Famous, witty, challenging… and brilliant in the way some works of genius are, but Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie pleases and displeases at the same time. It certainly strikes the reader as a fascinating work of art, technically and stylistically; one follows the life and pranks of its main protagonist, Saleem Sinai, while wanting to know where all of it will take us, and there are some crunchy bits which reward the faithful reader. But I’m afraid there is also a lot of quirky narrative during which one wonders: “What’s this leading to?” Perhaps you know that the reason for the story is the parallel between the hero’s career in life and the birth and evolution of India. The two start existing at midnight, August 15, 1947 and Rushdie intends to tell the story of his country through the prism of Saleem’s life and deeds. But I found the construction sorely lacking in actual storytelling, and if I carried on it was because I know certain rare authors can create something original outside of classic formats. I’d say Rushdie partly succeeds, but partly only. Perhaps because his chequered story follows the ups and downs of history too closely, and because fiction needs a logic which plays on another level (dictated by desire or morality?) which history cannot quite replace. The rationale of history only exists in ready-made narratives such the Marxist or the Communist visions, but precisely these are visions, not reality. Following reality and its haphazard events makes Saleem’s life become a mixture of reality and fiction which doesn’t quite correspond to either.

There are nevertheless some very interesting ideas, the first being that of the Midnight’s children (all the children who like Saleem, were born at the same time as India), who are all gifted with special powers, and the stories which derive from this fictional idea, if underexploited, witness to Rushdie’s powerful creativity. Then there’s the mingling of the two levels of story-telling, because the narrator turns out to be an older Saleem who’s telling his life to Padma, his future wife, and of course because of this artifice readers have connected the book to the famous Arabian Nights (there are 1001 Midnight’s Children). Still, as far as I’m concerned, I see the trick mainly as a welcome resource that provides the story with the contrapuntal relief between (and sometimes in the middle of) the episodes, and I have to admit this technique is very well mastered. Another good part is the opening narrative in Kashmir which centres on Saleem’s grandfather, whose influence will be felt throughout the book. There’s a powerful humour and a sense for realistic detail in this section which certainly makes it memorable (viz the hole in the sheet that becomes a symbol later for all types of discovery and observation).

I suppose if you are an Indian and know your history more intimately than I do, the allegory packs more fun and interest than there was for me. I could discover a number of references, such as the Jalianwalla gardens massacre and Indira Gandhi’s state of Emergency, but I ended up wondering all along if the cryptic nature of the references weren’t too hidden for me to understand, and on what level I ought to be reading, pure fiction or historical allegory. If Saleem’s life mirrored India’s, how much of what happened to him was a description of Indian history? And what about his relatives? What was I supposed to read in them? Same interrogation for the events happening to Saleem in his interaction with others. If you go here, you will be able to read Sparknote’s interpretations of the correlations between fiction and history, a lot of which escaped me. For example, I read (here) that Saleem stands for Brahma, God of creation whereas his “dark” brother Shiva represents destruction: well, OK for Shiva, but it doesn’t appear to me so clearly that Saleem was that creative…

In fact, if Saleem represents anything, it is a passive and suffering India. Saleem’s nose and cut finger might well signal this. The two organs, symbols of thwarted olfactory development and powerlessness (Saleem’s nose is continuously blocked by snot, and he gets his little finger cut off – Padma complains of his sexual impotence) would indicate that India herself, then, has been wronged and maimed in her development. But I’m not sure this is a very new or original historical comment! There are other attempts at sensory allegorical association, but to me they smack a little too much of forced symbol-searching. So all in all, what should be admired, I suppose (I’m saying this because of respect for the sheer feat of writing such a dense novel) is Rushdie’s skill for maintaining interest throughout. I was only rarely tempted to book the book down. One really wonders what on Earth is going to happen next, how this phoenix of a man is going to survive, in spite of all his shortcomings and the numberless events that befall him. Then there’s this mixture of fact and magic, or reality and fiction, which makes you want to try to solve the mystery… Don’t hesitate, if you’ve read it, to tell me what you thought!

PS: I haven’t seen the movie, I’ve only heard that it is sort of okay, and the criticism on IMDB are on the whole in that lukewarm direction, but perhaps because people had read the book and were, as usual in such cases, disappointed by the film.

Thanks to Ashok I have been fortunate to discover the treasure trove of these Old Indian photos, where much more than what will be discussed here is to be found: it’s a real Ali Baba’s Cave. But going through some of its riches, I stopped at these pics because they seemed to say so much about a certain Bollywood style of relationships back in the 1950s. My first reaction was perhaps slightly on the sleazy side (like what this person says at Bollywood Life, when she describes the “murky side of casting couch”…), but I have taken a good look and I find the pics much less offensive than instructive. You judge!

These pics (here’s the lot) are said to have been taken in 1951 by photographer James Burke for Life Magazine, and show director Abdur_Rashid_Kardar of Kardar Productions, director of Shahjehan (1946), Dillagi (1949) for which we see a poster on the photos, Dulari (1949), Dil Diya Dard Liya (1966), as he’s auditioning two young women. One of them is of Indian extraction, and the other perhaps of European origin. Here’s what AR Kardar’s daughter has to say (link) about her father’s work: “Kardar Studios was one of the best equipped studios in those days and the first to have air-conditioned make up rooms. He was an artist-director, and made all his films with almost German precision. He was very precise and knew exactly what he wanted out of the artistes and how to get it out of them. Movies in those days were completed in 2 or 3 months, as there was no question of stars reporting late for work, etc.” Indeed there seems to be a lot of rigour and business-like efficiency in the auditioning, which of course could well have been slightly staged-up for the purpose of the photography session. Still, there’s probably enough we can say even on the basis of a collection of consciously observed professionals. For example, one can safely say that with 25 or so photos, enough were taken without the subjects checking themselves all the time, for example below when Kardar’s assistant (or could he be the film’s producer?) is looking at the lower part of the girl’s swimsuit, he’s probably temporarily forgotten he was being photographed, because we can see Kardar speaking to the girl, but all his assistant has to do is have a good look at the girl, his eyes being unused for relational interaction!

In fact on the website, the photos seem to have been jumbled and I think there must have been originally some sort of an order of appearance, perhaps one girl entered the office, and suffered the gaze of the two men, and then the other, and finally both girls together:

Then we have the photos of the various poses taken while either one or the other of the girls, or both, were in front of men.  And I think it’s possible to reconstruct a 14-picture sequence focussing on the darker girl:

              1                           2                         3                4               5                   6                  7

             8                   9                    10                  11                      12                  13               14

Even if this is only hypothesis, it’s a plausible sequence, and I would like to focus on some of the details while this undressing was going on. In photo n°1, the girl has just opened the door, she’s smiling broadly to charm the two curious gentlemen who are facing the newcomer. Perhaps she’s also trying to put on her best looks for the photographer! Kardar is matter-of-factly holding his cigarette, while the other guy’s got his arms folded, so much as to say: “come in, we won’t harm you!” The best proof of this is picture 2, where Kardar comes closer to his co-worker, and, still facing the girl, but from behind the desk which is protecting her somewhat, he lays his hand on his pal’s back, as if to reassure the girl that even if he has a dark suit, he’s still very tame…

The next photo should be n°3, because Kardar is now behind the girl, who can sense his presence behind her, and is standing rather awkwardly straight, as if she knew she’s observed and critically looked at. In the 4th, the director has moved on the other side, and the girl is caught between the awe-inspiring desk where the other dark-suited man is evaluating her benevolently, and Kardar himself. She looks away, perhaps trying to remain poised, intently focussing on what the boss is saying. On a very similar picture (5), the men are practically in the same positions and have the same expressions on their faces. Only the girl has changed her expression: she’s now smiling, but rather artificially, as if she was expected to do so because of some remark from Kardar which she might have interpreted as flattering, but in a general way. Anyway she keeps her gaze away, as if to say: “yes, that’s right”, but not wanting to equate her private person to Kardar’s remarks.

We are now at n° 6, and the boss is really taking the lead, perhaps wanting to break the ice with the model, who’s listening politely, her arms behind her back (maybe her sister’s outside in the lobby, and she’s thinking about what she told her in terms of posture before being called in!) Both know the next step will be for her to undress, and he doesn’t want her to feel ill at ease. Anyway, this is the moment she’s been waiting for, she’s facing the big man, and wow, his glasses are impressive! What an elegant white suit, too! And his neatly combed back hair, very classy, for sure. Note how he’s found his natural comfort-zone position: he’s reclining slightly against the desk, whereas she has to stand, her sandal a little out for reassurance, and perhaps a little unsettled by his having put himself at her level. One word at this juncture on the posters: they clearly belong to the magic sphere where the men move, i.e., around the altar-like desk, whereas the girls pass a little away from it, because they haven’t yet the stature of goddesses. They probably never will, anyway, as this is clearly only a walk-on audition, but the posters are there nevertheless to make the difference between the two worlds of aspiring mortals, and professional creators.

