Nutan mania
I've decided to become a full-fledged promoter of Nutan! Below you'll find pictures of her I've collected since I've started watching films with her. For those who are fed up with her, you can go here (for example!)
Practical Info
About me
I'm a French lover of Indian cinema, but I'm also interested in literature, science, art, and reflection in general. This blog will reflect these tastes more or less!
Categories
- letstalkaboutbollywood (47)
- film reviews (93)
- practical info (1)
- Book reviews (18)
- miscellaneous (3)
- Trip to India (8)
Nutan photos
Bolly blogs I visit
- Greta's Memsaabstory
- Madhulika's Dustedoff
- Bollyviewer's Old is gold
- Sharmi's old films and me
- Bollywooddeewana
- Carla's blog Filmigeek
- Beth loves Bollywood
- A2line's Bollyblog
- Amodini's movie reviews
- Anu's conversations over chai
- Daddy's girl's Dharmendra praise blog
- The fabulous Pitu
- Harvey's blog
- Satyam's blog
- Shweta's Apni EA Company
- Julie and Jenny's Diablog
- Post-punk CC
- Nida's Bitten by Bollywood
- Sanni's So they dance
- Stephen 's Bollywood banter
- Blissful Nirvana
- Maria's Filmiholic
- Philip Lutgendorf 's fil-ums
- Darshit's dunkdaft
- Ajnabi's Paisa Vasool - or not
- Shell's Bollyworld
- The BollywoodFan
- Alan's Bellevue to Bollywood
- Pessimisissimo's Exotic entertainment
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Latest posts
- Their hands can see: Sparsh
- Peepli live: long live the media!
- Subarnarekha, Ritwick Ghatak's ode to Life
- Chhalia, Nutan's contribution to the Indo-pakistani peace process
- Mera Naam Joker: too big? Too much?
- Kanchanjungha, the moment of revelation
- Dhobi ghat, looking for a new centre
- Yeh raate, yeh mausam
- Ram teri Ganga maili, RK's last opus
- Abhijan, a remarkable moral fable
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Dimanche 18 octobre 2009
7
18
/10
/Oct
/2009
23:25
R.K. Narayan’s short novel The vendor of sweets (1967) is the story of a wise man, called Jagan, who lives in the narayanian town of Malgudi and prospers by selling quality sweetmeats appreciated because they aren’t overpriced or watered down with cheap ingredients. He’s a believer in honest practises, and a living proof that free enterprise when practised within the rules not only brings money and satisfaction to its initiator, but also satisfaction and development in a community. At a certain level of entrepreneurship and provided the adequate circuits of supply and demand are long-lasting enough to enable investment to pay off, people can flourish and their individual interests […]
Mercredi 14 octobre 2009
3
14
/10
/Oct
/2009
23:01
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 […]
Samedi 19 septembre 2009
6
19
/09
/Sep
/2009
00:36
I happened to watch Brick Lane (2007, by Sarah Gavron) recently, a movie based on the acclaimed book by Monica Ali. It’s a well-made, well balanced film about emigration and multiculturalism, to put it positively, or – in a less positive light – about the still ongoing oppression of Bangladeshi women, torn away from their native land and community and, in their teens, sent to marry in England against their will someone they have never seen. It so happens that the film’s heroine, Nazneen (Tannishtha Chatterjee), will find happiness in the deal, but the film-maker clearly denounces the brutal and inhuman practice, which will not only cause the girl pain and confusion, but also mean that […]
Lundi 24 août 2009
1
24
/08
/Août
/2009
17:04
Memories of rain, by Sunetra Gupta (1993) is a dark jewel of a book, a sombre and dense memorial stone made of darkness and yearning, frustration and anger. We are inside a sort of cenotaph: a young Bengali woman’s stream of consciousness and we never get a chance to hear anything else than her voice and the poetry which often resounds in the vault. It’s gloomy in a sense, but the prose is so dense and palpable that – as an unborn child waiting for birth - one is lulled and fed by its rhythm and texture. Sometimes you gasp for breath, but then, as opposed to the narrator, you can lay down the book and return to it later! I have to say that I have had trouble finishing the 200p novel: it […]
Samedi 1 août 2009
6
01
/08
/Août
/2009
00:07
This is a rewriting of a post dated April 4, 2007. The blog output is so low these days that I am resorting to rewrites! ( in fact, I’m busy with other things...) I don’t know if you’re like me, but most people around me still don’t really appreciate my interest for Bollywood. I haven’t made many converts! They still think it’s a sort of fad, it’s not very serious; all these soppy melodramatic films, that aren’t worth the time spent watching them. Or (worse) they simply aren’t bothered, and leave me to my obsession. They’ve gotten used to it! Some of them still didn’t know, and when they discover, they look at me with a mixture of surprise and disappointment. “You too! You’re interested […]
Vendredi 26 juin 2009
5
26
/06
/Juin
/2009
23:29
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 […]
Mercredi 17 juin 2009
3
17
/06
/Juin
/2009
18:58
This stunning little movie (65 minutes) made in 1989 by Nabyendu Chatterjee, who died recently (2005) tells the story of Laxmi (pronounced Loki), a Bengali village woman whose husband fell from a roof while she was expecting her first baby, and has remained cripple ever since. She has lost her baby from the shock, and as a meagre compensation, is offered work as a wet-nurse in middle-class families where presumably women have other things to do than feed their children. Perhaps because of the social difference, she is in no position to resist the advances from the “gentlemen” who take advantage of her presence, and she soon finds herself caught in a system whereby if she wants to bring […]
Lundi 8 juin 2009
1
08
/06
/Juin
/2009
15:09
