Filmi Geek

Fakira (1976)

फ़क़ीरा

Dir. C.P. Dixit

Following close on the heels of Parvarish, my investigation of the masala portion of Shabana Azmi's resume continues with Fakira.  This tale, with its overtones of the legend of Robin Hood, has all the elements of what Beth would call the Recommended Masala Allowance:  brothers separated in childhood, a roguish hero with a heart of gold, a plucky heroine who yields to the demands of her heart, and a bit of social commentary in the form of a corrupt politician who gets what's coming to him.  Fakira takes a few interesting twists on those standard tropes, though, and that sets it apart among its masala brethren - that, plus a hearty helping of young Shabana that is just as tasty a meal as Parvarish. 

A pair of brothers are separated in childhood when their parents are killed by smugglers.  One of the brothers grows up to be the bandit known as Fakira (Shashi Kapoor).  Fakira, who takes target practice on a dummy bearing a placard reading "smuglar hamare dushman hain" - smugglers are our enemies - makes it his mission to redistribute among the poor the loot from his attacks on rich bandits; but money stolen from the government he returns tot he police.  Meanwhile the other brother grows up to be Toofan (Danny Denzongpa), a heavy-for-hire employed by a corrupt politician to put a swift end to Fakira's career. 

Geeta (Shabana Azmi) - or Neeta, her name keeps changing - is a police inspector's daughter and a police officer herself  who infiltrates Fakira's gang with the intention of bringing him to justice.  Her plan is to seduce him to gain his confidence, but she soon finds herself confuzzled by Fakira's Shashilicious charm - she's really in love with him, and, before she knows what hit her, really married to him too.  All of this is to the distress of Neelam (Aruna Irani), one of Fakira's sidekicks who has tried, repeatedly and unsuccessfully) to seduce him for herself.  While Neeta makes up her mind as to whether she's with Fakira or against him, Neelam takes matters into her own hands, forcing a confrontation between Fakira and his nemesis.

Fakira is principally just a good, solid masala timepass.  Fakira and his gang don disguises as he pulls off his capers, so there's plenty of comedy antics to go around, and the songs are light and fun.  The bad guy relies on Rube Goldberg-esque plots in attempts to do away with Fakira, leaving ample opportunity for heroic, exciting escapes.  And there's even an acrobatic catfight between Neeta/Geeta and Neelam.  Even in this kind of potboiler fare, though, Shashi and Shabana are understated in comparison to some of their contemporaries, giving Fakira a somewhat more restrained feel than the most outrageous films of the era.  The only unfortunate element of the film's plotting is that its heroine, Neeta/Geeta, is a non-factor in the film's resolution; for a character who started out with such promise - a gutsy police officer, trained in martial arts, "raised like a boy" in her father's words, it is frustrating to see her stuck in a "Perils of Pauline" routine at the film's climax.

Fakira's glorification of vigilante social justice through its dashing Robin Hood hero is the clear social message of the film.  But there are some fun twists on the usual masala cliches as well.   Here it is the hero, not the villain, who dwells in a luxuriously-appointed secret underground lair equipped with high-tech gadgetry.  The bad guy is just a corrupt politician, not a criminally insane mastermind.  And Fakira really pushes the envelope with some deliciously naughty sequences surrounding Fakira and Neeta/Geeta's first night together (after marriage, of course) - jokes about the noises emanating from the newlyweds' room, a bed broken in two thanks to a vigorous romp, and so on.  I briefly thought that Fakira got away with such ribaldry in part due to the art-house credentials of both of its principals, but it then occurred to me that Shabana Azmi was so young at this time that Fakira may have contributed to her edgy reputation rather than drawing upon it. 

Fakira's music (by Ravindra Jain) is fun, if not instantly memorable; the songs themselves are definitely dwarfed in this reviewer's mind by their picturizations; the joy of watching young Shabana dance around trees pretty much overwhelms anything else that might be going on. 

Obligato (click for larger pictures):

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Dilwale dulhania le jayenge (1995)

दिलवाले दुल्हनिया ले जाएँगे

Dir. Aditya Chopra

Occasionally a film comes along that hits a powerful resonance with its audience.  Such a film can be a trendsetter, making superstars of its cast, changing the direction of an industry, and even, to an extent, of a society.  Dilwale dulhania le jayenge ("The brave-hearted one shall carry away the bride") is such a cinematic bellwether, striking a perfect chord at a particular crossroads of Indian society where foreign influence meets domestic traditionalism.  It's a very important film, and it is also a reasonably enjoyable one.

