Anari (1959), by Hrishikesh Mukherjee, in spite of its numerous defects, represents a compromise between the quality cinema strain started by Raj Kapoor, and its commercial exploitation. The movie is clearly inspired by SD Narang’s Dilli ka thug, which came out a year before, with Kishore Kumar instead of Raj Kapoor, but Nutan is again faced with a lover who blunders into her world, and there is the same poisoned medicine story, with a masked villain pulling the strings dangerously close to her.

The story is rather simple: Aarti (Nutan) is a rich girl who lives with her uncle, the pharmaceutical tycoon Ramnath (Motilal), and who one day decides to escape from the absurd college of good manners, where girls are taught the cultivated ways of walking and laughing. Atop the wall, she sees Raj Kumar, a poor painter (Raj Kapoor) on his way to find a job. He helps her to jump down, and indeed the film will show her, figuratively, stooping down to his level. He’s the insolvent tenant at Mrs D’sa’s house, a Goan Christian lady (Lalita Pawar, who is said to have played in 600 films! Imdb lists 338), who heaps her affection on him to compensate for her lost son. She rough-handles him, but her heart of gold protects him from going astray in the world. Continuously pretending to scold him for not paying his rent, she can thus hide her affection for him, and invent little incidents that enable her to give him the money to tide him out.

Of course, the young pair meet again (coincidence helping them), and there is a lot of fun as Aarti hides her identity and passes as her naukari in the eyes of the unassuming Rajkumar. She explains later she invented all this out of fear her wealthy uncle would refuse her match with the poor painter, and so he does, once the plot is disclosed… But the fun ceases when, as expected, the kind Mrs D’sa dies, (careful long sentence coming up) killed by the poisoned medicine prescribed her in order to cure the flu she contracted from going out in the rain to fetch her “son”, who has wandered away from Aarti’s birthday party, where he’s discovered she had lied about her social standing.  So I suppose we can say she’s somehow killed by that lie too.

Indeed the film’s moral message is perhaps a little too heavily dealt with, and the characters also are too black and white. On the other hand, one knows where one stands, perhaps. Because if right and wrong are too much tampered with, who knows where if might lead? This is where the main theme of the film comes in. Raj Kumar is called “Anari”, simpleton, or naïve. He resents it when people say it, but admits it in front of Aarti (“it sounds so nice when you say it”), and also acknowledges the fact in his song “Sab kuch sikha hamne”, where he declares having learnt the tricks of the world, but refusing to become cunning himself.

This “simplicity” is associated with his poverty, and one understands that the two go together, because Raj Kumar is both deceived socially and financially. In fact, he’s bought both ways. His innocence in terms of knowledge of the ways of the world is doubled by his artlessness as far as money and its power is concerned. Because he knows so little, he’s easily fooled, but also trusted and loved. He’s lured into Ramnath’s trap, who is pleased to secure hard-working citizens instead of flattering lazy bums for his office work; in fact Ramnath defends his riches because of his success-story. He was once poor and has succeeded in business. He now calls poverty a poison, and if he refuses Aarti’s love for Rajkumar, it’s because of this stigma. 

Rajkumar in Anari recalls the Raj from Shree 420; the 1955 movie features a simple-hearted young man foolish enough to fall prey to the lures of money and power. Rajkumar doesn’t fall as low, but like Raj, he’s poor and freshly arrived, and this ignorance will cause him being manipulated by both Aarti and her uncle. Anari doesn’t go as far as Shree in terms of reflexion on the problem of poverty, but because it insists on Rajkumar being “anari”, it’s worth while pondering on the question a while. Naivety and simple-mindedness are presented as Raj’s weakness, but also as his dignity. Protected by his guardian angel, Mrs D’sa, he remains faithful to his status, even if this is sometimes a little unrealistic. In Shree 420, Raj is tempted by the demons of wealth and power, and falls, in a dramatic but also highly meaningful way. Here, not only does Rajkumar resist the sirens of wealth and comfort, but he can abandon his beloved when the latter decides (rather unconvincingly) to relinquish him because her uncle has made her see the difference in social classes between her lover and herself. So innocence, or guilelessness, is put forward as a bulwark against the moral ambiguities of riches (and its link with power and oppression of the poor), but on the other hand, Hrishikesh Mukherjee hasn’t really managed to make his point very delicately.

