At this point I've seen about fifty of Shabana Azmi's films - some of them I've watched knowing they were good, and others I've watched for no other reason than that she was in them.
Like any prolific actor's filmography, some are great, some enjoyable enough, and some downright painful.
My latest column in Outlook is all about the worst films I have endured out of love for milady.
Please read the column and tell me about the worst you have endured for love of a star.
लोरी
Dir. Vijay Talwar
Lorie starts off looking like many a gentle middle-cinema film of its era. A married couple (Naseeruddin Shah and Swaroop Sampat) are shown in intimately domestic scenes, engaging in playful (if weirdly hostile) teasing; the film opens on their roof, with Suman giving Micky a generous massage. Then we meet Geeta (Shabana Azmi), a young, earnest teacher who, when criticized by her chauvinistic father for working at all, replies that she loves her work, but she's not opposed to marriage either. (Shabana, as expected in films of this era, looks completely gorgeous in a deeply colored range of sarees and kurtis.) And then comes Bhupi, Farooq Sheikh as the sort of cuddly sweetheart he plays so well. The understated, middle-class ordinariness of this foursome sets a very familiar tone, in the vein of Sai Paranjpe, Basu Chatterjee, and the like.
Bhupi and Geeta meet when Bhupi snatches one of Geeta's little students out of the path of an oncoming car, and both are instantly smitten. In a touching pair of scenes the next morning, Geeta confesses to her mother (Rohini Hattangadi), and Bhupi to Micky and Suman (Shah and Sampat), that they've met someone they like, but failed to exchange addresses or other identifying information. Bhupi, remembering the color of Geeta's students' uniforms, hires a cab and zips around to every school in Bombay to track her down. This gambit might cross the line into stalking in real life, but in Bhupi's almost preternaturally innocent hands it remains idealized and sweet. (And since we know Geeta likes him too, no harm, no foul.) Geeta and Bhupi's romance proceeds apace; while getting married requires defying Geeta's stern father, who has another son-in-law in mind, the couple are soon enjoying domestic bliss; with a child on the way, a song montage has them cutting pictures of cute babies from magazines to decorate the nursery.
Cutie-patootie all windswept and bearded; milady smitten and pretty.
Then tragedy strikes, and Lorie starts getting weird.
Geeta miscarries and learns that she cannot ever bear children. All Geeta has ever dreamed of is to be a mother. As a teacher she is shown to be more of a nurturer than an instructor, frolicking with her students, singing to them, cuddling them. Indeed, she states pretty explicitly that teaching is a way to tide herself over until her overweening craving for children of her own can be satisfied. With the sudden loss of this dream, Geeta is (understandably) despondent and even inconsolable. When she finds a little boy, Laddu, left on a bus by his gaggle of siblings and their distracted and overwhelmed parents (Madan Puri and Shaukat Kaifi), she takes him home and claims him as her own son. Geeta has come unhinged; there is a manic and almost willful delusion to her insistence that the child is hers, and at times even a clear consciousness of guilt behind her dreamy claims of motherhood.
For example, Geeta becomes alarmed in an elevator with a stranger and hides Laddu behind her, afraid to be sussed out as an imposter-mother.
It's one thing for Geeta to disconnect from reality in the face of such a grave loss. It's not my favorite storyline; while I can understand some grief at losing one's ability to be a mother, the leap from grief to either criminality or delusion sends a message that I can't get behind about the significance of motherhood as a goal in itself, so centrally important that even a smart, capable woman can completely lose her moorings when it is taken away from her. But even with that story to tell, Lorie would be a better movie if it were only Geeta who lost her mind. Instead, everyone around her loses touch with rationality as well. Bhupi can't bear to see her suffering, so he plays along with her altered reality, only weakly challenging her delusion before backing off at the slightest hint of tears. Even Micky and Suman look the other way while Bhupi helps Geeta evade the police.
But the film's ending is where things get truly strange. I will spoil it here (it's a 30-year-old film, after all): Apprehended and tried, Geeta is found guilty of kidnapping, but the judge sets aside the verdict and frees her. Reasonable enough; perhaps he really is convinced that Geeta is sufficiently remorseful and not in danger of recidivism. But then, stepping out of the courthouse, she is greeted by throngs of chanting supporters. This is very odd - what could they possibly support about what she did? One might be sympathetic toward her but it's a long way from that to hailing her as a hero.
Then, finally, in the coup-de-grace of weirdness, Laddu's parents push through the crowd and press the boy into Geeta's arms, saying that she has become his true mother and should take him from now on.
Um, what?