Simran (Kajol) lives in London with her family, but she's been raised to be a seedhi-saadhi Punjabi ladki - a nice upstanding Punjabi girl.   Relatively unaffected by the influence of her western setting, Simran understands her duty to her family - to her strict, serious father (Amrish Puri) particularly - and submits to her engagement to a boy selected for her at her birth, the son of her father's close friend in India.  Before her marriage, though, she begs her father for one month to live life on her own terms, traveling through (continental) Europe on a tour with some of her school friends.  Her impassioned request - combined with a lifetime of never once defying him - softens her father and he reluctantly agrees.  Then she meets Raj (Shah Rukh Khan), another London-dwelling Indian who is brash, impulsive, and immature, but also apparently good-hearted - and love happens.  When her father learns of this upon Simran's return, he whisks her away to India for immediate sealing of the marriage that was planned for her twenty years prior.  Raj follows, and undertakes a systematic plan to win the hearts of Simran's family - even her unyielding father.

Dilwale dulhania le jayenge's message is one of balance between the hip, modern, foreign influence on the one hand, and respect for the traditional foundations of Indian society on the other, and at the time of its release, it inverted a number of prevalent filmi cliches.  At the core of the film is Raj's refusal to run away with Simran, even when she begs him to elope; he is determined to win the approval of her father and will not marry her until he does so, even though failure would mean losing her forever.  Elopement followed by tragic end was a common filmi theme at the time; in Dilwale dulhania le jayenge, Raj rejects the temptation of that course in favor of deference to tradition.   In another twist on convention (as noted by crazyone on the BollyWHAT? forum), the foreign-raised Raj is the good guy, while Simran's homegrown, all-Indian fiance is cruel, promiscuous, and dishonest.  I suspect that these twists lie at the heart of what gives this film purchase to be the industry-changing, enduring success that it has been, especially among Indians living outside of their homeland and therefore necessarily surrounded by the influential forces of foreign culture.    

The film's message is undermined by the tactics chosen by Raj to win the approval of Simran's family.  He engineers a deception to infiltrate the inner circle of the two families preparing for the wedding, and continues ingratiating himself to them with exaggerated kindness to the elder family members, sweetness to the girls, and chumminess with the guys.  It is all a grand ruse and deception, however, and the film begins to fall apart if one thinks too hard about what it means that the guy who supposedly espouses traditional values is lying and cheating right and left in an attempt to demonstrate them.  His act casts doubt on the veracity of the upstanding-Indian-boy persona itself; one cannot be sure that he isn't lying to Simran just as well as he lies to her family. 

When such thoughts can be suppressed, though, the film is charming and engaging; the romance works, and I found myself rooting for the pairing despite the fact that I didn't particularly like either of the principals as individuals.  The film's unquestionable greatest strength is that Raj and Simran do have some staunch allies among their parents; Raj's father (Anupam Kher) and Simran's mother (Farida Jalal) are determinedly on their side and do everything within their limited power to grease the wheels, and this prevents the film from devolving into the timeworn "us vs. them" intergenerational slugfest.  But "limited power" is the key phrase.  In the film's standout scene, Simran's mother delivers a heartbreaking speech in which she declares that while she promised herself she would secure autonomy and happiness for her daughter, the lot of an Indian girl is not within her power to change.  She brought tears to my eyes with the wonderful line main to yeh bhuul gayi thi - ki aurat ko vaada karne ki bhi koi haq nahin hai - "I forgot this: that a woman has no right even to make a promise."

Finally, a word on the music of Dilwale dulhania le jayenge - this is a soundtrack I always want to like more than I do.  It is packed with catchy tunes and hummable melodies, like "Ho gaya hai tujhko to pyar," and the mega-mega-hit "Tujhe dekha to yeh jaana sanam."  But the soundtrack grates despite its strengths, for one overwhelming reason: Lata Mangeshkar was far past her prime.  She's warbly, shrill, and overdubbed, and doesn't always hit her pitch.  I adore Lata ji's beautiful work through the 50s, 60s, and 70s - but Dilwale dulhania le jayenge is Exhibit A for why I think she should have retired after the 1980s.   

(Post script:  As usual, reading Philip Lutgendorf's commentary on his Philip's fil-ums website makes me wonder why I bother; in this case, his astute discussion of Dilwale dulhania le jayenge makes several outstanding and interesting points.)

Parvarish (1977)

परवरिश

Dir. Manmohan Desai

Sometimes, when I finally get around to watching a film that has been sitting on my shelf for months and months, I kick myself for waiting so long.  That happened recently  with the delightful Chalti ka naam gaadi, and it happened again with Parvarish ("Upbringing"), Manmohan Desai's hysterical, nutty fugue on the question of nature versus nurture.

