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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Samedi 22 octobre 2011
6
22
/10
/Oct
/2011
16:27
Here’s my belated commentary of Ravi’s song Yeh Raate yeh mausam in Dilli ka thug sung by Kishore Kumar and Asha Bhonsle, lyrics by Majrooh Sultanpuri (I had promised it to Suja! Cf. here). Below you'll find the video, the lyrics and their translation. Yeh raatein, yeh mausam, nadi ka kinara, yeh chanchal hawa Yeh raatein, yeh mausam, nadi ka kinara, yeh chanchal hawa Kaha do dilon ne, yeh milkar kabhi ham, na honge judaa Yeh raatein, yeh mausam, nadi ka kinara, yeh chanchal hawa Yeh kya baat hai aaj ki chandni me? Yeh kya baat hai aaj ki chandni me? Ke ham kho gaye pyar ki raagni me Yeh baahon me bahen, yeh behki nigaahein Lo aane laga zindagi ka maza… Yeh raatein, yeh mausam, nadi ka […]
Vendredi 23 septembre 2011
5
23
/09
/Sep
/2011
18:22
I have read so often about Raj Kapoor’s last movie, Ram teri Ganga maili (1985, Ram, your Ganga is sullied), that I wanted to have a personal opinion about it. The movie has itself been sullied as obsessively concerned with Mandakini’s nakedness and the director himself as a scandalous and ageing admirer of young feminine beauties. If you haven’t seen the movie, and you google the film’s name, you’ll inevitably summon up the “hot” waterfall scene, of course quite innocuous by today’s movie standards, but which sparked the censors’ condemnation. We can start talking about that, and get it out of the way. Ganga (which refers both to the girl and the river) was born in the Himalayan […]
Vendredi 29 juillet 2011
5
29
/07
/Juil
/2011
23:49
Abhijan (the Expedition, Satyajit Ray, 1962) is the story of Narsingh (dependable Soumitra Chatterjee), a Kshatriya taxi-driver, who after having had his professional license taken away from him for imprudent overtaking, becomes jobless, and heads towards the Shyamnagar province in Bengal. There he gets involved in opium trading. A man he had given a lift to, Sukhanram (Charuprakash Ghosh, very good), is the one who lures him into the business, and that same man also deals in buying women for a time because he has the money. This time he has Gulabi (Waheeda Rehman) with him, and she, aware of her plight, tries to catch the attention of Narsingh who seems to her an honest guy, so as to […]
Jeudi 30 juin 2011
4
30
/06
/Juin
/2011
14:42
Bimal Roy’s Parakh (Test, 1960) is an experiment. Not so much in democracy, as some people say, even though they’re right, it does contain an implicit criticism of democratic processes, but this is only a side-issue. It’s an experiment in morality or in human nature. What happens when a community is asked to determine who is the best man in its midst? What is virtue? And how does one make one’s worth known to the group? True, the means to trigger this test is rather risky: a 5 million rupee reward! In effect, this proposal is bound to wreak complete havoc in the moral organisation of any community, and probably create the wrong experimental conditions. Furthermore, with such a sum at […]
Mercredi 22 juin 2011
3
22
/06
/Juin
/2011
13:48
Tere ghar ke samne (1963) has a Molièresque quality to it. I don’t know if English-speaking readers know about Molière, but this story of two young lovers who want to marry in spite of their cantankerous fathers immediately made me think of L’Avare, or Le bourgeois gentilhomme, where such situations are standard fare. The line that made the connection was this one, where Sulekha (Nutan)’s father, Seth Karamchand, actually admits he was a fool to counter-bet his arch-enemy Lala Jagganath, for the purchase of a plot where to build his future house: But foolishness doesn’t stop these rich neighbours from waging a very serious war, a war of influence and bad-tempers, a war of old men stuck […]
Vendredi 17 juin 2011
5
17
/06
/Juin
/2011
13:45
There are some films I watch where I have to struggle to find information and reviews. As soon as they are gone from the screens (not to mention movies from the 50s or 60s!) it’s like you are unearthing archaeological artefacts. With Deepa Mahta’s Fire (1996) however, there was so much to read that my eyes still ache from screen reading! The film itself is partly drowned in the avalanche of political and religious controversy which it created. It’s thus impossible to speak about the film on its own, as if it held an independent cinematographical status. It’s strange (or perhaps not) that some other movies, which tackle seemingly as controversial issues, have not sparked such furore. I’m […]
Vendredi 10 juin 2011
5
10
/06
/Juin
/2011
23:43
Gulzar’s acclaimed Achanak (Suddenly, 1973) suffers from a bothersome defect, its well-meaning intentions. The film contains much worth, but it is too preoccupied by the demonstration process for its own good. What a film says is as important as how it says it, and what it says is important. But Gulzar uses too much the story in order to demonstrate his argument, instead of letting the story unfold and the message flow out of it naturally. I wonder whether this doesn’t happen because of Gulzar’s honesty as a poet (see his profile here), but I’m not sure, this being the first Gulzar movie I watch. Somebody says that the film is very un-Gulzar like in so far as it doesn’t correspond to […]
Mardi 12 avril 2011
2
12
/04
/Avr
/2011
01:07