Okay, so here goes, Number 7, the girl has acquiesced to Kardarji’s demand (BTW which expression would he use?! “Well, now you know we ask the models to present themselves in swimsuit attire”??) and she’s busy undoing her sari’s folds. The assistant is pretending not to be interested and deflects the attention away from him by busying himself with something on the desk. The girl’s legs are the centre of photo n°8, but still the director is very poised, he’s only bent his head forward slightly, perhaps to accompany the girl’s symmetrical downward bend as she checks that the sari’s no longer in the way. I must say that it’s difficult to detect any unprofessional attitude on his part. Of course, the two smartly dressed men are in front of a undressing woman, but it seems to me the concentration, if palpable, is clearly dominated by a cool matter-of-factness. So much for the “murky side of couch-casting”. In N°9, the same impression prevails: the girl is standing upright, her hands behind her neck to undo her shirt button; some remark from the boss has made his assistant smile. She looks perfectly at ease, clearly used to this type of exercise. It’s fun to see that her legs and feet are in exactly the same position as when she was wearing the sari!

N°10 shows the moment when the girls takes off her top, and Kardar (still very professionally relaxed), is observing the undressing critically, probably with an eye for the type of physique he needs for his film. The girl is looking down, and the assistant, away. Everything here testifies to the perfect professional dimension of the moment. At the back, the assistant is folding arms, straightening himself to find the best angle, and most of all adopting the business-looking pose which says: we’re doing important work here, there isn’t any ambiguity whatsoever. One does feel a slight embarrassment on his face, but it might also be nothing more than the photo having taken an unfinished expression. N°11 is very nice: all the preparations are now over, and the desired result has been reached: the girl is standing as they wanted her to be, in front of them, the slightly embarrassing intermediary stages have been successfully gone through, and everybody is relaxing. The classic composition of the photo must have satisfied the photograph, who perhaps has just told them to stay like that a while, which has made them laugh: at any rate the assistant is very pleased to be able to sit, like his boss and enjoy the particularity of the hard work they’re doing! About what exactly is happening in n°12 is anyone’s guess. Maybe Kardar is indicating where some accessory will be placed in the piece in which the girl is to dance? She’s very obediently, very confidently accepting the closeness of his hand, a sign that he’s gained her trust from the beginning. In this photo and the following two, as the girl is dressing again, what is interesting to see is that the assistant has completely ceased smiling: obviously for him the fun is over. The same for us!

So all in all a very touching little collection, wouldn’t you say?

It's been some time I wanted to share with you some of the clownish photos of Nutan that I've collecting, and well, why not the occasion of her death anniversary coming up this Feb 23rd? Nutan passed away 22 years ago on that date. I know the tradition for anniversaries is more auspicious on the birth anniversary, but precisely, a collection of zany photos, where our favourite actress is pulling out her tongue and squinting, doesn't this participate to the celebration of life, even beyond the shuffling off of our mortal coil ?? You judge!

That's all for now folks!! 

Umrao Jaan (Muzzafar Ali, 1981) belongs to the genre of tragedies which describe the destiny of a doomed character in a beautifully told narrative such as will bring out the pity and sorrow necessary for spectators to be cleansed of their own sins. And yet the story escapes the genre in two ways: the heroine doesn’t die, and there is an insistence on the fact we aren’t in the grips of destinies, but only wrong and contingent circumstances. We’ll see if and how far these two elements modify our appreciation. If you don’t know the story, check it here, told by Philip Lutgendorf. He also highlights many of the movie’s details and its relationship with the original novel, Umrao Jan Ada by Mirza Ruswa (1905). I wish to focus on the story’s meaning, the characters’ relationships and the film’s artistry. It's understood that in the original Ruswa story, the heroine is rather plain, but the film makes another statement altogether!

But first Rekha, precisely. You have to admit she’s not just the title character! There’s an interview here where she shows how free from conventions she’d become, with and this shows in the movie. There’s an essential plasticity in her face that makes her features a classic in all its appearances, for example her Belle-époque boyishness:

Then her Greek perfect symmetrical traits:

Her striking darkness which make her almost scary:

The femme fatale looks:

Then this clever teary squint:

And finally (but there would be many more) her demure lowered eyelids:

It’s been said before, but she definitely reminds one of Aishwarya Rai (or perhaps it’s the other way round), who impersonated Umrao Jaan in the 2006 version. There’s a sheer flawlessness on her face, which leaves one breathless:

So there you have it: the film isn't just about any tawaif... Beauty, how strong it is! It magically arouses interest in the person without her asking for it, at first without even her knowing it. And because it’s so powerful, an automatic moral value is given to the lovely person, which turns their moves and choices into all-important ones! Their looks are caresses, even if they don’t focus on anything particular; they’re seals of approval of whatever they like, and they’re declared innocent without check. I don’t know if you’re like me, but I want to support a beautiful woman even if she’s obviously following a hackneyed prejudice, and I would be tempted to reach out to comfort her when she’s only teary-eyed from sneezing. I’m like Gohar in the film, (Naseer, slightly underemployed), who flits around his prize prisoner like a butterfly around a multi-faceted crystal chandelier:

But they all do, men and women alike. Not only does Bismillah, her fellow-courtesan at the Begum’s house (and her daughter) envy her, and watch her dance mesmerized, but the same happens for the Begum herself:

And when Umrao Jaan towards the end finds herself at her old friend Ramdey’s haveli, the one who married Umrao’s old flame, she also watches her in a sort of trance:

Everyone stares and wonders at her, the whole film is made in that way. We spectators are in pulled the movie too, we simply plunge in the pool of those mystifying eyes. And what’s moving is that she, all the while is questioning herself, she’s looking for the meaning of her own enigma:

And perhaps in order to probe this mystery, she learns the language of secrets, the poetry divine:

The scene where her poetry master teaches her about mindlessness, the realm of beauty which is reached beyond love, he says:

Isn’t that scene full of the sorrow of foreboding, and at the same time so aesthetically true? Umrao Jaan’s destiny is solitude, and the ravishing beige and brown background setting, with the bright pink and dark green of her dress contrasting the old teacher’s white and black, all this is like the reward of beauty, which cannot, tragically, secure love’s wealth. Everybody knows that there’s something profoundly true in the alienation of love and beauty, and Umrao Jaan is the illustration of this common wisdom. Why is this so? Why does love shun a beauty too great? Why does beauty evade love so often, and instead, go hand in hand with fateful passion? Perhaps because there’s something too scathingly divine in beauty and mortals fear it? One wants to adore beauty, not consume it. Thus beauty is like virginity, an unattainable star. And at the other end, it’s easily desecrated because too disturbing. But there’s more, even if this sounds scandalous: as beauty belongs to humanity as a whole, as its radiance must spread, god-like, on all men, it shares with prostitution a disturbing yet coherent relationship. A gorgeous-looking person is quickly branded as either too pure or tainted. Beauty is thus rarely a blessing, and often a bane for the person who benefits or suffers from its magic charm. Hence so many tragic-comical stories where parents prefer marrying their beautiful daughter to an old blind man, whom she quickly deceives with many young suitors!

Now naturally all this is both unconsciously and half-consciously felt by the lovely being herself. Seduction is a beautiful person’s age-old game of power. But what happens to her (sometimes to him) exceeds by far any responsibility of hers. On these faces, nature stages a show which the person behind the mask cannot always control! But of course they’re conscious of at least part of it:

And it needs a lot of character to resist playing with that shiny mirror which, Narcissus-like, reverberates such power. Check A suitable boy for a novel which addresses this dilemma and solves it successfully. In Vikram Seth’s story, the young and beautiful Lata ends up by refusing to marry the dashing Kabir because she has sensed that their two beauties are just too mirror-like. Okay, she also obeys her mother’s preferences, but the story makes it clear she’s also drowning some of beauty’s potentially destructive potency into the lukewarm plainness of a suitor who doesn’t see it so keenly.

I’m not sure that what Umrao Jaan says about her essentially untouched freedom, which for me is the reason why she would need to insist on the fact that her life was ruined by circumstances only, not destiny or fate, whether this is so coherent with the general purport of the story. For me one thing supports it, and another doesn’t. The first is what I said about beauty. Even if her beauty wasn’t the reason why she was abducted from her family (her father’s staunch honesty indirectly was), it is what transforms her into the archetypal object of desire which corresponds to her nature. It’s probable that if she had carried on her life in Faizabad, this attractiveness wouldn’t have been underlined and exacerbated to the extent it was in the brothel, still I continue to think that beauty’s power, even in the rough, creates havoc and can destroy a person’s chances to happiness. The other fact from the movie’s structure which I think is in favour of circumstances and freedom, as opposed to fate and determination is the fact that Umrao Jaan doesn’t die: we are therefore in a position to hope that she might find some sort of fulfilment thanks to her music and poetry, and establish herself as an independent artist. So: what should one say about her? Was she doomed? No. But I believe the chances for her to meet with trouble and deception were greater than for other women.