The result is that Anari comes out as a pleasant entertainer, with lots of humoristic moments, but cannot stand as a real meditation on the question of innocence versus experience. Instead, the hero remains in the magical circle of guilelessness, represented by his pious landlady, but doesn’t come to terms, as Raj does much more convincingly in Shree, with the evils hidden in the recesses of the self and of society. And this is a pity, because there was an opportunity to do so: Nutan’s artistic intelligence, Motilal’s mettle, and Raj Kapoor’s genius were all at the director’s disposal. Not forgetting Lalita Pawar’s great acting! I think what happened is that Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s limited moral perspective prevented him from wanting to tarnish his heroes, and make them explore “real” humanity.

There are ravishing close-ups of Nutan:

 

And others, where she's fooling around!

Yash Chopra’s “Kabhie kabhie” (1976) was for me like a distant reference, a movie many people had seen and loved back in the exotic seventies, and so, I knew I would have to see it one day. And now that I have, and have both enjoyed it and been disappointed by it, it’s funny because it’s like a ball pushed under water: it surfaces again; it has a buoyancy which testifies to its value in spite of all the mistakes and defects it contains.

Its story is the first thing that shows that ambivalent quality: it’s both psychologically interesting and clumsily patched up, almost too complicated, and yet lifelike. Amit (Almitabh) the poet falls in love with Pooja (Rakhee Gulzar) who loves poetry and the poet. But their parents have other plans, as usual, and they submit to their fate: we are not yet in the 1990s! Pooja starts her married life with Vijay (Shashi Kapoor) and Amit with Anjali (Waheeda Rehman). But the past is kept quietly secret by the two lovers. On top of that, Anjali had a daughter before getting married to Amit, who doesn’t know it. We are introduced to her life with her foster-parents. She’s called Pinky (Neetu Singh) who will soon meet up with Vicky (Rishi Kapoor), Pooja and Vijay’s son. The wedding is announced, and on account of it, Pinky’s foster parents believe they have to tell her about her past, that she isn’t really their daughter. She cannot, they think, begin her married life on a secret. But this revelation will trigger a reaction which will catapult the past into the present. Pinky flees her home to go and meet her unknown mother, leaving everyone in a crisis.

The fact that this rather old-looking teenager decides to reject the loving relationship which the story has painstakingly (but lamely) tried to establish (there is some absurd frolicking between herself and her parents, which is REALLY hard to watch) would be contradiction enough if the film wasn’t exploring the idea of filial love and what makes people recognize their parents as such. Pinky’s reaction to the revelation that she isn’t who she thought she was, might be “silly” from a post-modern point of view where genetics don’t matter as much as the people themselves who have adopted you; but she shows that this question of one’s origin is a deeply set one, and that the debate as what is the most important, nature or culture within us, isn’t as easily decided. When Vicky scolds Pinky for being selfish and risking the balance of Amit’s household with her absurd quest, he hasn’t understood this legitimate need for biological roots. In France, the law favours biological descent in cases of doubtful parenthood, and I think this is a reflection of this reality, even if the rights of adoptive parenthood might seem greater in terms of relational investment.

What’s interesting is that the quest for the origins brings about the other problem that the film deals with: how and to what extent our past is still present in our lives. That is the main subject of the movie: our intimate relationships as mature beings are often shaped by wishes or regrets which played long before, and which adulthood has not managed to sort out. One major illusion we have is that maturity and adulthood should integrate and neglect what have only been the passing desires of youth. Indeed an adult is considered to be such inasmuch as he or she has reached a balance which puts into rightful perspective the desires of young age. Psychoanalysis tells us so, up to a certain extent. But it also tells us that a certain labour might be needed before we reach that stage, and we often meet mature men and women who clearly have not reached it, and behave as if they were re-living (or transposing) the unsolved conflicts and contradictions for which they have not been able to find a solution later in life.

Of course the film contains the standard criticism of the Indian practise of arranged marriages, but it contains it only as an aside: it clearly isn’t the main subject. Even if indeed Amit and Pooja should have been given the right to live together as married man and wife, because love once born between man and woman cannot be suppressed by social decisions, what Yash Chopra is doing in Kabhie Kabhie goes further. After all, he shows that the human mind is much more flexible and malleable than cheap romancing would have it: Vijay and Pooja make a good couple, who in spite of Pooja’s secret, build a relationship which is not only cemented by the existence of their son Vicky, but by true love and an acceptance of time’s decrees which isn’t far from wisdom. And the same goes for Amit and Anjali, even though their union was sitting on the time-bomb of Pinky’s hidden existence and Amit’s romantic wounds.

