One Hundred Indian Feature Films

An Annotated Filmography

Srivastava Banerjee

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781135841058
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literatura
• Subtopic: Crítica literaria

First Published in 1989. One Hundred Indian Films attempts to bring together a representative selection from the first talkies to the present day. The book originated as a project under the National Film Heritage programme at the Centre for Development of Instructional Technology in Delhi, along with the efforts to build up a collection of Indian cinema at the United States Library of Congress.

THE FILMS

AADMI AUR AURAT (Man and Woman)
colour, 56 minutes, Hindi, 1984

Production: Doordarshan/ Direction and screenplay: Tapan Sinha/ Story: Prafulla Roy/ Camera: Kamal Nayek/ Music: Ashish Khan/ Art Direction: Kartick Bose/Editing: Subodh Roy/Sound: Satyen Chatterjee
Cast: Amol Palekar, Mahua Roy Chowdhury

A YOUNG village girl, with a shapeless bundle in her arms, waits on the highway for a bus into town. When the bus finally comes, it is impossibly overcrowded, and the men waiting with her, decide to take a short cut through the hills into town. The girl follows at a distance as the group find their way through the forested, undulating land. Bansi, the poacher, walks with the men, and yet a few steps behind. He is a loner, a tough youth who earns a living by helping the landlords hunt game, and the difficulties of the route hold no fears for him. He turns back to look at the girl and finds that she is falling behind. The other men say they do not know her at all. Bansi grins as she shies off like a nervous filly every time he stops.

A slow drizzle begins to fall. The group of men hasten their steps and are soon hidden from view. The girl looks ill, and stops near a boulder to catch her breath. Bansi decides to approach her. Maybe she is playing a little game. But she looks genuinely scared when he comes closer, and he realizes that she is pregnant. In his simple, harsh existence, there are some things that Bansi has learnt to respect. Now he talks to the girl kindly, and when he learns that her destination is the hospital at Vakilganj, he decides to help her get there. Her husband has taken a loan to send her to the hospital, she says haltingly, so now he must work on the moneylender's field to pay it off.

But the road is arduous, and the weight in her stomach seems to grow with each step. Bansi talks of his life in the forest, of exotic tiger hunts, to keep her going. When she collapses, he carries her on his strong shoulders, till he too is tired. Then he makes her a bamboo stretcher and drags her along, keeping her awake with his stories and his force of will. When the girl is nearly unconscious, and Bansi panics, a forest guard helps him to carry the makeshift stretcher to the river that they must cross. It is actually a shallow stream, now swollen with rain. Determined to save her life, Bansi manages to drag her across the swirling currents, imploring her to keep awake, forcing her out of her stupor. Once across, a bullock cart carries them to the hospital. At the hospital he is casually told there is no room for another patient, but Bansi threatens and cajoles till he gets his way.

Bansi goes to meet the landlord whom he was supposed to escort on a hunt. But he has reached late and the hunt has been postponed. Next morning, on his way back home, he stops at the hospital. The girl has given birth to a baby boy, they tell him. He goes to see her, and asks her husband's name, so that he may give him the news. “Anwar Hossain,” says the girl. For a brief moment it startles him. He, a god-fearing Hindu, has saved the life of a Muslim woman. Then he smiles. “I'll tell him about the baby,” he says. The girl raises her frail arms. “I shall always pray to Allah for you,” she says.

THOUGH IT won the award for the best film of the year on national integration, Aadmi aur Aurat, originally made for Indian television, focuses on something much larger than religious separatism. The incredible journey of Bansi and the girl becomes a metaphor for human compassion and courage. That he is a staunch Hindu seems an accidental factor, to be dismissed just as Bansi himself dismisses it at the end of the film. The visual beauty and the simplicity of its style is a common trait in the films of Tapan Sinha, who started his career as a filmmaker with Ankush, made in 1953. His training in the language of the cinema, however, had started earlier, with a long stint as a sound recordist at the famous New Theatres studio in Calcutta. With his variety of themes and his obvious talent for visual story-telling, Tapan Sinha has been for many years, the link between the artistic and the popular cinema of Bengal. Fitting into neither slot, he has entertained both the critics and the ordinary film viewer with equal success. Though most of his films are made in Bengali, there have been Hindi remakes as wells as originals in his repertoire. In 1985, as homage to the veteran director, a retrospective of his films was held during the Tenth International Film Festival of India.

