to woo a woman, "Jhuka ke sar ko puchho," offers a generous helping of the heart-melting charm that makes Hema such a pleasure to watch.

 

The movie's second half offers up much of what one expects from a rollicking  masala ride.  The very notion of a villain who just happens to look exactly like the hero is, on its own, satisfyingly filmi.  And Babu's villainy is hilariously over-the-top, until the power of love melts his cold assassin's heart.  In one of the most egregious morsels of Masala Logic one will ever see, after Babu's deception is revealed, Indu decides to forgive him because he never took sexual advantage of her even when she believed he was her husband.  That's right, folks - he lied to us, infiltrated our home, and tried to stab Seema - but at least he didn't rape me!  It's hard to imagine setting one's standards much lower.  The film also teaches us, in time-honored masala-medicine ishtyle, that all one needs to overcome paralysis is a good solid scare. 

There are even a few nudge-nudge, wink-wink moments - look for something weirdly suggestive involving a lollipop, as the movie heads into its climax.  And then there is this, which caused me quite a double-take.  Did someone really just hand Amitabh a condom?

All in all, Satte pe satta is just too much fun to miss. It's not hard to see why so many people my age grew up loving this movie.  Its slapstick and broadness is perfectly silly for kids, and at the same time it offers winking laughs for the grownups too.  I'm thoroughly glad I got to know it, even if in my case that knowledge  comes 30 years after the fact.  I'll be nostalgic for it from now on.

Barfi (2012)

बर्फी

It is no small feat for a movie about a deaf young man and a severely autistic young woman to avoid a "this week ... a very special episode of Bollywood" tone.  But Anurag Basu's touching story Barfi (I can't bring myself to use the exclamation mark appended to the official title) succeeds in avoiding that pitfall.  The movie offers a gentle look at the nature of love, and, notwithstanding a few narrative bumps, fills the screen with enough smiles and tenderness to be every bit as sweet as the confection both it and its main character are named for - with a light touch of sadness, too.

Barfi (Ranbir Kapoor), a deaf and mostly mute young man, is a gentle-hearted scoundrel, a good-natured smiling troublemaker who steals his father's liquor and performs minor acts of vandalism around his picturesque Darjeeling home.  Barfi is instantly smitten when he sees Shruti (Ileana D'Cruz), whose family has just moved into town.  Shruti is newly engaged, though, and Barfi settles for a playful friendship with her.  Soon, though, Barfi's mischievous tenderness reaches her heart, and Shruti has to choose between Barfi's vibrant love and a solid, conventional, but perhaps dull life with her fiancé.   In the meantime, Barfi's father falls ill, and to finance his treatment, Barfi decides to kidnap Jhilmil (Priyanka Chopra) the autistic granddaughter of a Darjeeling millionaire, and hold her for a modest ransom.  An unexpected connection develops between Barfi and Jhilmil.  But Jhilmil is profoundly antisocial, and even her hard-won trust of Barfi is a fragile thing, threatened by his obvious love for Shruti. And now the police are after Barfi, as a mystery unfolds about Jhilmil's ultimate fate and her family's intentions for her.

Barfi's greatest strength is its tender playfulness - there are more "aww" moments than a visit to Cute Overload, and enough real laughs too to keep the film from veering irretrievably into the cloying. (Even the movie's one fart joke is adorable and funny.)  Barfi's relationship with his father is affecting and hilarious, and his path to Shruti's heart is suitably magical and filmi while still being utterly charming.  Ranbir Kapoor must be directed very carefully; he can easily become far too boingy-boingy, and needs to be held back from ferret-on-speed territory.  Anurag Basu succeeds at this; Ranbir is charming and likeable and puts his full physical talent to work channeling his grandfather channeling Charlie Chaplin.  The effect of this could be forced and eye-rolling, but Ranbir's air is natural and infectious, and he fully sells Barfi as a playful soul who just wants to make the people he loves smile - not as an attention-seeking clown.

Kapoor shows some depth, too, in the movie's more emotional, less playful scenes.  Barfi obviously has very little dialogue - two of the three main characters more or less do not speak at all - and it taxes all the actors, as well as the director, to keep the story moving and the emotions palpable without the usual crutch of filmi dialogue, overwrought or otherwise.   In one of the movie's strongest and most moving scenes, Barfi finally loses his jovial cool after approaching Shruti's parents to ask for her hand, and meeting her fiancé there.  In a wonderful sequence that operates both literally and symbolically, a Barfi endures a rapid series of small frustrations as he leaves Shruti's home - he bangs hard into the door, his umbrella sticks, the chain falls off his bicycle.  Barfi finally explodes at Shruti in a silent tirade of love and anger. The scene is perfectly executed - Barfi's resentment, Shruti's confusion, all rendered in gesture and expression. 

The movie's rumination on the limitless capacity of love, is a refreshing change from the usual filmi trope of love as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.  During the film's first half, Shruti's mother comments explicitly that one can love more than one person. The echo of these lines makes the ensuing love triangle and its resolution more sweet than bitter, and more believable than contrived.  Indeed, I wondered at first whether I should be troubled by the movie's favoring of the "disabled" match over the "mixed" jodi.  Is the movie suggesting that Barfi doesn't rate an unimpaired wife, or that he has a responsibility to settle for Jhilmil?  But Shruti's mother's words quelled my concerns - Barfi, like Shruti's mother, has room in his heart to love both Jhilmil and Shruti.  And Shruti does get a full, fair opportunity for a happy ending with Barfi - she chooses otherwise.  Because she comes to regret that choice, the result is a movie that in no way questions whether she could have been happy in an unconventional marriage to a deaf man. And, of course, this last stirs a poignant bite of sadness into Barfi's sweet mixture.  Shruti does not get a happy ending.  Despite this, the movie's overwhelming sense of loves leaves a satisfying feeling of warmth and sweetness.  It's a nice bit of narrative sleight of hand.   

As Jhilmil, Priyanka Chopra gets full credit for a performance that is immersive, physical, thoroughly unglamorous, and in many ways less annoying than Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man.  One might take issue with some of the characterizations of stereotyped autistic behaviors - these are rather stylized, as they often are in movies of any language.  They also suffer some inconsistency; Jhilmil's ability to function independently and cope with strangers varies for narrative expedience.  Nevertheless, Priyanka Chopra's rendering of what the script gives her is brave and flawless.  For all Kareena Kapoor's crowing about her role in the upcoming Heroine - especially her silly claim that no other actor could do the role - here is Priyanka Chopra just putting her head down and acting.  The willingness to sacrifice glamor for the sake of storytelling is what separates the actors from the movie stars.

Barfi is not without a few warts.  It suffers most from its convoluted narrative structure.  The movie begins in the present day, and operates in flashbacks - including the dangerously indulgent tangle of flashbacks within flashbacks - to several different time periods and locales:  1972 in Darjeeling, 1978 in Calcutta after Barfi's arrest, 1978 in Calcutta before his arrest, 1978 in Darjeeling.  All this jumping about seems to be in service of building an intrigue that the movie doesn't really need, and makes the narrative a little confusing to follow at times.   But this is really a small quibble in an otherwise beautifully crafted movie that is delightful and warming - the narrative does sort itself out by the end, and a few moments of confusion are well worth the ample reward of tenderness, joy, and smiles.

Sachaa jhutha (1970)

सच्चा झूठा

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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