I think what has interested Yash Chopra is not only to provide his audience with the entertainment of love, even if clearly the film has that aspect. But it also tackles the serious issue of maturity, ie, the responsible management of one’s emotional life. This refers to who we are now, but also to who we have been, and the balancing act of both.  We are not the makers of our fate, of course; what happens to us is partly chance, partly determination (time and space, but also family, society, and country all intervene). Nevertheless, we do have a role, and what we say or hush, for example, is our doing. Now, revealing our failures to others isn’t always positive, in spite of what a certain naive vision of the intrinsic value of truth suggests. Sometimes there’s sound reason to keep things unknown. The past is past. Which means, it is no more. Forgetfulness is often legitimate. I think the film shows that it would perhaps have been better if Pinky had not been told about her real mother; or at any rate her reaction shows that she either should have been told much earlier, or not told at all.

But the film also shows that a past whose status has not been settled remains present and that the more it is denied its presence, the more it will grow out of proportions, compared to what it once was. Anjali was wrong to have hidden the existence of her first daughter to her husband, or rather the society which imposed on her the need to hide this as a sin is wrong. But perhaps Amit was right to feel he had been cheated of his love with Pooja, and perhaps it wasn’t really Anjali’s business to inquire into what could have remained a slowly receding pain? A secret must sometimes remain secret if it hurts too much to be known and thrown in the face of the reconstructed person who has had to rebuild himself as an adult. And it is the responsibility of the secret holder to judge whether the truth is better than the ignorance.

The film has often been recognised as more than imperfect, with editing mistakes, psychological blunders and a ridiculous happy end. Evidently Yash Chopra hasn’t given it the attention he gave to Deewar or Darr, for example. But, even if this is a pity (for a work of art is a whole), it doesn’t take away the interest of the theme, nor does one easily forget the actors’ roles. Amitabh didn’t seem very inspired, it seemed to me, but Shashi Kapoor does a fine job, and so does Rakhee Gulzar, already seen in Kaala Patthar; Neetu Singh and Rishi Kapoor I found quite allright as well. The music is recognised to be memorable, sung by Mukesh and Lata Mangeshkar, of course. If you are interested, Beth has a nice perspective on the Chopra-ness of the film, and there is a good review here, but it’s in French.

Roja is an excellent little movie made by Mani Ratnam back in 1992, starring Arvind Swami and Madhoo (Raghunath); it was a real pleasure to watch another of Mani Ratnam’s works. His intelligence, his realism, his careful balance of private and public issues which are typical of his works, all this provides a cinematographic pleasure that makes you feel clever and informed.

This is the story: After an opening scene where soldiers, in the misty half-light of a mountainous forest, encircle and catch a man whom we later come to recognize as a Kashmiri separatist, the scene changes to the Indian countryside, full of splendour and worthy of Yann Arthus-Bertrand’s shots in his film “Home”. We then follow the arrival of an educated young man, Rishi Kumar, who comes  to visit a family where he hopes to find a wife (he's no less than as a local hero - very funny and touching scenes of welcome). He wishes to marry a “village belle”, he says, even though he’s always lived in the city. But when he arrives in front of her, she has a secret: she cannot marry him, could he please choose another girl?  But, guess what? Upon arriving in the village, the visitor had been spotted by the younger sister, Roja.

The spectator has already noticed her, this fiery, brown-eyed beauty, during the bucolic opening. And while the young man was coming, she had spied on him, they had exchanged looks (those knowing looks that lovers the world over recognize immediately, but know as well how to reject because of social realities). But when Rishi Kumar’s decision has to be made public, when they all ask him whether he’s made up his mind, he points to Roja: “she’s the one I want”. Of course this is a minor scandal, and for Roja most of all, but she doesn’t have the choice, and must marry the nice-looking stranger. During the wedding ceremonies and the song Rukmani rukmani which captures its joy and expresses its social meaning, Mani Ratnam uses a remarkable background: a rushing floodlit waterfall, symbol of the impetuousness of love perhaps, and makes old women dance with the young, in a vibrant celebration of life. But Roja leaves her home without her sister having explained the quandary she put her in. This is nevertheless only momentary, and the valiant little sister will soon have her heart filled beyond her dreams.

Then drama occurs; this newly found treasure of a hubbie is kidnapped, and taken into hiding; the horrid battle of waiting, hoping, doubting, despairing takes place, all too familiar in our modern world. Those who know Mani Ratnam know he’s capable of great and efficient suspense there. But I won’t tell you how the film’s story continues, only that it’s packed with action and feeling, against a backdrop of breathtaking natural beauty.

That is what the film will be, in fact, a magnificent celebration of beauty, life and love, in the best Bollywoodian tradition, the one that doesn’t base its appeal on the star-system. Of course it’s Mani Ratnam, so there’s the political purpose (see below), but first the film is simply a classic and perfect Bollywood production, with all the necessary and well-balanced, well seasoned ingredients: we have the intense love affair, the danger-filled and malevolent obstacles to love, the charming and witty humour, which comes from the situations themselves, and does not require a comedian’s antiques; the superb songs (AR Rahman, needless to say), which emerge from the intensity of the action, or the passion; and there are all the great emotions: generosity, hatred, courage, determination, indignation, resistance, pity, silent love, and the magical climax where the two lovers reunite and tears gush out.