AAKROSH (Cry of the Wounded)
colour, 144 minutes, Hindi, 1980

Production: Krsna Movies Enterprises/ Direction and Camera: Govind Nihalani/ Story and Screenplay: Vijay Tendulkar/ Music: Ajit Varman/ Art Direction: C.S. Bhatti/ Editing: Keshav Naidu
Cast: Naseeruddin Shah, Smita Patil, Om Puri, Arvind Deshpande, Mohan Agashe, Achut Potdar, Nana Palsikar, Bhagyasree Kotnis, Mahesh Elkunchwar

LAHANYA BHIKU, an illiterate tribal, is accused of killing his wife. For his defence, the court appoints a young upper-caste lawyer, Bhaskar Kulkarni. This is Kulkarni's first major independent case, and he is anxious to win it. But Lahanya refuses to cooperate. He refuses to speak. Exasperated and intrigued by Lahanya's seemingly stupid and stubborn silence, Kulkarni decides to investigate on his own the truth behind the case. He soon discovers that there are hidden complexities that cannot be resolved easily. He is threatened by strangers, but helped by a young leftist social worker who takes him to the tribal village. But here too, Kulkarni meets with obstinate silence, mingled with a long history of fear and distrust. Probing further, Kulkarni learns that Lahanya has been falsely accused. His wife was raped and murdered on a night of obscene revelry by a combine of local officials, politicians and businessmen. They form the power elite beyond the reach of the law. The police protect them, not their victims.

Kulkarni's involvement with the case gradually changes from a professional to a social commitment. It brings him in conflict with his mentor, Dussane, who himself comes from tribal stock but has had the privilege of a middle-class education. Dussane values his hard-earned social and professional status, and though aware of the truth, chooses to keep silent, reacting with mixed feelings to the late night telephone calls that regularly aim at him a stream of invective and threats.

But all Kulkarni's determination cannot save Lahanya. His only supporter, the social worker, disappears suddenly, presumably eliminated by the forces he fought against. At his father's funeral which the shackled Lahanya is allowed to attend, the young tribal breaks his bonds and hacks down his helpless sister. As long as his father was alive, Lahanya's silence could perhaps protect the family from persecution. Now alone in the world, his young sister too would be an inevitable prey to the same exploitative system. Lahanya breaks his long silence with a last cry of anguish—his final protest. Bewildered by the turn of events, Kulkarni attempts to come to terms with his own helplessness in a society where the corrupt are protected and justice is a pawn in the hands of the powerful.

“NlHALANI ranges between the documentarist's observation and a sense of theatrical presentation, a film technician making fiction out of reality,” says filmmaker Shama Habibullah. The comment is specially meaningful, for it explains the dual role that Govind Nihalani plays in his first film, as cameraman and director. Nihalani, who has been an important contributor to the parallel cinema in India ever since Aakrosh, has had a long and successful career as a cameraman. His association with filmmaker Shyam Benegal not only sharpened his camera vision, but honed his intellectual perceptions of contemporary Indian reality. Perhaps it also helped him to realize that “art” and “commercial” cinema are not permanently opposed in their artistic viewpoint. His second film, Ardh Satya, examining the brutalizing of a young police officer, was an unusual box-office success, and established the viability of serious themes for the popular market.

What Benegal did for Shabana Azmi, Smita Patil and Naseeruddin Shah, Nihalani did for Om Puri who, in the role of Lahanya, emerged as one of the most powerful screen actors of the parallel cinema. The lean, rugged, unglamorous Puri with his strange eyes haunted with memories of happiness and forebodings of death, carries the film silently and inexorably towards its explosive climax. Aakrosh also demonstrates Nihalani's strong dramatic sense transmuted into cinema. Most of his actors in the film came from the Hindi and Marathi stage, while the young social worker was played by Mahesh Elkunchwar, himself a playwright, one of whose plays Nihalani was to use later for his film, Party. The story and screenplay for Aakrosh were written by Vijay Tendulkar, a much revered playwright and director of the Marathi stage who has worked as a scriptwriter for many successful filmmakers within the parallel cinema movement, and has also produced a television series based on a young urban middle-class woman's experiences as a divorcee. Nihalani has recently made a rather controversial television serial on the partition of India, based on a well-known novel by Bhisham Sahni.