DSP Shamsher Singh (Shammi Kapoor) has captured the notorious bandit Mangal Singh (Amjad Khan) just as Mangal's wife is about to give birth.  She dies, but not before extracting from the DSP his promise to take care of her son.  DSP Singh raises the boy alongside his own.  Ironically, DSP Singh's natural son Kishen has a wicked streak, while Mangal's son, Amit, is endowed with an honest, sweet nature.  After a misunderstanding, Kishen comes to believe he is actually Mangal's son and falls under the bandit's influence, though he continues to live in the inspector's home. 

Fast forward 20 years.  Amit (Amitabh Bachchan) is a police inspector himself, while Kishen (Vinod Khanna) runs a school for the blind - but only as a front for his real business, running smuggled goods for Mangal's gang.  Amit and Kishen encounter a plucky pair of orphaned sisters who make their living as pickpockets.  The thieving sisters - the eponymous Neetu and Shabu (Neetu Singh and Shabana Azmi) - are smitten with the guys and half-heartedly resolve to go straight in order to win them over.  But the girls have their own debt to settle with Mangal Singh as well.  And when Amit starts to suspect his brother is not the upstanding guy he appears to be, family loyalties are pushed to the breaking point.

Parvarish is not as grand in scope as Manmohan Desai's blockbuster classic Amar Akbar Anthony (released the same year), which sounded the resonant theme of religious and cultural unity for the protection of Mother India, over a continuo on the notes of family, loyalty, and justice.  But there are ways in which Parvarish is even more fun.  Its bad guys are completely over the top, explicitly invoking and amplifying the decadence of James Bond villains and the complete freakishness of Batman's nemeses.  Mangal Singh's lair features a sunken pit of quicksand with spiked walls that close menacingly inward toward anyone unfortunate enough to find himself stranded on the tiny platform at its center; all of this is set before a backdrop of colored panels behind which silhouetted women dance provocatively and, apparently, tirelessly.  As if that weren't insane enough, Mangal and Kishen's uber-boss (Kader Khan) is named Supremo and lives on a submarine.  All this criminal excess juxtaposed against the earnest resourcefulness of Neetu and Shabu's small-time cons make for a very enjoyable ride. 

Parvarish's songs, too, are among the cleverer I've seen in the genre.  Shabu and Neetu introduce themselves via a communist screed, in which they justify their livelihood by declaring of the loot they steal, "sab janta ka hai" - everything belongs to the people.  In another side-splitting song, Shabu and Neetu threaten suicide if the guys refuse to marry them, while the guys, for their part, follow them around cheerfully offering the would-be instruments of their demise, wishing them well on their journey.  There is a truly bizarre qawwali-with-firearms in which our heroines stomp out a hearty mujra while pointing revolvers at themselves, at one another, and eventually at their audience.  And Neetu has a cheeky number in a naughty maid's uniform, in which a disguised Amit chases her around a hotel room. 

Finally, Parvarish holds the surefire key to my heart:  Shabana Azmi.   Even after twenty of her films I wasn't fully prepared for the full-court masala press of her role in this film.  It's not that she was exceptionally good at it - she was adequate only, and if I were not already in love with her, this is not the film that would change my mind.  Indeed, without the weight of the rest of her career, I might not even notice her as a masala heroine in the shadow of her zestier contemporaries like Zeenat Aman and Hema Malini.  And yet for every moment she was on the screen - running, climbing, pouting, conning, scheming, and dancing - I just beamed in delight.  While I knew intellectually that she played many roles like this one, I suppose I imagined they were all along the lines of Amar Akbar Anthony - a third-string heroine with next to no screen time and only a tiny fraction of one song.  I had no idea. 

Aadmi (1968)

आदमी

Dir. A. Bhimsingh

The themes of friendship and loyalty, love and sacrifice figure in many Indian movies.  Aadmi ("Man") is a standard-issue exemplar of that genre, in which the themes are amplified by a melange of melodramatic devices - an accident caused by homicidal sabotage and leading to debilitating injury; multiple suicide attempts; and one man's a consciousness of guilt that looms so large that it even takes corporeal form.

Shekhar (Manoj Kumar) apparently has everything going for him.  A dashing young doctor, Shekhar wins a prestigious hospital appointment thanks to the influence of his patron and friend Rajesh (Dilip Kumar), a rich landowner who is both shrewd in business and large of heart.  Shekhar eagerly courts and wins the daughter of one of Rajesh's servants, the straight-spoken Meena (Waheeda Rehman).  But when Rajesh falls for Meena and determines to marry her, Shekhar's sense of duty - and Meena's as well - stops him from telling his friend about his arrangement with Meena.  As the wedding day approaches, Rajesh is beset with increasing doubt and anxiety, fueled by the efforts of both a jealous accountant (Pran) and Rajesh's own demons, who keep him awake nights with bitter taunting.  Soon everyone's loyalties are put to the test.