Ray’s 1956 Aparajito (Unvanquished) enters triumphantly the collection of my best loved films, and effortlessly so. It’s been some time I’d watched Pather Panchali and I don’t remember everything about it, but I do recall enough to connect it with Aparajito’s anything-but-naïve innocence and simplicity. But once you’ve said that, the difficulty is how to account for it. Where and how does Ray get it? Same question as always! This time I think I have a concrete answer: young Apu’s face. Whatever happens behind it, it’s set. No expression, it seems. Apu (Pinaki Sengupta) runs along the streets of Benares with his friends, Apu runs along the ghats, Apu runs in and out of home, barely […]
Lundi 28 mars 2011
1
28
/03
/Mars
/2011
23:39
C.I.D (Raj Khosla, 1956), starring Dev Anand, Shakila and Waheeda Rehman, unlike some other classic golden-age B’wood stuff, has been amply reviewed, and very aptly so too. Leading the gang is Corey Creekmur, at UIOWA.edu, who writes an extremely well-informed analysis of the Guru Dutt production. It’s a masterful historical and artistic contextualisation review, where Creekmur underlines the influence of the Navketan cinematographic Institute, and focuses on the meaning of the songs as part of the Circle and encircling symbolism of the movie. In dustedoff’s review one will find a summary of the action and a very good description of the rhythm of the movie, a feature which all […]
Mercredi 23 mars 2011
3
23
/03
/Mars
/2011
21:09
The main beauty of this little film, Katha (Sai Paranjpe 1983), which suffers somewhat from clichés that are perhaps enjoyed by a certain type of audience, is the delightful portrayal of the Suburban chawl where a community of friends and neighbours live together, united by a community spirit which I have rarely seen as warmly described as here. It’s perhaps a little idealistic, but surely the level of good-natured friendliness belongs to the best of what one likes about India, that frank and open humanity, where each person can have a chance to be part of the whole. I had first been attracted to Katha thanks to Carla’s excellent review, where she underlines this quality too. I am […]
Mercredi 9 mars 2011
3
09
/03
/Mars
/2011
00:20
This is a lovely, very readable, and at the same time, a rather unusual little book. Unusual because it doesn’t follow the common pattern of what might be expected from such entertainers. It gears itself towards an all-important cricket match, which the hero of the story, young Swaminathan and his 11 year-old friends, are eagerly preparing, with the very special enthusiasm of that age, and instead of the heroic chapter expected, something completely different occurs. We are deprived of victory, and even of the match! Instead, we follow Swami losing himself in the nearby forest, being recovered by a cartman passing that way, spending the next day recovering (when he should have been […]
Mardi 1 mars 2011
2
01
/03
/Mars
/2011
20:48
You’ll have to expect from me, more and more, reviews of boring / outlandish movies where Nutan or perhaps Waheeda Rehman have starred, and which I will have seen out of sheer silly infatuation (mind you, I cannot bring myself to review films that would have no interest at all). And so, take a guess: is Kanhaiya one of them? This 1959 story is actor Om Prakash’s only directorial attempt, and perhaps this is another downer. But you be the judge; here’s the *story*!! Shanno (Nutan), a young village beauty, becomes love-struck by the divine magnificence of Krishna Kanhaiya, as, one night, some performers acting out a passage of the Gita, pass through her village. She becomes so engrossed […]
Mardi 8 février 2011
2
08
/02
/Fév
/2011
23:30
I am not sure I shall be able to do justice to Khushwant Singh’s little novel (published in 1956). It seems both too simple, too factual, and so because of that, too deeply rooted in Indian history and drama (Oh, for those who need the plot, go here). Not being Indian, how do I talk about it adequately? Here and there people say that the present upcoming generation is forgetting (has forgotten?) the events it relates, and such oblivion too is a formidable fact. We intellectuals would tend to consider History as necessary to the identity of a nation, especially if this history tells of its “mistakes” (but what are a country’s mistakes? How do you hold it responsible?) So what happens if […]
Mercredi 26 janvier 2011
3
26
/01
/Jan
/2011
16:51
There are many reasons why the spectators might not have liked Guru Dutt’s opus, Kaagaz ke phool back in 1959. First its badly-humoured despondency (why go to the cinema and see sad things, life is sad enough as it is), then its flaunting of proper morals and conventionality (the film contains a rather crude picturisation of family dirty linen); the absence of a satisfying happy end (the director dying an absurd death because of his abuse of alcohol)…Many people still think today that the movie drags on, that it’s self-indulgent… I’m not going to say that all this criticism is wrong. Certainly the film has flaws, but I wonder whether these defects aren’t the signs of Guru Dutt’s genius […]
Vendredi 31 décembre 2010
5
31
/12
/Déc
/2010
21:45
Manzil (Mandi Burman, 1960) was a partial disappointment. Not that I had so much to expect from a film that I didn’t know before, and that I just got hold of because of Nutan. But it starts pleasantly, with two childhood friends meeting again now that time has passed and that they’re adults: certainly, a classic theme, but when it’s Nutan and Dev Anand, and they’re both of them charming, one easily suspends one’s disbelief, and stretches in one’s chair in hope! I started thinking of Devdas, which has a somewhat similar story, and wondered whether it was going to be a variation of Bimal Roy’s famous movie. There’s the childhood friends theme, the distancing of the two lovers, Raju’s […]