                                                         Edwin Weeks, the Nautch-girl

Speaking about music, needless to say the film’s score is astounding. Well, with Asha Bhosle at the wheel…There’s the gorgeous Dil cheez kya hai (and here sung by the lady herself!), but my favourite is Yeh ka jagah hai dosto? when Umrao Jaan is back at her childhood home, and she sings about the loss of what it now means:

Here, as in Pakeezah, the “larger than life mythicization” (Upperstall) process functions too; there’s a magic wand which continuously wafts its starry powders over the pictures and dazzles the viewer with rich colour combinations and perfect character framings:

There are also lovely little vignettes, together with a few street views, which can be appreciated both historically and touristically, and which serve to transport us at the times of mid-XIXth century Lucknow (check this!) in a somewhat similar fashion to shatranj ke khilari!

(BTW, Farooq Shaikh plays in both movies, and Shabana Azmi, whose mother plays the whorehouse madam in 1981, took her role in the 2006 version and is the princess in Ray’s Shatranj). Some subtle references to painters appear here and there in the film, giving it a depth and a richness which makes it a wonderful visual experience, as if painters might have drawn their inspiration from the picture itself:

Reminiscent perhaps of paintings by Delacroix or Edwin Weeks, and

Which certainly recalls Vermeer. So all in all, a superb evocation of Urdu refinement and culture, but of alienation and slavery as well. Umrao Jaan is given access to the world of art and the luxury of comfort but loses her innocence, her love and her family…In the end only the beautiful poetry of sorrow is left:

"What do you make so fair and bright?'

"I make the cloak of Sorrow:
O lovely to see in all men's sight
Shall be the cloak of Sorrow,
In all men's sight.'

"What do you build with sails for flight?'

"I build a boat for Sorrow:
O swift on the seas all day and night
Saileth the rover Sorrow,
All day and night.'

What do you weave with wool so white?'

"I weave the shoes of Sorrow:
Soundless shall be the footfall light
In all men's ears of Sorrow,
Sudden and light.'

(WB Yeats)

I think I can safely say that Satyajit Ray all his life tried to fight for individual rights and a critical outlook on traditions. If you have in mind the film Ganashatru (An enemy of the people), where a Western-looking scientist struggles against the forces of bigotry and charlatanism, you see what I mean. Yet in Devi, which was shot in 1960, Ray doesn’t deal his cards as squarely, and the film is shrouded in a more ambiguous light, which perhaps makes it more interesting. It’s the simple story of a young Brahmin couple in 1860 Bengal, who live a peaceful life in the family haveli of all-powerful but benevolent Kalikinkar Roy (Chhabi Biswas, seen in Jalsaghar or The music room). Umaprasad the smart husband (Soumitra Chatterjee) has to leave to pursue his studies, and leaves behind his 17 year old wife Daya (Sharmila Tagore, who was 14 at the time). In the house live her sister and brother in law, who have a little boy, Khoka, that the young aunt dotes on. While waiting for her husband to come back, she busies herself around the house, looks after the parrot, plays with her nephew and occasionally kneads her father-in-law’s ankles while he smokes away and prattles about things she doesn’t listen to.

All this changes when one night Kalikinkar has a dream, a frightful dream in which he sees his daughter in law as Kali the fierce Mother Goddess he’s revered all his life. For him it’s sure, Daya is Kali’s incarnation, and he immediately summons priests and pandits to adore her. She has no choice but to submit to the formidable event that reaches far beyond her own little self. Soon she is seated on the porch, made up, clad in rich garments and offered to everyone’s sight and prayer. Her sister Harasundari (Karuna Bannerjee, who played Apu’s mother in Aparajito) doesn’t believe in the incarnation but this doesn’t dissuade the all powerful and bigoted lord of the House. She writes to her bother in law to let him know what has happened, and Uma comes back to face the patriarch. Of course he tries to make him change his mind, tell him he’s been deluded by a fantasy of his imagination. The old man staggers a little but then reasserts himself and launches into a vibrant recitation of religious hymn:

No one is worthier of respect than a father,
If you would honour the gods, honour your father,
The paternal spirit is more radiant than the Sun,
The paternal spirit is more radiant than the ocean,
The paternal spirit encompasses heaven and earth…

(lyrics with acknowledgment to this excellent review)

And unfortunately for poor Uma, a “miracle” happens. Bad luck, coincidence or spiritual event: a little boy placed in front of the Devi recovers, and everyone sees in this event a confirmation of the goddess’s power. Now Uma knows that he won’t change his father. His only hope is to persuade Daya herself.

So one night he manages to slide in her room, and opens up his plan in front of her: they must elope, and start another life away from this prison! Daya says nothing, but she goes with him the following morning to the river’s edge where a boat will take them to the city. Alas, hardly has she reached the sandy bank than she balks: “What if I’m really the Goddess?” She mentions the little boy who was healed in front of her, and after a few tentative words of persuasion, Uma realizes he’s powerless. She’s too afraid, too young, too fragile. He brings her back. Her devi life continues, crowds throng to see her; her days are filled with the immobile stations under the porch of the great house and the religious ceremonies she has to submit to, which rob her of a normal life. At night she has tearful memories of happy marital days: all this is over now. She has become a public figure, her duty is to the thousands who see her as the All-powerful Mother Kali and come to bow at her feet for compassion, penance or cure. She has become a stranger in her own house; even her family look upon her with awe.

Then one day Khoka, her little nephew, has a fever. Her mother calls for the doctor, who doesn’t understand: why call him when within the household there is the Goddess herself? But Harasundari doesn’t want to bring him to her sister. For her it’s all a sham. The doctor must do something. After pleading, he enters the room and starts taking the little wrist, to feel its pulse. Unfortunately, his father, Taraprasad, enters at that moment. He’s a drunkard, who sheepishly follows what his father says because for him there’s no other solution. Baba has “everything”, the house, the land, the money… Even his headstrong wife doesn’t want him near him. As soon as he sees him, the doctor flees. Kalikinkar hears about his grandson’s illness. There is no choice now but to present him to Daya. Harasundari confronts her Devi sister, and asks her the crucial question:

Daya cannot answer, but she asks for Khoka to be left with her for the night, as much out of hope that “something” might happen, as because she’s been estranged from the little boy so long. We can see she’s as trapped as the rest of the household. Sadly though, when the night’s over - it was of course predictable – the boy’s dead. Uma rushes to his father, who cannot understand why such a loss afflicts him, he of all faithful people. His son nevertheless is quite clear about the situation:

He then hurries to save Daya, as he says. But as her enters her room, she’s wild, speaks incoherently, and visibly shocked by the death, its meaning perhaps or the pain or both. He tries to reason her, to speak to her, but she cannot answer him:

She’s turned into Kali the demoness, Kali the devourer, after having been Kali the healer (Kali, apart from meaning “the black one”, also means Time, who devours everything). And, as in stories from XIXth century gothic novels, she escapes through the window in a mist of light. Has she gone mad? Will she come back and collapse? Is this life or death? Ray doesn’t give us the answer, but clearly any promise of harmony is shattered, and Uma’s loss is complete.

As I said at the beginning, the interest of Devi is that we cannot determine 100% if the movie is or isn’t a condemnation of the Hindu faith, or at least its Avatar theology (Greg Klymkiw reverberates this reputation here). What’s clear is that the main focus is on the tragedy which Uma’s family undergoes as a result of the revelation of the incarnation. But the film doesn’t take a clear stance concerning the religious value of such a cruel happening. The discussion between father and son, when Umaprasad comes back and confronts his religious father, is important. When he realizes the whole commotion is the result of a dream, he cannot believe it. 

Uma hints at Kalikinkar’s “folly”, his madness even, and the old man takes in the blow. “Am I really mad?” he wonders. But soon it’s his son’s turn to face questioning: “Don’t you believe in incarnation?” Uma cannot say no, after all such an event belongs to their faith; it’s only that he can’t want it to happen to his beloved wife. And then from the courtyard comes the rumour of the “miracle”: he’s obliged to relent. Mad with grief, he tries one last thing, the escape described above. But perhaps he accepts, like his wife, that she might indeed be more than what she appears. And in the end, when he blames his father’s superstition, who knows whether he isn’t just voicing his grief?