ACHAMILLAI ACHAMILLAI (Fearless)
colour, 160 minutes, Tamil, 1984

Production: Kavithalayaa Productions (P) Limited/ Direction, story, screenplay and dialogue: K. Balachander/ Camera: B.S. Lokanath/ Music: V.S. Narasimhan/Lyrics: Vairamuthu/Art Direction: Mohanam/ Editing: N.R. Kittoo/Sound: S.P. Ramanathan
Cast: Saritha, Rajesh, Delhi Ganesh, Pavithra, Ahalya, Prabhakar, Vairam Krishnamoorthy, Veeraiah, Charley

THENMOZHI, a worker in a fibre factory, lives with her blind father, an ex-freedom fighter, in a village nestling among the southern hills. She is attracted to Ulaganathan, a young idealist from a lower middle-class background, who works in a local saw mill, and is highly respected in the community for his moral integrity and selflessness. Ulaganathan's father approves of their friendship and sets an auspicious date for their marriage—Independence Day. The young couple devote themselves to social work, but soon Ulaganathan's influence over his community makes political parties vie with each other in their efforts to woo him. Thenmozhi believes that her husband's high moral standards will not allow him to become a victim of unscrupulous politicians. But the greed for power eventually overcomes Ulaganathan's resistance, and he joins one of the parties when promised a ministership.

The process of disintegration has begun and Ulaganathan makes one compromise after another, refusing to heed the warnings of his wife and father who soon become marginalized in his home. For Thenmozhi his brutalization is complete when she learns that in order to force a man to vote for him, Ulaganathan has hired local ruffians to molest the man's wife. When she remonstrates, she is crudely told to keep to her place. Thenmozhi goes to her father's home to deliver her first child. Meanwhile Ulaganathan wins the election, but when neither party gains a clear majority, defects to the rival party and gets a palatial house as part of his pay off.

When Thenmozhi returns with the child, she is revolted by Ulaganathan's behaviour and refuses to share his bed. To retaliate, Ulaganathan brings Alangaram into the house as his mistress, and she and her mother gradually take over the running of the household. Unwanted and repeatedly humiliated, Thenmozhi leaves home. Subsequently she loses her child in an accident. The final blow falls when she hears that her husband is “arranging” a communal riot to silence his critics in the community. She tries for the last time to talk to him, but Ulaganathan justifies himself by saying that political murders cannot be judged by common ethics. The next day is Independence Day. A new statue of Mahatma Gandhi is unveiled; Ulaganathan stands on the dais and talks of sacrifices made by him and his party for the people. Listening to him, Thenmozhi can only hear the brutal words with which he had justified his misdeeds to her. She goes to him carrying a garland. As she puts it round his neck, she draws a knife hidden among the flowers and stabs Ulaganathan to death.

K. BALACHANDER is a highly successful and prolific director of popular Tamil cinema, who has also directed films in Malayalam, Telugu and Hindi with equal success. Many of his films have won national and regional awards, and he has a large following among the film critics in the South. Not unlike the popular cinema from Bombay, Balachander's films come with the spit and polish of technical excellence, and his themes are often even more dramatic. Not for him the ordinary romance threatened by ordinary villains, or the confrontation between common or garden varieties of good and evil. Social purpose is writ large on his productions, and is used as the justification for his popularity. That he is considered a major director in his region is an established fact. Yet his films disclose basic crudities that are irreconcilable with his lofty purpose. Whether it is his Hindi blockbuster, Ek Duje ke Liye, a song and dance romance ending in tragedy between a South Indian boy and a Punjabi girl (unusual, never-before theme!), or a drama of political corruption as in Achamillai Achamillai, the overlay of crudity takes away from the basic validity of the narrative.