Laddu's family is shown to be quite direly poor; there are more children than the indolent, prideful father can provide for. If Lorie were portraying a desperate family taking an opportunity to reduce the household burden while offering one of their children a more prosperous life, that might make sense as a tragic but understandable storyline. But that's not the thrust of this ending at all. Earlier in the film, Bhupi and Geeta investigate adoption options, and make an offer to a poor family who seemed to have children to spare; that mother gives an angry and dignified dressing-down that you might think they would not soon forget. Thus Lorie emphatically rejects the notion that poor people are ready to part with their children out of financial necessity. So what the heck is going on with Laddu's parents? It's a bizarre and nonsensical outcome.
But maybe it's not that much weirder than Madan Puri and Shaukat Kaifi as a couple, or a very young Paresh Rawal as an eloquent prosecutor.
This turn into bizarro-land where women can permanently usurp the children of others without incurring jail time (or at the very least, court-ordered psychiatric care) undermines all of Lorie's gentle domesticity and tender relationships. The movie has stuck with me after watching, but mostly because I can't figure out what it is actually trying to do. It's a muddle, and just doesn't make very much sense as a narrative.
But how pretty is Shabana Azmi! How furry is Naseeruddin Shah. And Swaroop Sampat? HOT.
लहू के दो रंग
Dir. Mahesh Bhatt
I chose this movie out of Shabana Azmi completism, but what I got turned out to be pretty satisfying masala in its own right. Its backstory is set forth with rare specificity in time; the film opens at the end of World War II, when Indian freedom fighters were operating in exiled cells in east Asia. In this “exotic” setting, a very appealing relationship forms between a delightfully angsty Vinod Khanna and Helen in an unusually non-dancing, non-vamp role.
Fast forward to the present (as masala films do) and you're in pleasingly familiar masala territory: the martyred freedom fighter Vinod Khanna has left an illegitimate son (Danny Denzongpa) in Hong Kong with a distraught Helen, and a legitimate son (also Vinod Khanna) in Bombay with his grave and serious mother (Indrani Mukhejee, who is super-fabulous and intense in this role, and makes me wonder why she's never jumped into my consciousness before, despite the half-dozen or so films I've seen her in). The two young men are, of course, unknown to each other and, of course, on opposite sides of the law - Vinod a proud police inspector, Danny falling in with the smuggling ring that holds Shabana hostage.
No one does man-pain quite like Vinod Khanna.
Highlights include Danny doing kung fu, a very sweet ballad picturized on Helen, and even a taste of filmi-paagal in the form of Shabana Azmi's character's mother, tortured and abused to madness by the villain, Kader Khan (accompanied in this standard-issue villainy ensemble by Ranjeet). There's a pretty cute set of sequences where Danny falls in with a plucky orphan girl called Shabbo; together they engineer some minor cons and become fast friends. Shabana Azmi is as wasted as she ever is in such masala fare, but she does get to wear some super pantsuits and tromp around Darjeeling looking pouty and fabulous. There's really nothing not to like here – an enjoyable bellyful of masala comfort food.
यह नज़दीकियाँ
Dir. Vinod Pande
I have watched quite a few rotten movies out of love for Shabana Azmi. I did not enjoy the dour, crotchety Avtaar, which tries to send a message about respecting one's elders, and winds up just shaking its fist at kids today, those selfish, unfeeling jerks. Nor do I have much nice to say about the amateurish Morning Raga, which looks as if someone filmed Shabana ji giving a master class to a bunch of undertalented young actors. So Yeh nazdeekiyan is far from the worst film I have ever watched for the sake of Shabana-pyaar - that dubious distinction goes to the truly execrable Son of Pink Panther, with Gaja Gamini snagging honorable mention - but it is not much better than Avtaar or Morning Raga.
Yeh nazdeekiyan gets legitimate points for boldness - not the superficial boldness of its clutchy, gaspy sex scenes between Parveen Babi and Marc Zuber, but the more substantive boldness of a consensual open marriage, an idea that makes many people squirm even today, in east and west alike. And of course Shabana Azmi is perfect in it, in her familiar avatar of the wronged wife who discovers a self-actualized identity in the shards of a broken marriage. This is the kind of role that Aparna Sen said she could not give to Shabana ji, lest the casting spoil the story - because everyone knows how the arcs of such characters go when played by Shabana Azmi. But her performance is satisfying to watch all the same, understated, poised yet emotional. It is a comfortable space for both Shabana ji and her fans, Shabana Azmi comfort food.