Here’s what Ray is supposed to have said about institutional religion:

“I stopped going to Brahmo Samaj around the age of fourteen or fifteen. I don't believe in organized religion anyway. Religion can only be on a personal level.”(1982 interview with Cineaste)(Same review at dailyfilmdose.com)

So I have to admit that for Satyajit Ray, who also briefly stages Uma’s liberal-minded friend (Anil Chatterjee, fresh from The cloud-capped star), a young man who claims he’s disowned and therefore free to lead his life outside the traditional social frame, for Ray then, the critical modernist position is certainly stronger than the traditionalist’s. But how free would he have been to criticize religion all the way? The discussion of faith vs. reason, so apparent in Ganashatru, isn’t systematically developed, in spite of the mention of the key-words “evidence” and “superstition”. There is only one moment when Uma’s literature teacher (in his office we can see Shakespeare’s portrait) clearly encourages him to stands for his “husband’s rights”, and declares that his decision will be his “test” of truth:

Yet the film-maker will not allow him the victory over the spiritual kingdom, oppressive as it might seem. Of course what seemed possible in the independent seclusion of a University office isn’t as simple in the heated atmosphere of countryside traditionalism. And even this opposition doesn’t mean that “truth” or “freedom” are necessarily on the side of urban progressive thinking. In the end, Devi leaves us with a subtle balance of forces: rational intellectualism versus religious mysticism, and the latter certainly cannot be so easily discarded as inhuman. The facile assertion of the superiority of a higher level of human sensitivity, exemplified by a secularized outlook on religion, for example, would forget the ritualistic wealth of an ancient religion where all the facets of human experience are present, violence and compassion, tolerance and trance, revenge and vindication, as much as empathy and patience.

On top of the reviews already mentioned, there's this one by Beth. Don't miss it!

One cloud-capped day, somewhere along the bank of a Bengali river where waterfowl chirp their little bedeep, bedeep, a young woman clad in white walks out of the canopy of some century-old oaks that spread their gigantic branches all the way to the river in a benevolent gesture of protection and majesty. She comes closer and we hear the whistle of a train whose full load of passengers arrive from afar. Nearby, close to the water, her brother is practising his singing. She stops a while to listen to him, in spite of the roaring train, and, smiling, passes out of sight. We are in the poetic world of Ritwik Ghatak, and this is The cloud-capped star (Meghey Dhaka Tara, 1960). In separated East Pakistan, soon to become Bengladesh, life is difficult. The little family of six we focus on has barely enough to live decently and still they try to hold their head out of the water.

They live on the father’s meagre salary as a local literature teacher (he’s Bijon Bhattacharya). As we have seen, his eldest son, Shankar (Anil Chatterjee), is learning to become a professional singer; he still has two years to go before starting on his own. Then there’s Neeta (Supriya Choudhury), the heroine, who is also studying and giving lessons at the same time, an extra source of income which is highly valued and (on payday) the source of much excitement and even tension among the two younger ones, Geeta and Montu, in college both of them, but perhaps less involved in their studies as we shall see.

Geeta thinks more of her friends’ saris than her own classes, and Montu is also keener on football than regular attendance. He will soon be kicked out and start working at a factory, such is the need for cash. And of course the dreams of the educated father is to see his children even better than himself. His wife (Gita Dey, who died not so long ago) is much more down to earth and criticizes him for his choices: the higher education of four grown children means big mouths to feed, and no income from able workers! She’s constantly bickering and criticizing her children for being who they are. Her husband tries to make up for the situation, telling them when too many harsh words have been lashed at them – and in fact, at Neeta most of all, she’s her father’s favourite -, that she’s like that out of deprivation.

These dire straits are their lives’ biggest constraint. This constant lack of money reduces family relationship to a battle of needs and envious taunts, and the ever-present exhaustion from the effort to keep up appearances takes its toll on normal human relationships. Shankar knows he’s a weight to his mother and sister. But he also knows that he’s got talent, and that two years isn’t that long to wait before he can start earning. Neeta encourages him, but even she thinks he might, like her, get himself a little job to pay for his expenses and quiet his parents’ nagging concern (I think it’s wrong, like some people do, to call him a shirker, or others, lazy – shows they’ve never been poor, and anyway Shankar does succeed in the end, he does manage to become a Bombay musical figure). Shankar knows Neeta’s right. But he’s successfully been at a radio audition, he knows what his future could be if he doesn’t practice regularly. So he tries to focus on his training. He and his sister share a special relationship, they call each other khuka and khuki, little boy and little girl. And when one isn’t feeling well, the other comes up to cheer him up.

Neeta is in love with Sanat (Niranjan Ray), a fine-looking former student of her father’s, who’s now involved in the preparation of a doctorate in Physics. She’s been spotted by her brother secretly reading a letter from Sanat where the latter praises her for being

Everything seems to go fine, and the pair have even mentioned marriage. There’s an exquisite moment near the river where Shankar is wont to practice, when after evoking the future with her jobless lover, she rises to go to her tuition, and he catches her hand, says her name. We expect some intimate words, but then the train appears and whistles in the background: his words – we are left to wonder which ones - are lost in the silence of that noise. Later, there will be another meeting at the same place with the screech of the train again covering his words. Ritwick Ghatak knows the spectators like hearing love declarations and emotional exchanges. But he knows also these words are spoken in another language which only borrows our words: what is said cannot be heard save from the lovers themselves. Others hear their words, but not what they say. But only poets know this distinction; so many writers and film-directors think that because they have lovers at their disposal they can make them speak this secret language and that they, like decoys, will attract greedy audiences as a result. They only succeed (most of the time) in desecrating love and its silence.

Neeta is the movie’s marvel. She’s most absurdly derided in most of the reviews I’ve read, which are probably repeating what one person has decreed, and everybody else is following suit. People say for example that she “also has an attractive sister Gita” (imdb reviews) thus implying that Neeta herself must be less attractive herself. But while it’s clear that Sanat is attracted to Geeta, it’s also clear that his taste is in question, and it’s being blind not to notice that Ghatak has made her into a rather repulsive dolled-up mindless fool. Finally, even if I know that taste is something personal, it’s difficult not to notice Neeta’s own beauty.

In fact, what’s clear in this (minor) question is that people are looking for a reason why Sanat has swapped girls (for example this guy labels him and so reduces him to “fickle”). But they probably haven’t seen that his problem is the old male-complex of being entertained by a wife (check Ray’s Mahanagar). This is clearly what bothers him immensely in his situation, because things are OK while both of them are studying; it’s only when Neeta (totally independently from him: her father has had an accident, and cannot feed the family any more) is obliged to look for a job that he starts resenting his relationship with her, and tells her clearly that he won’t accept it. His manly pride, like so many Indians at the time, could not accept the inversion of roles that this meant.

Then some people picture Neeta as a self-denied, exploited victim (here); but, while it’s clear she does have the generosity to let the other members of her family take what she earns, she does this willingly, out of responsibility and love. Indeed she’s Ghatak vehicle to represent the sorrowful economic and social wreckage that communities can face after such a traumatic event as the Partition of a nation, yet she’s also a strong and resilient bearer of her own misfortunes. And it is certainly not Ghatak’s wish to turn her into a self-sacrificed dupe of her own family. Her downfall is eminently political, and represents Ghatak’s attack against forces that break human communities:

Neeta becomes the symbol of all suffering women. There’s the pain she must undergo when her mother dirties her gratuitously (well, as alluded to before, we sense a form of envy, or jealousy in her constant picking at her):

There’s the moment when she just tells a friend she has stopped singing (we can read her disappointment in the broad smile with which she tries, and succeeds, to hide her sadness. And later in the film, one night, when both Shankar and herself sing together a Tagore song, she lifts her amazing head to prevent the flowing tears from dropping, and cannot help collapsing from the contrast between the beauty of the song and her own sorry state);

there’s her disgust of the men’s rude remarks (the grain merchant in the street asking her if she hadn’t come for something else than just pay the bill); of course she takes a blow when she notices Sanat isn’t as righteous as her love had made him (a stinging remark from her brother), and she’s torn when they drift apart. But the worst is to come when she goes to meet him in his new flat, and hears a woman’s clinking bracelet (it's Geeta her own sister) behind the curtain. The pain she feels upon leaving his presence is then mediated thanks to some repeated ultrasound jarring in our ears:

And finally there’s the final scenes when she has to hide her illness, and live like an outcast in her own home and be sent away to die in a sanatorium in the mountains. The damage done to her life and mind is so deep that even when Shankar, repentant, comes back to her and tries to mend what he has broken, she cannot go back. Her illness represents this damage, in a way.