Basant (1960) is a loony movie where what you see is more important than what you understand. There is a story, sort of, (tolerably interesting in the first half but totally zany in the second!) but you must forget about it, because the chief interest of this golden Bollywood of yore is the main actors’ charm, the very pleasant humour (thanks Johnny Walker!), the magic of the sets and of course, the music and dances! So after having only said this much, I’m just going to celebrate Nutan’s charms. I’ll leave Memsaab tell you the story, and rave about Shammi Kapoor, whom I find rather stilted and even pompous at times (but hey, I’m nothing but a man), and most of all, who cannot really […]
Lundi 1 juin 2009
1
01
/06
/Juin
/2009
22:05
“Vishvam (Naseeruddin Shah) is one of four brothers who rule their feudal village in pre-independence India with an iron grip. They execute various criminal schemes to increase their own wealth at the expense of the villagers, with the village priest and constable powerless to stop them. However unlike his brothers he tries to lead a relatively restrained life, and at the start of the film we see him married and refraining from drinking and smoking. His brothers regularly exercise their “droit du seigneur”, ordering villagers to send their wives and daughters to the haveli so that they can be raped at leisure. At first Vishvam, restrained by his wife (played by beautiful and brilliant […]
Mardi 26 mai 2009
2
26
/05
/Mai
/2009
10:42
I recently heard a journalist ask the question « Is Bollywood nothing more than a cinema made for India, or is there something universal about it?” – and I thought this question deserved a little post. Every one knows for a fact that the Indian cinema is the most productive one in the world, because of the amount of movies a year (is it still 800?) and of course the sheer size of the audiences. I say audiences because the crowds in the South, East and Centre are almost as huge as in the North, and from what I’m told, the penetration of US movies as yet cannot rival. So this raises the question of its local dimension, its adaptation to a public who needs a certain type of entertainment, […]
Mercredi 20 mai 2009
3
20
/05
/Mai
/2009
23:05
For me the yearly Cannes festival is not much more than an industry's self-celebration which is probably best left unwatched, but these days, it’s difficult to miss Cannes photos and interviews even if you’re only slightly interested in Bollywood. Aish comes every year to France, and being a Frenchman, I feel pleased that she does. But I wouldn’t have said anything about it if there hadn’t been two or three rather injurious remarks levelled at her, which I heard and made me feel rather embarrassed, and I wouldn’t like people to think that all French people, whom Aish always thank so warmly for their welcome, should be categorised in the same bunch as some of them. First interview, at […]
Lundi 18 mai 2009
1
18
/05
/Mai
/2009
17:30
I remember feeling annoyed when, a few years ago, somebody to whom I was voicing my pleasure at recently discovered Bollywood movies, bluntly told me: “oh yes, but Indian movies now… you want to see those from the 60s and the 70s!” Whether he was right or not is probably more a question of taste, but certainly, if he’d had such films as Bimal Roy’s Bandini (1963) in mind, I understand now why he would have said that. Having fallen for Nutan’s charm when watching Dilli ka thug, I wanted to see others of her films, and landed on this. “This” is a rare little jewel. Like Teesri Kasam, like, like… hum, I’m finding it rather hard to liken it to many other films I’ve seen. Unless… there is a […]
Lundi 4 mai 2009
1
04
/05
/Mai
/2009
13:30
This 1958 film, Satyajit Ray’s fourth, might seem to us, 50 years away from it, a strange and slow vestige of a time when the cinema was sadly deprived of the wizardry we now love so much in it. The narration seems clumsy; the lighting is handicapped by too much or too little contrast; the characters have very little to say or do; even the story seems hackneyed and ordinary: an ageing zamindar, Huzur Biswambhar Roy (Chhabi Biswas), reminiscing about his past glorious life as he used to entertain the classy neighbourhood with quality concerts in his mansion’s Music Room (the Jalsaghar), thus squandering the estate money to the point that he loses all, including wife and child (some of […]
Jeudi 9 avril 2009
4
09
/04
/Avr
/2009
22:30
Aakrosh (1980) by Govind Nihalani (whose first film it was, and who had won acclaim as Shyam Benegal’s photographer) is a sparsely told parable about the foundation of justice: should men follow the law at the expense of truth, or should they seek truth at the expense of the law? Here’s the story, told by rAjOo (gunwanti@hotmail.com) at IMDB (many thanks to him!): “After working with his mentor and Public Prosecutor Dushane (Amrish Puri) for many years, Advocate Bhaskar Kulkarni (Nasseruddin Shah) is assigned a legal aid case of Bhiku Lahanya (Om Puri), who is accused of brutally killing his wife, Nagi (Smita Patil) (1). Bhiku remains silent when asked to plead guilty or otherwise. […]
Samedi 28 mars 2009
6
28
/03
/Mars
/2009
18:24
Dilli ka thug (1958) might be tossed aside as a jumble of loosely connected narrative titbits that have been put together for two main purposes: Kishore Kumar’s clowning, and Nutan’s youthful charm. A messy God seems to have been presiding over this movie, viz the DVD box received from Nehaflix, where the title reads “Dilli ka thag, starring Kishore Kumar and Mala Sinha”… It tells the story of a petty “Dilli” thief who falls in love with the girl he was supposed to be engaged with but whose family rejected him for some obscure reason, and this takes place in the context of a fabricated medicine scandal. Kishore the apprentice thug will become the hero who will expose the real thugs, […]