Achamillai Achamillai has a wealth of obvious symbolism: Thenmozhi's brother, born on the day of the country's independence, is named after it Swatantram (independent); yet he is a deformed midget who is all sound and fury, and willingly accepts a bribe from his corrupt brother-in-law. To establish Ulaganathan's personal degeneration, his bringing a mistress home is not enough. The breeze blows the curtain aside, and the audience and Thenmozhi must witness the hefty Ulaganathan lying naked to the waist, being massaged by the fair feet of Alangaram. Even Thenmozhi's blind father, an ex-freedom fighter, is bought by Ulaganathan who promises to pay for an operation to restore his sight (more irony!). The quick transformation of the devoted and honest social worker into a ruthless political monster actually seems to imply that the man had no conscience in any case to begin with. Yet Balachander's film seemed convincing enough to his vast audience and critics found revolutionary undertones at Thenmozhi's knife point. Balachander undoubtedly remains a phenomenon in the world of morally self-righteous kitsch.

ACHHUT KANYA (The Untouchable Girl)
b&w, 143 minutes, Hindi, 1936

Production: Bombay Talkies/ Direction: Franz Osten/ Story: Himanshu Rai/ Screenplay and lyrics: J.S. Casshyap/ Camera: Joseph Wirsching/ Music: Saraswati Devi/ Art Direction: Karl von Spreti/ Sound: Savak Vacha
Cast: Ashok Kumar, Devika Rani, P.F. Pithawala, Pramila, Kusum Kumari, Anwar

KASTURI IS a beautiful Harijan girl, the daughter of Dukhia, the pointsman at the level-crossing. Her closest friend is Pratap, the shy, handsome son of Mohanlal, the village grocer who is a Brahmin. Though tongues wag in the village about this unnatural friendship between a casteless untouchable girl and a boy from the highest Hindu caste, the young people can ignore what they say, for their fathers are friends too. The most raucous critic is Babulal, the village quack, who actually has another axe to grind. His pills and potions are not as effective as the medicines Mohanlal often prescribes.

Even as their feelings transform into love, brought up in an environment of strict social norms of behaviour, Kasturi and Mohanlal accept without any real protest the fact that they have no future together. Social taboos ultimately separate them. The villagers, hearing that Mohanlal has even eaten food cooked by an untouchable, are up in arms against both families. They are even more incensed when they learn that because Dukhia is ill, Mohanlal has decided to bring him to his own home, to look after him. Mohanlal is accused by the upper-caste community of destroying their religion. The confrontation becomes a full-scale riot when Mohanlal refuses to throw out Dukhia. A mob loots his shop and sets his home on fire. When Mohanlal is injured, the fever-racked Dukhia rushes out to stop a mail train so that he may bring a doctor back from the junction. The railway authorities promptly dismiss him for this irresponsible act, and an untouchable youth Manoo, the son of an old friend, is employed in his place. Manoo insists on sharing his home with Dukhia and Kasturi.

Pratap is soon married to Meera who feels neglected by him, for he finds it difficult to return her affections. His thoughts are always with Kasturi who is given in marriage to Manoo. A dutiful wife, Kasturi welcomes Manu's estranged first wife, Kajri, to their home even though Manoo will not have her back. Kajri and Meera both feel that Kasturi is the source of all their unhappiness. Between them they hatch a plot which goes tragically astray. Pratap has a small stall in a nearby village fair, where he meets Kasturi after a long interval. Kasturi had come to the fair with Kajri and Meera, but now finds that she has been abandoned by them. Pratap gives her a ride back home in his cart. All this while, afraid of their feelings, they had wisely kept out of each other's way. Now the chance encounter brings back for both of them memories of their time together. Meanwhile Manoo is told that Kasturi has left him for Pratap. In a wild rage, Manoo sets out to kill Pratap. They meet on the railway tracks as a train approaches the level-crossing. Locked in battle, both the Brahmin youth and his untouchable antagonist are unaware of danger. Kasturi, in desperation, tries to halt the onrushing train. She dies to save the man she loved and the man she had married.

HlMANSHU RAI, who had already behind him successful international coproductions, started Bombay Talkies Limited in 1934. A studio with the most modern equipment was built under his personal supervision, and Franz Osten, director of three of his earlier ventures, The Light of Asia, Shiraz, and A Throw of Dice, joined the staff along with some other technicians from Ger...