And when we hear her final pathetic “I wanted to live” we know Ritwik Ghatak has hit the right key. The deep desire to live, expressed in dramatic tones in this situation, is what makes the basis of humanity. The forces of death and loss are all too strong, the pains and the illnesses all too present – what is life? Ghatak’s mouthpiece, the father, leads us to the answer. He’s a teacher, and a quoter of poetry: Keats, Yeats, Wordsworth. It would be interesting to map out the references to the lines he says and examine the poems in their relationship with the scenes where they appear and the film’s meaning as a whole. But their combined effect is to give “life” a dimension which is far beyond the healthy and content satisfaction of one’s period on Earth. “The Poetry of earth is never dead” (1), says the father, upon seeing some fishermen on the morning lagoon, and later: “Sing on: somewhere at some new moon, we'll learn that sleeping is not death” (2). Both excerpts celebrate the victory over death in terms of renewal and rising. The last quote, from Wordsworth’s “Yarrow unvisited” (3) evokes the poetry of the swan: “Float double, swan and shadow!” and if this mirrored, double beauty means anything here, it’s a call to a life magnified by its own secret splendour, its hidden spiritual extension which the world of satisfied desires will often disregard or minimize as “artistic”. Shankar himself glorifies the two kingdoms of childhood and mountains, which are perhaps, down deep, the same. For both seem to touch the heavens where men come from, both somewhat tell us about our origin and our destination: “Childhood seems so far way… No one climbs hills anymore” Shankar says one day, looking at that photo where the two of them are holding hands. And it’s poignant because Neeta the khuki will finally go back, and reach those hills:

Speaking of poetry, there are some other enthralling songs in the movie, on top of the one already mentioned sung by brother and sister. A notable one is sung by a travelling band of Baul musicians one evening outside, and fills the village with its melancholy; its lyrics are of the most suggestive poetry:

Here you’ll find some excellent facts about the movie, and I’ve copied two valuable paragraphs on the music chosen by Ghatak for his film. See end of post. The other song appears several time, but most notably during a storm, when Neeta knows she’ll have to leave her family and head for her last abode. Her father, incapable of changing things (remember he stands for Ghatak himself), and whose mental balance is perhaps going, like his wife tells her she has to go, that she’s contagious. He, who had always been there as a barrier against the unfeeling forces exerting themselves around her, who, when her illness was named, stood to accuse a nameless fate, this time cannot prevent her from leaving and dying away from them. Here is the song (4):

"Come to me my daughter Uma,

Let me garland you with flowers

You are the soul of my sad self, mother deliverer

Let me bid you farewell now, my daughter,

You leave my home desolate, going to your husband’s house

How can I endure your departure, my daughter?”

The song is sung again at the close of the movie, when Sankar, back in the village after having visited Neeta at the sanatorium, notices a young woman passing in the street. Her foot strikes some stones and her sandal becomes undone. It’s exactly what the film had started with: then, it was Neeta’s sandal, a little sign of her disinterested soul, of her “love to distraction” of all her family, as she says. This new Neeta looks playfully at Sankar, and we understand something might well start between the two of them. But how (one might ask) could Ghatak do that to Neeta? How can he replace her so fast – because that’s what the song does to us: one woman’s love is dying, another lives and her love blooms. It’s like in Subarnarekha: life cannot be stopped by death, by one individual’s death. Or said otherwise, one loving soul represents life at its full, and when it leaves this Earth, other equally loving souls will continue to appear. So beyond the author’s pessimistic locally political stance, there emerges a prophetic universal optimism which merges with that of art and creation.

A most extensive review here: http://www.rouge.com.au/3/film.html, in which the author looks at the film through the structure of the Tree. The great trees which appear at the beginning of the movie recur as chapter heads, as if everything that happens in the film was somehow protected or overshadowed by their sheer presence. A lot of attention is also given to the precise technique of Ghatak’s cuts. Very technical at times, but quite impressive.

                                                       Ritwik Ghatak's haunting gaze

(2) Yeats, At the Galway races

(3) Memorials of a tour in Scotland, XII.

(4) On the net, I found this downloadable thesis, which explains who “Uma” in the song must refer to, ie Durga, the mother-goddess of the Indian nation. The song therefore must be read in its political dimension, and this political importance correlates to what Riwik Ghatak is doing artistically. “Although Ghatak himself described his allusion to be to the archetype of the ‘Great Mother,’ Meghe Dhaka Tara’s central allusion necessarily resonates with a local and historical formation of nationalist semiotics of the nation-mother” writes the researcher, Paulomi Chakraborty, p. 200.  Check also from p. 215 where Neeta is described as an allegory of Durga.

Extract from Frontline on net:

“The choice of the IPTA veteran Jyotirindranath Maitra as composer was an inspired one. Maitra knew Western-style orchestration very well and had an extensive knowledge of Bengali, Indian and world folk music. He had also learned khayal singing in Hindustani music for a decade; in addition he was an underrated but fine Bengali poet. Ghatak had earlier worked very well with Ustad Ali Akbar Khan, whose raga “Bilaskhani todi” on the sarod created the right epiphanies in Ajantrik, and then with the gifted Salil Choudhury on Bari Theke Paliye. But Meghe Dhaka Tara needed music of a special kind, one that included the worlds of Hindustani Classical, Rabindra Sangeet, a particular kind of Bengali folk, and Western choral music that drew inspiration from Negro spirituals.

Maitra's music became an extension of the director's vision: It further articulated the poignant visuals and created an elegiac mood that stayed with viewers long after they had left the theatre. The five pieces of music that have survived the test of time are the chorus in the background, patterned after Paul Robeson vocals, when Nita goes to work and then later for her check-up; the Rabindra Sangeet “Je raate more duar gooli bhanglo jhaure”; A.T. Kannan's rendering of the ragas “Hansadhwani” and “Laagi lagan”; and Jamuna Barua's heartrending rendering of “Uma”, an incarnation of the goddess Durga. Unforgettable is the Baul song “Majhi tor naam jani naa”. There has been a grand revival of Meghe Dhaka Tara abroad, and the British Film Institute has come out with an excellent DVD, but it is surprising that no attempt has been made to release its music, which is haunting to say the least. »

                                                   (a special starry-eyed moment!)

(Could this be this what happened to the great RK???)

For Raj Kapoor the director, Bobby appeared in 1973 between   Mera naam joker (1972) and Satyam shivam sundaram (1978) and so I was rather interested to have a look at it in order to bridge that gap. Well, even if I’m told the movie heralded RK’s conversion to masala, and that he needed Bobby to make up for the box-office disaster of MNJ, there is still a gap, and the two very personal, even shockingly original landmarks of 72 and 78 tower high above it. What’s striking is how so many of Rajkapooresque resources were present, which could have given depth and meaning to the movie, but went unused. It’s as if RK hadn’t been able to suppress them totally from his script and yet was forced by the knowledge that this type of cinema was now gone, to refrain from using them, and had to satisfy himself with standard recipes that a general public would appreciate and pay for.

For example, there’s this Shree 420-like scene when school leaving Raja (later called Raju, as in the movies from 1950s) dramatically denies any intention of lying in order to move ahead in life, contrary to what his looser-morals friend suggests:

The risk of lying is repeated later a few times:

Now for a younger Raj Kapoor, such a line would have been seized as a warning, or an ironic comment of some downfall or doom to come, because youthful ideals can never match the moral complexities of real life. But in Bobby, nothing is made of it. Raja will never lie, or even face the aforesaid complexities. His “honesty” doesn’t make him more elevated or hero-like, it just makes him more Bollywood. So that the insistence on truthfulness in Bobby serves almost no purpose apart from weakly putting forward the necessity for love to be guileless, something masala spectators take for granted.

Another example of Raj Kapoor’s past glory occurs during the song Aye Phansa, which takes place at the moment when Raja’s parents, having decided to terminate any fanciful risk of a mismatch between their son and his girlfriend Bobby, organise a party to make him meet his prospective wife, a dimwit girl who belongs to his social milieu, and who is (like him) the sole heir to a millionaire friend of his millionaire daddy:

During this song, Neena sings. She’s been Raja’s admirer from the start, and reminds one of Maya in Shree 420:

In the Bobby song, Neena winks again

as if to say: "hey you spectators, you know you aren’t really seeing what’s on the screen, you know there’s more to Raj Kapoor than this glamourous Bollywoodisation of human feelings?" But I’m afraid this interpretation isn’t actually meant; the threat of evil lurking behind Neena’s erotically charged cynicism never materializes, and never reaches the "Angry Young Man" (this is 1973...) standing in front of him in the glory of his self-assured conceit. Raj Kapoor even adds a reference to the depths of chaos and madness, such as was so poignantly present and menacing in Awaara:

First we have the masks, so disturbingly void of any human resemblance (but the frightful effect tempered by almost touristic colours):

and then, more nightmarish, their contamination on real people:

Neena herself sings about the destruction which, at that moment, might have invaded Raja’s world (and the spectator’s comfortable movie experience):

and the fateful word which she playfully repeats, like a mantra: “trapped!” made me think: at last, I’ve found my old Raj Kapoor again! At least, there’ll be some depth, some risk, some vulnerability in this shallow Raja!