It's a dreary story, and it makes for a dreary film.  Waheeda Rehman, as Meena, is lovelier than lovely, but her perpetually furrowed brow is a downer and so is Meena.  She not only suffers every hardship fate throws at her; she seems to take them up willingly, refusing to extricate herself from them even when the opportunity to do so honorably is offered to her.  Dilip Kumar is not much better.  In Rajesh's happy moments, he delivers his lines in a barely audible mutter through clenched teeth; for far more of the film, though, he is gripped by overwhelming angst, white-knuckled and wide-eyed.

Rajesh's night terrors are perhaps the most peculiar part of the film.  For the most part it is not clear whether the voices that plague him are supernatural, literal ghosts from his past, or merely the projections of a guilty conscience.  At their climax, they appear bizarrely in physical form, as a 30-foot-tall Dilip Kumar looming over Rajesh's cowering figure.  Rajesh is not merely his own worst enemy; he is tormented by a monstrously amplified version of himself.

Even the songs do not add anything; composed by Naushad, they have nothing near the sparkle of the wonderful and memorable songs from Mughal-e-azam, the only other Naushad soundtrack I know at this writing.  Instead they are very ordinary songs with uninspired picturizations; indeed, the picturizations of the first and second songs are nearly identical scenes of Waheeda communing with nature.

The upshot is that despite the angst, the life-changing accidents, the loyalty, the treachery, and the three-storey Dilip Kumar, Aadmi still emerges a dry, bland, milquetoast film.  The seasonings are there, but they just fail to blend into a crisp, engaging whole.

(Aadmi is available for download from Jaman.)

Saudagar (1973)

सौदागर

Dir. Sudhendu Roy

My Hindi teacher handed me this film, with no explanation - she just said I should see it.  I am glad she did.  Saudagar ("trader") is a sad, thought-provoking, excellent film, and an unusual showcase for the skill of young Amitabh Bachchan, before he became "Amitabh Bachchan (TM)".

Moti (Amitabh) trades in gur, a sugar product distilled from the sap of date palm trees (sometimes called jaggery in English).  Each morning he collects the sap and brings it to Majhu (Nutan), a widow in his village.  Majhu boils the sap into jaggery, and Moti brings it to market, sells it, and gives Majhu half of the take.  They are a very successful pair - Moti is very industrious, and Majhu very skilled. 

On an excursion to a neighboring village, Moti spies a supple young village girl Phoolbanu (Padma Khanna) and is instantly smitten.  He wants to marry her, but the price her father asks (to set aside for her as insurance in case of divorce) is Rs. 500 - too steep for Moti's pocket.  So Moti hatches a plan:  he decides to marry Majhu, so he can work her even harder without giving up half his profits, save up the Rs. 500, and then divorce her. 

If Moti sounds like a reprehensible character, that is because he is.  One of the more compelling elements of  Amitabh's performance in Saudagar is how hard it is to imagine him playing a character like Moti after hitting the long stride of his stardom.  Moti is surely a dashing, charming man - all the village girls swoon over him - and he unabashedly uses that charm to his advantage to outwit his competitors in the marketplace and to deceive and manipulate Majhu, all the while remaining an appealing (though not a sympathetic) hero.  He plays the character with subtle emotive skill; his eyes convey, before each wantonly selfish step he takes, that he knows he is behaving despicably.  As Amitabh sets his jaw and his brow, one can almost see Moti weighing his wants against Majhu's livelihood and honor, the way he weighs out gur by the kilo on a balance in the marketplace.

Even more compelling and rangy than Amitabh in Saudagar is Nutan, who is beautiful, in a sad-eyed kind of way that is very appealing.  Here she is supposed to be an over-the-hill widow, no match for Moti's voluptuous young village girl; actually, though, Nutan's mature, solemn beauty is much more attractive than Padma Khanna's vanity and curves.  Her performance, too, is excellent; her role requires the most range of the three principals, as she has moments of hard resolution, joyful domestic bliss, and explosive rage, and Nutan carries it all very well.

Finally, Phoolbanu, the vain, pouty girl who enchants Moti, is something of a pastiche - she is presented as both an upstanding, hardworking Indian woman, and at the same time a nubile, sexualized nymph.  Her introduction shows her writhing beneath a palm tree trying to catch droplets of sap on her tongue; the image is very suggestive, almost lewd, and it's clear from Moti's expression as he watches her that he finds it so as well:

The end of Saudagar is a little ambiguous - it is left to the viewer to imagine Moti's ultimate fate - but there at least develops an understanding between the two women that they are both victims of Moti's cruel selfishness.  This is very satisfying; although they were made to suffer by Moti's connivances, they should not have to pay to redeem him.