She is the sine qua non of my love for Hindi films. Le sigh! Also her dad Kaifi Azmi has a great cameo.
But despite Shabana ji's best efforts at a delicate touch, too much of Yeh nazdeekiyan is ham-fisted, like those cringey sex scenes, or Marc Zuber's allegedly charming flirtations which ring stiff and false in both scripting and performance. And too much of it is rambly and simply not well-crafted enough for all its earnest ideas and its one good performance to hold the day. It means well, but makes the worst misstep a movie can make: it is boring.
Still, it has a few nice directorial touches. Here, reciprocal jealousy at two different points in the film, conveyed with parallel shots and cleverly-chosen book titles in the display.
In the beginning of the film, Shobhana (Azmi) and Sunil (Zuber) share a marriage that seems buoyant with both passion and love. Sunil, an advertising director, is something of a philanderer. At first it seems Shobhana is being played, but when a friend confronts her about it, Shobhana astonishingly explains that Sunil's excursions do not concern her. That's just a matter of the body, she says. She has Sunil's heart, which is the important thing.
But Sunil's heart does soon stray toward one of his dalliances, or at least he thinks it does, for a while. The woman is Kiran (Parveen Babi), a sriracha-hot model whom Sunil is shooting for one of his commercials. When they meet, Kiran's friends dare her to make a pass at Sunil. But he is cold to her advances, and the snub drives Kiran to an obsession with winning his attention. In other words, Kiran falls for Sunil only because he shows no interest in her at all. This is an ugh-worthy way to write a female character and a romance. I have to acknowledge, though, that it is not entirely unrealistic - this sort of thing does happen. And so I cannot accuse Yeh nazdeekiyan of lazy scriptwriting on this score, just unappealing scriptwriting.
But, Parveen Babi! On the beach! In slow motion!
And speaking of unappealing, Marc Zuber is about as uncharismatic a wet noodle of an actor as one could cast opposite the presence of Shabana Azmi and the breathless heat of Parveen Babi. He broods, he mopes, he sets his jaw; it's not even an unconvincing performance so much as it is an uninteresting one. Coupled with the weak foundation of Sunil's relationship with Kiran, Zuber's flatness drains the energy from a movie that seems to plod on for weeks.
The message of Yeh nazdeekiyan seems to be that the deep bond of love that is formed of a true understanding between two people is of more value than a superficially shiny attraction, however passionate. Shabana Azmi has said that she thought Yeh nazdeekiyan, with its forgiveness and reconciliation, would be a surefire hit, but she later found that the ending of Arth resonated more strongly with women in the audience yearning for a reflection of their frustrations. (Arth is also a better movie in every aspect of its execution by a long way, so the comparison is not entirely rigorous.) In Arth, Shabana Azmi's character choose not to return to her husband and her old life, after learning to her surprise that she could provide for herself and live fulfilled and contented without a husband. In Yeh nazdeekiyan, Shobhana learns these things too, launching a successful music career after she leaves Sunil. But she still elects to take him back when he asks her to.
That is not an entirely unfeminist ending; Shobhana makes the choice freely, without loss of agency, and there is nothing to suggest her career will not continue once the marriage is repaired. So perhaps Yeh nazdeekiyan escapes the reset-button criticism that has been leveled at another self-discovery story, English Vinglish, in which Sridevi's character's self-actualization comes to an end upon her cheerful return to an apparently unaltered version of her previous life. The difference there is that while Sridevi's character learns a lot about herself during the movie, her husband does not; there is no parallel narrative for him. In Yeh nazdeekiyan, to its credit, Sunil learns lessons of his own. He starts the movie with an acknowledged roving eye, and ends with a greater understanding of the precious and unique relationship he has with Shobhana. Ironically, the most feminist aspect of Yeh nazdeeekiyan may be wrapped up in this point: The defeat of patriarchal oppression requires not only the awakening of women, but the profound changing of men.
गंगवा
Dir. Rajasekhar
For reasons that are mostly coincidence, I watched three 1980s masala flicks in the space of a little over a week. All three had Kader Khan write them and act in them. Two of the three had Rajnikanth in them; two had Amitabh; two had Amrish Puri; two had Shakti Kapoor; two had Bappi Lahiri scores. And so I had to write them up quickly before the three films became blended into one giant protein-enriched masala smoothie in my brain.
I've written about Naseeb and Geraftaar already, and now turn to the most unlikely of the three: Gangvaa. Here's how it happened.
Beth (on Twitter): One of the suggested videos after #TaxiChor was Gangvaa, starring Rajnikanth and...Shabana Azmi. O.o @carla_filmigeek
Me: @bethlovesbolly I am speechless. Did you watch?