But alas, none of this happens. Raja escapes the party on his motorcycle and, his scarf unruffled by the distance, arrives at his beloved Bobby’s mansion in Goa, only to start another heroic stint (I was going to say – stunt) before he victoriously wins her back at the end. As Satyam suggests, there’s a certain amount of DDLJ here!

Isn’t there a moment in DDLJ when the eloping pair find themselves in need for breakfast?!

(Er, no, not this one)

There is another moment in the film when the intensification of mad noise and lights seem ready to threaten the flat sanity of the masala bipolarity. It’s when Raja takes his Bobby to Neena’s party, and when she gets molested by some thug-like guys there. Just before the moment I’m thinking of, the flirting bully had taken her upstairs to watch Raja being embraced by his ever amorous Neena and crooning down his neck these words:

(Notice how Bobby's neck is protected by her bobbing hair)

Hearing this and rightly shocked, Bobby runs down and then it happens, the unsettling of our senses and moral landmarks is made visible through a party that veers to the wild for a few moments:

(notice the ghoul behind???!)

In Raj Kapoor’s poetic world, the balance of common sense and sound judgement is often imperilled by passion and folly, and this is represented on screen by creatures who come out of either nightmares or legend, such as were told us at night when we were children. The risk of destruction and upheaval has a social, and even a political dimension. The forces of the underworld are always there lurking, and ready to overturn the rational and sensible order. An order which the average escapist spectator doesn’t want to see disturbed, perhaps because life is already unstable as it is, but also perhaps because he is afraid of a life he doesn’t want to know, where logical meaning doesn’t function any more. Such a risk is explored in Shree 420, Awaara and Jagte raho (even if the last film wasn’t shot by RK himself). But here in Bobby, these trappings are merely tricks to make the spectator enjoy himself and relish the show. He knows nothing can happen to the heroes, and most of all, he knows the film-maker isn’t out to unsettle him, or question his morals: he needs his money and renewed trust too much. One half wishes Nargis would come back and shout out at him:

But what could even she do against the forces of destiny?

For Raj Kapoor in 1973, destiny has a name: Dimple Kapadia.

(guess what's hanging out)

I’m told simple Dimple reminded RK of his nafis Nargis: fine then, because well otherwise, she was sooo young! But apart from these arguments:

(Oh, it's me, silly)

what could she put forward? This?

(martial, wouldn't you say?)

Or this?

("twinkle, twinkle, little star") (1)

No, there definitely had to be some autobiographical element, and in fact Rishi provides it, in the bonus “Rishi Kapoor reminisces” (on the DVD, or perhaps it’s somewhere on the net),

(Ah, those were the days of youth)

where he says that moment when cute Dimple is brushing her hair with a hand full of dough while speaking to a bemused Raja, was exactly what had happened to RK meeting Nargis for the first time. Okay, so the equation Dimple = Nargis would be the sublayer of meaning to Bobby!! Hum. Otherwise, I found young Rishi Kapoor fairly okay, that is, apart from some gaga seventyisms, among which the proud looks wearing these:

(All the better to see you with my dear)

Then you have some crazy picturisations, which click perfectly in with RK’s “masala conversion”:

(tasty humour)

And the absolute steamy moment :

(what's the film's title, again?)

Not forgetting Bobby’s Dad’s open flies:

(blowing their horns)

And I could finish on this nice and naïve pic, when the dono are “trapped” inside the cottage where so much is awaiting them…:

(too nosey!)

So that indeed, all one could say is that with Bobby, RK managed to make a visually lavish show, with lots to look at, but alas, as he might put it:

Not any more, that is...

(1) (Rishi tells in his "reminiscing" that Dimple, at the moment of the film, was pregnant with Twinkle Khanna...)

Rishte Naate

Sundar accepts the deal, even if he realizes he’s a sort of pawn on his master and father in law’s chessboard. We get to see Raja, the rightful son, an upstart from the city who arrives home with his fiancée Roopa (Ameeta), whose penniless father has thrust upon him to pay his debtors. Anyway, they marry, and Roopa has a baby girl, who is immediately looked after by her bhabhi. But after one or two painfully contrived scenes, during which Narendrapal compares the two young men (one hard-working, the other a profiteer) and declares his own son’s undoing, they leave and wait for the right moment to deploy their plan.

Meanwhile Sundar and Kalpana also marry, and keep the guardianship of baby Meenakshi, who considers them as her parents! Kalpana’s friend, Savitri (Nutan, above), daughter of her father’s childhood buddy (a jolly Collector played by David), celebrates her wedding with her, and all seems fine. The baby grows. One day, perhaps out of motherly shame, Roopa comes back home to take her daughter to her own house, but the feisty little girl runs away and goes back to her granddad, and her aunt and uncle. So life continues, and marital bliss is described at length, even if the two don’t seem to be able to have children of their own, and strangely avert the subject of their dear Meenakshi being taken away from them again. The little girl becomes a sort of Troy horse within the coveted fatherly estate. But disaster hits the happy household, Kalpana is hit by a bull and dies. Sundar is devastated (or at least he looks it), and feels keenly once again the precariousness of his situation at his master’s home.

But without waiting for any delay, the sarkar, who is ever the family inspirer, and almost insensitive to the fact that he’s lost his daughter, thinks it is best to supply his surrogate son with another wife. He immediately thinks of Savitri, the Collector’s daughter. Dear Sundar, nevertheless, cannot accept to be remarried, and so soon! But he relents after his master pulls the worst of all tricks, pretending to leave his house because Sundar won’t marry and give him the child his old age would love. Safe at her place, Savitri rejoices, because she’d secretly loved Sundar. The wedding is thus quickly organised. We understand now that Sundar is completely at Narendrapal’s mercy. He will do whatever his master thinks right. But he cannot forget his dear Kalpana, and pines away.

This is when Savitri takes over. Asked by the master of the house to make herself loved by Meenakshi (yes, she’s still there, unreclaimed by her rightful parents) as a mother, this way she would open Sundar’s heart and become his wife completely, she takes upon the task of befriending the frank little devil, who’s understood she can do what she wants. There’s a funny scene where she’s used by Narendrapal to bring closer together her two estranged foster-parents: she brings Sundar in the kitchen, indicates his sitting place next to Savitri, pushes him there, turns both their heads one towards the other and orders her uncle to smile, smile, smile!!

The episode finishes sadly with Sundar carrying the girl away, and Savitri shedding tears as she realizes the pressure on them. Still, she bravely carries on, in the face of Sundar’s open deploration of his lost wife, and criticism of Savitri as a poor replacement…

There are no essential debates in Rishte Naate; but there’s the father’s insistence to be present in the younger ones’ lives. Of course, he replaces a departed mother, and this (often annoying) sensitiveness has to be attributed to his mission as purveyor of the generations and social order. So when he wants Sundar to remarry, in order for him to have a grand-daughter, we understand he’s fulfilling his role. Still, I thought there was more to his role than just that of the well-meaning, and even plotting, elder. Mother and father all bundled up in one, he resists evil, fights against deceit, checks moods and dissent. Even though he’s without personal family interest (his daughter dies and his son is disowned), he suffers as much for Sundar’s fate and needs as if he were his real father. There’s a sort of enigma there: the film doesn’t fully explain why he is so intent. Then there’s Nutan’s role as second wife. This is by no means an odd character in Indian cinema, but the fact it’s Nutan, and that the role is in such focus here makes it rather unusual. First she’s ordered to be like Kalpana, then she defends her husband against his step-father, when Sundar cannot sleep at home with his wife, and appearances have to be kept up. It takes the ghost-like intervention of Kalpana herself to start set things right:

Nutan finds in this role a sort of justification of her presence in the film. It isn’t as if she has to sacrifice herself as in other more resonating productions, but there’s a humiliating process, a burning of her desires, that she’s apt to personify like no one. Unfortunately for her, Raj Kumar isn’t a very fiery bachelor-husband! He explains to her the weight of his past, his feelings, but somehow it doesn’t reach red-hot intensity:

And so this lukewarmness is itself another dimension of the film: Savitri will indeed sacrifice herself in the end (see for yourself) but in a rather unromantic way. So the strength of the film lies in this unheroic level of feelings, lived at family height, with everyday family concerns and cares. Far from perfection, certainly, but we often equate perfection in human affairs with a certain romantic intensity that doesn’t necessarily belong to it. Savitri’s attachment to her Sundar doesn’t reach heights of devotion, but it’s honest and selfless, and sufficiently warm-hearted to be earmarked as beautiful. Somehow Nutan’s secondhandedness, her disinterestedness, evokes Indian women’s courageous acceptance of a tradition of subservience which they know they won’t change individually. But they also know it depends on them, even within this frustrating environment, and in spite their own personal aspirations, to bring peace at home.