Madhoo/Roja is the soul of the movie: her willpower, fuelled by a love which never fails, her faith that Rishi Kumar, her adored husband, is alive in spite of all odds: these feelings are so poignantly presented that it works, we forget the little inconsistencies and the exaggerated story elements. She appears to have forgotten herself, and becomes the fighting wife, the astoundingly daring lover, whose youth serves as experience and aplomb. Her self-confidence sweeps aside, not only all resistance, but all disbelief that we are watching a movie. We are absorbed in the anguish of her quest, in the fearlessness of her pursuit, and we fear with her, we hope with her, we cry with her. Such is the strength of acting!

Arvind Swami’s character and personality touches also, because of his restraint and solidity. He doesn’t emote a lot, perhaps, but I found I liked his acting, which is at times almost expressionless: this lack of intensity struck me in fact as a kind of strength, and the sign of a maturity which complements Roja’s youthful and domineering character. Reviews on Imdb have noted the patriotism of the scene where beaten and humiliated, Rishi Kumar manages to repeat his “jai hind” to the face of the separatists, knowing full well he will incur the consequence of their rage, and one of the movie’s weaknesses is apparent there, in this vibrant and somewhat naïve nationalism. But then again, perhaps this is a westerner’s view. Or it’s because the film was done back in 1992, when certain illusions about the resolution of the Kashmir conflict could still be nurtured.

So: what is Roja, then? A brilliantly made entertainer? A political movie using the swallow-down virtue of boy meets girl? If we notice the two aspects deal with separation and reunion, perhaps we could call it a hymn rooted in the love of the land: its overall purpose is the refusal of separation, and the assertion that love must and will reunite those who are separated. Separatists are wrong, violent, and counter-nature. Roja fights for reunification with her husband, just as Mani Ratnam films for Kashmir to remain united to India. Two reunifications, and this, even if Roja is repeatedly criticised  in the film for her naïve and selfish intentions: doesn’t she know, the general tells her, that the exchange of her husband against the terrorist Wasim Khan has cost the lives of many soldiers, who were certainly husbands and fathers too? How dare she demand her husband to be exchanged, when so many mothers and wives have silently accepted their sacrifices? But the fact that the minister accepts her request shows that these two apparently antagonistic realities can combine, and that unification should be also inspired by human values such as love, and not only through the hard facts of negotiation and politics.

One last word from imdb reviewer Reachrajdream, who I think has a good point: This movie is inspired from Italian movie De Sica's I Girasoli (1970), neverthless no complaints because I don't believe in originality. The movie is worth watching because of good story and flow of the story. (…) Even Vittoria De Sica might have been happy watching this movie because such a solid, positive enhancement of his work.

The few viewers who have commented about Shyam Benegal’s Nishaant (or Night’s end, 1975) on Imdb all marvel at its excellence and explosive nature: they’re damn right. This movie shatters all comfortable expectations us spectators might have upon watching the story. Naturally after this abduction, we sympathize with both Sushila (Shabana Azmi), the teacher’s pretty wife, victim of a savage and immoral greed, and with her husband the honest teacher who has just arrived in the village. But the movie will deny us the satisfaction of seeing wrongs righted (well, this will be granted up to a certain extent, but…) and victims compensated. The film’s power comes from this deflection of our fantasies towards a more sober reality: that of human nature and historical fact. Indeed the film is apparently based on an actual incident which took place in Andhra Pradesh in the 1930s. Then for us who are accustomed to see famous actor like Naseeruddin Shah and Shabana Azmi play roles where their persona is built from inside, so to speak, by the strength of their acting, it is somewhat of a shock to see them here at the mercy of a director who subjects them to a ruthless drama.

The same thing happens for Amrish Puri’s character. He plays the zamindar, the egoistic and proud feudal lord of the place. One would perhaps have appreciated a moment when the viewer could place himself above him, morally speaking. But we aren’t given that pleasure. We too follow submissively his iron rule; we too must undergo the ordeal of seeing the old order trample the peasant’s hopes and livelihood. Shyam Benegal does not want us to feel the comfort of being aloof by referring to other cinematic examples: we are in reality; this isn’t a story one can sleep on or fantasize about. An additional disturbing element is made up of the zamindar’s respect of tradition and religion: one day he will quash the peasants’ prayers for mercy; the other, he will dress up with all his family to welcome newlyweds at his door who come to ask for his blessings. He applies to himself a discipline which one could admire; he tones his body and leads what almost looks like an ascetic life. One might even say that power has made him benevolent, and when you compare him to his two degenerated brothers who spend their life drinking, scheming and raping, he is like the noble magistrate of his people.

If we now turn to his younger brother, Vishvam, we have one great Naseer character. Vishvam strikes one as ambiguity incarnated. As the virtuous brother who, married to a beautiful wife (Smita Patil) resists the jeering offers of his two disgusting brothers, we tend to admire him, and sympathise with him, even if he doesn’t treat his wife any better than other men of that time would do on an everyday basis. Then one day his eyes meet the slender shape and proud mien of the teacher’s wife, and we know mischief has settled in. Once she’s abducted and at the landlords’ mercy, and has been raped by the two elder ones, we half hope she’ll be spared by Vishvam, even if only because of the distance of forbidden desire. But he will impose himself in a brutal way all the same. Having started to drink – perhaps because of her presence, in order to change his shier character, or because it numbs his sense of responsibility – he enters her cell one day, holding a rope tied in a noose, and we half feel he’s treating like some cattle, ready to whip her or worse. Sushila balks at first, and tries to cower him, but he asserts himself: “You have no right to stop me from coming, I’ll come here a thousand times if I choose!”

In between takes place the scene where she meets her gentle husband (Girish Karnad) at the temple, and where, perhaps out of desperation or to goad him, she accuses him of being a coward, and not having stormed the zamindar’s house to free her. So when she’s back in her prison, she gives herself to Vishvam’s lust, in a move that is one of the most sickening I’ve seen in Indian cinema so far. Because even if such an act of unfaithfulness can be described as desperate, it forces us to re-evaluate what we thought we had understood about the relationships between teacher and wife. Indeed there is a scene where the two of them are in bed, and the schoolmaster clearly wants to make love to her, but she shuns him: “I’m tired”, and he gently moves back, patting her on the shoulder. What a fortunate woman, I thought, whose husband understands she cannot always be ready to satisfy him, and who doesn’t criticise her or brutalise her for refusing! Such an attitude is indeed immediately rewarded, because she then turns around, and asking him for a mirror and a new sari, embraces him, and the light fades on their intimacy…

But Sushila seems to have forgotten what a precious husband she had: having not been rescued at once, she has nothing but harsh words for him, and satisfies the desire of another man, whose more violent nature she seems to regret in her husband. She once or twice whimpers about her child, whom she clearly loves and needs dearly. Yet she accepts Vishvam, whose own wife is all bristles about her rival. What must be said for her (Sushila) is that she is told that she won’t be able to return to her husband without bearing the stigma of having been possessed by other men: he will now reject her, she is told (cf. Sita’s legend in the Ramayana); she has no other choice than find herself another man, and perhaps this is why she accepts Vishvam’s lust for her. So even if this is awful in terms of our western vision of love and womanhood, perhaps Indian values and traditional practices make it less difficult to understand. Stalked by the villagers’ anger (stirred up by the teacher who acted, but tragically too late) she dies with Vishvam in a scene which looks like a disenchanted orgasm.

Nishaant contains a lot of interesting material for those who wish to understand popular and archaic Indian practises. For example there is the role of the priest, who at first is nothing more than a fatalistic pawn on the zamindar’s chess-board: having found Vishvam’s locket at the temple after the sacking of the temple’s jewels (performed by Vishvam), the only courage he can summon is to give it back to Amrish Puri when the latter comes to pay a visit, and asks for it! Mind you, the local police officer is so powerless that there is perhaps nothing more to do. Until the roused teacher manages to convince him to let go of his defeatist stance and stir up a revolt against the landowners. I think the film’s coherence suffers here, for we don’t really believe in the priest’s change after one conversation only with the teacher.

But the movies strikes on the whole a realistic note of freedom and inspiration which is very rewarding. Shabana Azmi plays superbly, indeed perhaps too well, because it is hard to reconcile her role as a loving (if vain) mother and wife, and that of the Bonnie of the Bonnie and Clyde ending. A little less care, a little bit more vulgarity in her role as the schoolmaster’s wife would have bridged her dual persona more satisfactorily. As it is, her choices (or the director’s) create a mystery, that of feminine desire, and this element, disturbingly unusual as it is in Indian films, certainly belongs to what Shyam Benegal wanted to deal with. Certain reviewers even wonder whether the film doesn’t explore homosexual tendencies: I’m not sure about that, but it’s a possibility, considering the movie’s original patterns.