Beth: @carla_filmigeek I did not - I thought I should watch it with YOU.
A true friend! So Beth and I watched Gangvaa, starring Rajnikanth and Shabana Azmi. Starring Rajnikanth and Shabana Azmi. I want to repeat that and let it sink in, because despite nearly a decade of adoring Shabana Azmi and exploring the ins and outs of her career, I somehow had not really processed that such a thing existed. I've seen a respectable amount of Shabana Azmi's mainstream work. I've also seen a fair amount of her work in dire and terrible films. I've even put myself through the agony of Son of Pink Panther out of pure love for her.
But Shabana starring opposite Rajnikanth, that stylized superstar who is even larger than larger than life? That is a whole new level of pleasing cognitive dissonance. Gangvaa was a film I simply had to see, even without subtitles. What we got was a film that was more enjoyable, and made with more attention to craft, than either one of us particularly expected.
This really exists.
The basic injustice at the core of Gangvaa is the way the landed classes take advantage of ordinary village folk. Early on in the film, a work crew finds a pot full of gold coins (these are delightful yellow-painted circles of cardboard, near as I can tell), and a suitably mustache-twirling zamindar (Amrish Puri) confiscates them to add to his already massive wealth. Enter Gangvaa (Rajnikanth) to save the day; like a classical mythological warrior, he makes his first appearance in the film riding a chariot.
I couldn't get a good screengrab of the chariot, but here's the man a couple moments later.
Gangvaa punches and kicks his way through the zamindar's goons, and quickly dispatches the zamindar to an early exit (presumably freeing Amrish Puri to move on to the set next door where he can play the same villain in some other masala movie). There is a satisfying, if gruesome, spatter of blood on the camera lens to mark the zamindar's final moment on earth. And Rajnikanth's trademark fighting style is such an undeniable thrill to watch, even for someone like me who is not a big fan of dishoom-dishoom. He delivers multiple punches of bone-crunching force without moving his arm - it really is all in the wrist, I guess.
Gangvaa puts together a band of the men who had suffered under the zamindar's tyrrany. Together they hang out in the wilderness and perform Robin-Hood-esque raids for the sake of vigilante justice. At some point Jamna (Shabana Azmi) encounters Gangvaa and is smitten. Then a village girl accuses Gangvaa of rape, and Jamna is enraged - it is here that she gets the vigorously indignant speech that marks Shabana Azmi's movies of this time period, the kind of speech without which one presumes should would not have accepted the role.
But indignation looks so good on her.
It turns out that the rape was actually done by a totally different guy named Gangvaa (Raza Murad), and righting this wrong wins Jamna back for our hero, but makes him a new set of enemies that he spends the rest of the film fleeing from. Also on his tail is an upstanding police inspector in the handsome form of Suresh Oberoi, who cannot allow vigilante justice in his district, no matter how noble the intention. Actually I am not sure that Oberoi's character is the archetypical blemishless uncorruptible officer - having watched Gangvaa without subtitles I am sure I missed some nuance. It is possible that I am merely projecting Oberoi's character from Tezaab on this film. But I'm pretty sure I have it right.
Suresh Oberoi's resemblance to Vivek is stronger in Gangvaa than I've noticed before. Suresh is much better-looking though.
There is a certain grimness to 80s masala movies from which Gangvaa does not shy. There are several distressing suicides. One is quite unexpected; two are commited by characters who would evidently rather die than give up information about Gangvaa. That's the kind of loyalty that only Rajnikanth can inspire.
Gangvaa also features some very creative violence and action, like a scene where a disposable goonda is strapped to a rotating wagon wheel. In one particularly well-crafted highlight, Gangvaa is strung up by his ankles; he frees himself by grabbing a burning candle in his mouth and contorting his limber body until the candle's flame contacts the rope he's suspended from.
I'm glad I watched Gangvaa. I really did need to have the experience of seeing Shabana Azmi paired with Rajnikanth. This was in fact my first exposure to Rajnikanth - I watched it before Geraftaar - and as I noted in my review of that film, I get it. His presence is enormous, and thrilling.
The movie packs a wollop of a surprise ending. I won't spoil it here but it's not a happy one, even though it provides more opportunity for Shabana Azmi to get her sexy rage on. Despite this, Gangvaa is not a bad way to pass a rainy afternoon. Good songs, good character actors, and Rajnikanth eating an apple off a knife blade. Set expectations accordingly, and Gangvaa is pretty enjoyable.
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