Reading about Mr. & Mrs 55, Guru Dutt’s 1955 sparkling romantic comedy on the net, in order to prepare this review, has been very pleasant; this devil of a director has produced some insightful commentaries from many of my blogging friends, along with some equally fascinating exasperated remarks, and last but not least, truly touching declarations of rapturous affection towards his work… I don’t know what he would have thought about the latter! But I can certainly understand what Harvey says about the movie: “It is so hard to decide if I like this film or not”, he writes. An important declaration, because it means there is something disturbing in the film which one cannot get one’s arm around. And this something is characterized by other viewers as its “essentially reactionary message vis-à-vis gender”, according to Philip Lutgendorf, or by Stuart Martin (on Bollywoodfan's blog) saying “that Dutt offered only misandry and misogyny as options, and ended up stating that the latter was the better of the two”… There’s even somebody who believes “this film is not at all "sophisticated". On the contrary, like most of the hindi films of the period, it tries to reaffirm the faith of the viewers in the rotten Indian traditions and values by following an awfully simplistic and preachy plot.” (Gunjan, a commentator at Upperstall's website). Well!

On the other hand, almost everybody lauds the actors, the “chemistry” between Preetam (Dutt) and Anita (Madhubala), the witty dialogues (by Abrar Alvi), the inventive photography and the “fabulous” songs by O.P. Nayyar. I shouldn’t forget the appreciation garnered by the supporting cast, with Johnny Walker in the lead and Yasmin, his dimpled and perky paramour. The plot is generally considered quite clever, as are the combined antics of Preetam and his pal Johnny!

So the question is: how could such a pleasurable and intelligent film contain such a flaw, in terms of social message? Was Guru Dutt a retrograde artist who actually preferred women to remain at home and deprive them of any political role? His Anita may be the “bubbly” girlie whose pout and haughtiness we all love, but Dutt treats her no better than a “her in-doors”! Not only that, but her aunt (Lalitha Pawar, superb) becomes the caricature of all peevishly arrogant feminists supposedly at the vanguard of the fight for women’s rights (indeed, as Harvey reminds us, the film was done the year of the Hindu Marriage Act). And finally, we have Preetam’s bhabhi (rightly declared “painful” by Dustedoff) dreamingly asking:

Worst of all, this is the person who makes Anita’s pride crumble, and from then on she starts looking through her lashes at Preetam as a future hubbie! What?! She has actually been moved by those “disgusting sentiments” (says Stuart) which demonstrate nothing but the male-dominated desire to have a wife at his disposal, at home, slaving away between chores and babies? How shockingly un-romantic and (by today’s standards at least) so politically incorrect! We spectators need independently-minded women who will resist and refuse their lover, don’t we, before they victoriously revert to tenderer devices, and start the reign of Love. Nappies can wait!

Truth is, Guru Dutt isn’t a very spectator-loving fella. In spite of people heralding Mr & Mrs 55 as a “light” comedy, without the “heavier” stuff which was to mark his later works, or as an out and out entertainer where the actor/director doesn’t wallow in his splenetic persona that nobody likes, my opinion is that the film doesn’t lend itself to such feelgood exploitation. Yes, Dutt/Preetam does seem “genuinely in love this time”; one can say he romantically wants Anita only for herself and will not use the position of vantage which the arranged marriage has given him – this is what explains his otherwise inexplicable photo ploy… But seriously now, I wonder how anyone can believe that Guru Dutt is so very different in this film?

One person at least doesn’t, Sharmi. I love what she writes: “Guru Dutt produced these films (Mr & Mrs 55, Jaal, Baaz and Aar Paar) to accumulate enough money to make films that he believed in. But, that didn't mean he sacrificed his inherent personality for portraying lighter characters. In fact, in this film too he is a struggler, but with an ability to laugh at his sorry state. He sees his struggle with the eye of a cartoonist. His clothes are in disarray but he makes a joke of it. He is the same cynic, but garbs his penury in a funny light. He is unemployed, but has no qualms in borrowing money from Johny. In fact, quite unabashedly says, "Arey yaar de dena kuch, baad mein hisaab kar lengey." But, he is not a parasite. There is dignity in his desperation.”

Indeed, for all his surface make-believe light-heartedness, we are still confronted with the old Duttian cynicism and indifference. Preetam is a spectator of the love that takes hold of him, one should even say of the fascination he cannot help feeling for the beautiful girl that chance has placed in front of him. “I couldn’t refuse you” he says, when she asks why he married her, in spite of the dishonourable deal she reproaches him of having accepted. He couldn’t refuse, it was too strong; desire is a ruthless master which this dilettante, this eternally self-sufficient artist has had for once to recognize. But under this new experience, nothing is new. Still very much inspired, Sharmi continues: “Dutt is the same middle-class man in Mr & Mrs 55 as he is in  Pyaasa. But, it's the expression that differs here. Pertaining to the light mood of the film, he made sure that the script didn't get bogged down by too much despondency and introspection. His angst here is channelized differently, he smirks at the drudgeries of life and its cruel truths. He keeps visiting the editor of the daily for a job, but smirks when there is no hope.” She goes on to describe their love, and fancies it’s true enough. But just watch Preetam throughout the movie: he’s got that opportunistic grin all the time, as if he was inwardly saying: what the heck, anyway, I’ll draw some fun out of it. I can’t think he’s seriously in love.

Passion, if you will, but no love. For Guru Dutt love was not elation, not salvation, therein lay his curse. Could he even believe in love? Perhaps what he loved he had to destroy. Okay, in Mr and Mrs 55, there is no destruction, but who can honestly say that Preetam is overjoyed or happy at the end? I think he’s merely amused that his trick has worked, and if I moralize his attitude, I could say he was selfish and manipulating. But I don’t want to do this. In fact I’m struck by his character’s other truth, the one which can be seen during the song “meri duniya loot rahi thi”, where Dutt films himself as he wanted to be seen: inwardly torn yet trying to draw some sense from what it meant to be, as opposed as not to be. “Not a tear in my eyes, but a fire in my heart” says the Greek-choir like street singer: this describes, not the lover who is pining for the Anita he could fear he has lost after he’s given her aunt that fateful photo (that’s only the surface version), but the desperate yet lucid poet (the same as in Pyaasa) paying for the tragic curse of life itself.

In fact Preetam is never faking anything: that’s why one cannot moralize his attitude, however flippant and self-centred it might seem outwardly. As Sharmi says, he has an inherent dignity, a rectitude which to me strikes as the dying man’s soul, wondering where its flame comes from. Even if Dutt knew there was no hope, no SOS, something in his soul looks straight out, and his desire still burns brightly. That’s where his truth comes from, his artistic yearning for the absolute, that final freedom. Hence Preetam’s provocations, hence his fundamental irony, his corrosive superiority over all social flimsy half-truths:

Still, the film doesn’t pour out all this acid; it’s there, but unlike what Dutt does in Kagaaz ke phool, and to a lesser degree in Sahib bibi aur ghulam, in Mr & Mrs 55 you still have room for a certain amount of tenderness, some fun and some sympathy. But already Dutt is asking for the tears that he cannot cry:

And he is only too familiar with the games of desire which eyes perform on eyes:

We now come to the movie’s alleged antifeminist scandal. First I think Anita/Madhubala’s charms would be exactly the same for Preetam/Dutt, irrespective of whether she could represent feminist progress or traditionalist Indian values. The man who can say:

doesn’t care about politics and the advancement of women, even if this sounds disgraceful. For him, women are part and parcel of the eerie mystery of life and its main driving force, desire. Preetam’s dumbstruck silence at the beginning of the film is the artist’s way of suggesting that he is studying the feminine phenomenon; does it sound very strange to say that women can become a metaphysical problem? Why does existing mean that I am subjected to desire of persons like her? How can I protect myself against such a power? What amount of leeway can I exert over such a power? What is the secret of these signs: a smile, a look, a gesture directed towards you?

So that even if, like other viewers, I don’t like Guru Dutt’s stance as far as women are concerned, I think that what he’s doing belongs to other pursuits, and that in part he’s a deliberate provoker. The “divorce law” was being passed when he made his film? But he didn’t want divorce, or emancipation of women, or anything like that. What did all these (perhaps important) evolutions mean when one is meditating eternal womanhood? Probably he thought that the figure of a submissive yet much more symbolically powerful home-reigning female corresponded more to what Desire was revealing to him.

The great figure of the mother, with her role of shaper of destinies, her connections to life and death: wasn’t this far more essential to understand than women’s call for a better everyday life, which anyway could easily be ridiculed back in 1955? It’s easy to say that Guru Dutt is prejudiced, because he was, of course. But Anita’s politically incorrect love of feminine “slavery”, her sacrifice of values which could at the time be categorized alien to Indian culture, certainly had Dutt’s preference as opposed to what he felt was contemptible unnatural demands of westernized man-haters, even if of course Sitadevi’s character is grossly exaggerated.

Finally, and perhaps partially contrary to what has been said above, who knows if Guru Dutt wouldn’t have fancied himself to be much more on the side of Life values than many of his critics would have said? If life means an insistence on the fundamental adventure commanded by the forces of desire and creation, innocence and beauty, and if the poet is the one who can, thanks to his art, and even to the expense of his own energies, reformulate the primeval components of this Source of all things, then perhaps this is so.

The film can be watched (with subtitles) here: Mr and Mrs 55

Yash Chopra passed today; because of the importance of the guy, I decided to post this eulogy of him written some time ago, but which I still feel is appropriate.

Yash Chopra… Say this name and immediately vast landscapes appear, green slopes where lovers mirror their gaze in the other’s eyes, enchanting music lifts up a crowd of spring birds, dark men march towards their destiny, violence smoulders in the heart, suffering mothers obey their dharma, and love reigns supreme in spite of all odds. Mr Chopra’s reputation as an incurable romantic is so ingrained that it’s difficult to start with something very different! You might as well adore him or hate him, in fact. YC is Bollywood at its best, or at its worst. And love, melodrama… with so banal a theme, such a typically Bollywoodian feature, why does the man stand out? Where does the legend (and the money) come from? 

What’s interesting in his profile is the relatively limited number of films, and the stupendous number of blockbusters. This Indian director, born in 1932, has done only 21 movies? How come such a sparse output – yet over such a long timespan - has been so successful? I know of a few other such directors, Stanley Kubrick, for example. But Indian film directors? In the prolific Bollywood culture, there can’t be that many. Yash Chopra has the rare gift of making a landmark film out of every opus he directs, or nearly. One might say he’s managed to find the mix of story and spectacle his audience was ready for. One might add he’s got that skill to be as true and evocative with social-political films as well as with love movies. He’s also associated with the greatest actors of the moment, mainly Amitabh Bachchan and Shahrukh Khan for the men; and Sridevi, Rekha, Waheeda Rehman, Madhuri Dixit, among others, for the ladies. I would also add that he’s associated with the greatest musicians, Sanjeev Kholi, Hariprasad Chaurasia and ShivKumar Sharma, notably. 

All this would be true. But I think it’s basically a knack for passionate stories. Stories that work. Yash Chopra knows how to exploit and tell stories in such a way that he meets the public that’s here to appreciate them. Good stories that are going to be successful need to deal with people’s main interests in life: the passions and desires which everybody feels or wants to feel. Rebellion and courage, virtue and sacrifice, love and duty. And the romantic dimension is perhaps not so much in the privileged choice of love – even though one can’t deny the place of that type of story – but in the intensity of the passions shown to transform the protagonists’ lives. Passion: does that word summarise Yash Chopra? Idlebain.com (here) says that “tradition” is a very important determination with Yash Chopra. Passion can of course be traditional, and dealt with in a traditional way. The author of that review contends that Lamhe (1991) was his only iconoclastic film. Having not seen all YC’s movies, I couldn’t say he’s wrong, but somehow tradition carries a certain conservatism which doesn’t exactly fit with passion. There is a violence and a revolutionary spirit in passion which doesn’t care about tradition. Yash Chopra has successfully innovated in ways that might have helped define tradition (that’s his classicism), but certainly he’s recreated this tradition to the point of challenging it.  

He’s not a total inventor. No artist ever is, in fact. In order to be judged innovative (hip and trendy are qualifications you often read concerning YC), you have to understand the traditions, and depart from them: do something sufficiently powerful that will redefine them and set a style which others will in turn take as a basis. So if for example, Deewar takes up the “angry young man” theme from Prakash Mehra’s Zanjeer (1973), Yash Chopra has created a trendsetter which critics don’t attribute to his forerunner. I haven’t seen any other Bollywood mine-films, but certainly Kaala Patthar has the depth and guts of any competitor.

Sometimes his stories are artificial to the point of straining the belief of his spectators: Darr deals with such an obsessive lover that one wonders if they really exist in real life. And In Lamhe, the basis of the plot is very thin: you have to accept that a daughter can look exactly like her mother to make the story credible: a very rare situation, I’d say. Coincidences occur rather frequently in YC’s cinema, and I’d say, they’re often romantic coincidences, which are only one type of coincidence. A coincidence is in itself rare (otherwise it wouldn’t attract attention to itself that much), so a romantic one… But I think the director couldn’t car less. What he’s doing is using a plot, perhaps artificially created to work under the circumstances, and draw on the potential created by that plot. He doesn’t hesitate to add meaning thanks to coincidences which elevate the story to the level of myth, or legend. Veer’s prisoner number (786) in Veer-Zaara (it’s also Vijay’s dockworker plate number In Deewar) is an example everyone has noticed. It’s Allah’s holy number, and the film is about the need to unite Muslims and Hindus.

In stories of passion, says the director, anything can happen. It’s like tragedy, or mythology: we are no longer really in the everyday reality (movie-goers don’t mind suspending their disbelief we know that): passion justifies a level of experience which has its own uniqueness. Symbols flare up in such stories, whereas in realty, you’d probably have to draw other people’s attention to them, and to you, the decipherer. On this blog I’ve developed the symbol of water in Kaala Patthar: making a film enables you to weave together bits and pieces of experience and occurrences in such a way that the meaning it displays will depend on that assortment. Yash Chopra knows how to do that task with particular skill. His choice of characters, drawing from world myths and legends give his best films an interest and a lasting effect. So if he forgets that dimension, he quickly becomes manipulated by the fickleness of passing taste. For me, that’s what happened with Dil to pagal hai.

There is another structural element which YC implements in his best movies. Let’s let him explain:

"Relationships interest me because man is one creature who is capable of sane as well as insane behaviour. It's this nature of human beings that inspires and gives room for innumerable plots. Like in Daag (1973), Raakhee, who played the other woman, created all the drama, as did Rekha in Silsila (1981). In Aaina (1993) it was the jealous sister while in Darr (1993) it was the obsessive lover. So unlike other movies where a villain is added to create the problems, in my films villainy is substituted by a third angle." (reference)Ah, here’s something Bollywood has to learn from the master: “a third angle”. I have in effect rarely seen mainstream Bollywood movies adopt that technique. Of course many Indian films have, but they were often socially oriented, fringe-type movies. Yash Chopra has succeeded in bringing this third angle into commercial hits. What’s a third angle? It’s a pole of interest which is neither good or evil, black or white, and is sufficiently developed to tilt the standard Manichaeism towards or more all-encompassing rendition of human experience. In Deewar, for instance, the third angle is Vijay’s swerving (and therefore very human) fight to reach self-justification. In Darr, it’s the unclassifiable obsession of the crazy lover. In Kaala Patthar, it could be Mangal’s course from utter villainy to sacrifice. All these diversions from easily identifiable Good & Evil create a third angle which adds the depth and the richness to the best of YC’s movies. And this notwithstanding a hero structure which is more three-polar and dual. Veer-Zaara gives us perhaps the best example of this structure. Not only do we really have three essential characters (Veer, Zaara, and Saamiya), but these characters are themselves included in a wider generational structure where elders shape the role and life of their “descendants”. The third angle, brilliantly personified by Rani Mukherjee’s woman lawyer character introduces a last item of reflection which Yash Chopra’s films have been recognised for.

Indeed, despite the formidable stature which YC possesses today, he has not always seemed recommendable and acceptable to all publics. We’ve already alluded to that commentator who declared Lamhe iconoclastic, because of the supposedly incestual nature of the main love concern. But that commentator has forgotten that Deewar was deemed as scandalous when it came out. The famous scenes including Amitabh and Parveen Babi in bed, for example. But Vijay’s character itself must have been difficult to deal with: he’s a vindicator of rights who turns bad, a victim as well as a perverted hero. And seen from a certain westernised angle, Yash Chopra’s stance in Veer-Zaara to reconcile India and Pakistan is politically-correct; but I wonder if all Indians agree. Finally, his decision to impersonate in Pooja (from Lamhe) a free woman who does not care about the possible incestuous undertones of her love interest was brave indeed given the financial costs of a YC film. So Tradition is not that welcome in his films, as we can see. Yash Chopra is more a maker of traditions than a follower. And yet he remains mainstream, he is recognised as one of the reigning kings of the masala type. No little feat.

  And here's the ever-favourite song from Veer-Zaara, dedicated "to you" Yash Chopra: