Sawaal (1982)

Cast:
Earnest and boring police officer: Inspector Ravi Malhotra (Shashi Kapoor)

His innocent baby-faced girlfriend: Sonia Mehta (Poonam Dhillan)

Her effervescent brother: Vicky Mehta (Randhir Kapoor)

Vicky's fiancee: Reshmi (Swaroop Sampat)

Vicky and Sonia's mom: Anju Mehta (Waheeda Rehman)

Their evil smuggler dad: Dhanpathrai Mehta (Sanjeev Kumar)

His evil co-smuggler (and Reshmi's brother): Shamsher Singh (Prem Chopra)

A smuggler team man who wants to go straight: Madan Puri

I have never seen any actor as bored with his role as Shashi is in this movie, and it's no wonder, because his part must be unbearably dull to play. He is a "serious" police officer, who never smiles and runs around capturing bad guys and giving dialogues filled with righteous indignation.

He fights evil.

And he has a girlfriend.

And apparently a dad? (who shows up for about ten minutes as a plot device and then never appears again, in spite of being left in the hospital the last we see him?)

But essentially Shashi only plays the foil to Sanjeev Kumar's wonderful wickedness. Sanjeev even gets better theme music. And a really cool icon collection.

The other noteworthy things: Prem Chopra shows off his eyebrow skills. (And he dances a little bit. I think this is the first time I've seen the bad guy dance. Usually you can tell who's actually a good guy by whether they hop up and join the dancing. Don't let this fool you; Prem stays evil-evil-evil.)

As you might have noticed from the cast descriptions, there is a potential conflict between Ravi, the super-righteous and humorless police officer and Dhanpathrai, his super-evil prospective father-in-law. And yup, that is a problem. Eventually, Dhanpathrai realizes he has to choose between his career and his kids.

The ending seems pretty abrupt to me, like they realized nothing was going to save this and they might as well cut it short. Still, it's not that bad, and if you're a Sanjeev Kumar fan, this film might be worth watching for you -- his part is pretty cool. Or if you have an unusual love for Prem Chopra, he gets a lot of screen time. But if you're a Shashi fan, don't bother.

Pinjar (2003)

I've watched this movie now at least four times, but I still can't decide whether I like it or not. In order to discuss it here, though, I'll have to give more plot details than I like to have before I watch a movie, but I'll try to keep it from being too spoiler-ific.

Puro is the one on the top left.

Puro (Urmila Matondkar) is a carefree, wealthy Hindu girl in 1947 India with a loving family and special relationship with her brother, Trilok (Priyanshu Chatterji). The family lives in Amritsar but returns (without Trilok, who is finishing exams) to their ancestral place, Chattoani, to find a groom for Puro. They choose Ramchand (Sanjay Suri), a mild scholar from a kind and wealthy family.

This is Puro's friend giving Ramchand a hard time. As per tradition, Puro doesn't get a good look at him yet.

But one day out in the fields, Puro runs into a Muslim man, and he seems bowled over in more ways than one. In the days following, she notices him following her everywhere, staring intently at her.

It begins to give her nightmares, and when her mom asks her to go out and get some vegetables from the fields one day with her sister Rajjo, she is frightened to go. She goes out anyway, which ends up meaning that Rajjo gets to watch as the man rides up on a horse, grabs Puro, and rides off. Rajjo runs home and tells her family, who are devastated.

The man, as it turns out, is Rashid (Manoj Bajpai), whose family has an old grudge against Puro's. Many years before, when Puro's clan was stronger and Rashid's weaker, Puro's uncle had taken Rashid's aunt, kept her for several days, and then abandoned her. Her family then could do nothing about it, but they had sworn to take revenge in the next generation, and Rashid's family had determined to abduct Puro, whether he would do it or someone else.

On top of that, as he tells her, he had fallen in love with her. So he carried her off, knowing full well that this would cut her off from her former life, her relatives, her friends, her religion, her social standing, her wealth, her freedom, her "honor," and everything she held dear.

This makes no sense to me, and if it weren't for similar stories (like Dinah and Shechem in the Bible) I would think it totally unbelievable. It's like a boy admiring a beautiful bird flying in the sky and deciding (because he loves it?) to shoot it down. Then, in this case, he tries to nurse the bird back into health and turn it into a pet. How is this love?

(This bird analogy is really supplied by the script, not me. Trilok calls Puro "Kooggi," which I think means "Love Bird," from the subtitles of one of the songs. "Pinjar" also means cage, or skeleton. There is quite a bit of bird imagery for Puro in the beginning.)

There is some ambiguity, perhaps just because of the subtitles, but I think Rashid does not actually rape her at that point. He just keeps her in his house for several weeks, so that no one will accept her again as she was. Eventually he tells her they are getting married, "honorably," and although Puro is frantic and horrified at the thought, she finally realizes that she has essentially no other choice. (It is clear, though, that whether or not he raped her at that point, she considered the whole situation, the whole marriage to be rape. When she conceives later, she calls the baby "the burden of his sin.")

But Rashid really does seem to love her, and his gentleness and penitence, his great guilt, make me want to forgive him at once.

Which is the crux of my problem with this movie. Rashid, who was horribly creepy at the beginning and who forcibly took from Puro all she loved, by all rights ought to be considered unforgivable, and I think Puro thought this as well for a long time.

Yet as a Christian, I have to believe in forgiveness, even for this. I think forgiveness is the message of the movie, and it is a good message for everyone.

But in India, where women are too often treated with disrespect, it makes me dreadfully uncomfortable to have the message be: "it's alright." Because it isn't. It isn't right at all.

I think it's curious the way the families of the men involved in rape and the families of the women handle the matter. When Puro manages to escape and return to her grieving mother and father (before her marriage), they turn her out again (sorrowfully, but mercilessly).

Rashid's family, on the other hand, celebrates her entry to the family and congratulate themselves on her sweetness. Later on, the mother of a different man who had kidnapped a woman can't seem to understand why the stupid girl looks upset all the time and won't smile at her son. Imagine that. (Yikes!) I just don't understand the disconnect. How can you realize that rape is totally depraved when the victim is your daughter, aunt, or sister and not see it when the criminal is your son or brother? How can you be so heartless to the innocent victim and so forgiving to the perpetrator?

Puro's dad (Kulbhushan Kharbanda) writes her off as soon as he realizes he can't get her back the same day he lost her. (I do understand his reasoning, and I also appreciate the cultural differences between 1940s India and 2000s America, but that doesn't mean I think it's right.)

Puro's brother, Trilok, on the other hand, never stops looking for her once he finds she is missing.

I do appreciate that, but his reaction has some flaws, too -- like the way he completely ignores his bride in his obsession to find his sister, and the act of vengeance he commits later in the movie. Ramchand's response is much better than I expected, both at first and later on.

Puro had every part of her identity taken away, even her name. But when Partition happened, Puro found reasons for living. Puro's position in the Muslim world enables her to help her family after Partition rips everything apart, (rather like Joseph in Egypt in the Bible). She finds things she can do that give her life purpose, and she begins to recover and to lose some of her bitterness. And in the very end, she realizes that she has a choice about the way her life will go. (It's nice that the plot (and some of the men in it) make this obvious for her.) There is no happy way to end this story, but I think it works out as well as it can.

And Rashid, I do forgive Rashid. He treats her as well as he knows how, I think. And when Partition happens, he rises to the occasion and unselfishly helps her help those she loves, even at great risk. Even when it might mean he could lose his life, or lose her. Even before the final scene, he has let her go in a way -- opened the door of the cage, so to speak. And so I forgive him. (This part reminds me very much, actually, of the story of the Marriage of Sir Gawain, which is a story I like.)

Even having forgiven Rashid, though, I still find the ending problematic. I don't normally like problematic movies, and as I said, I'm not entirely sure whether I like this one or not, but I do think it is worth watching. It's a good look at a fascinating part of history, and it is very thought-provoking. If you haven't seen it yet, you should.

Sujata (1959)

On the night of their daughter's first birthday, Upendranath Chowdhary (Tarun Bose) and his wife, Charu (Sulochana Latkar), are persuaded to give temporary shelter to an untouchable baby girl, with the understanding that the arrangement is temporary and that their maid will take care of her. They are Brahmin, and taking care of her themselves is out of the question.

 

The baby is cute and lovable, and both parents grow fond of her, which convinces them even more that they need to get rid of her soon. But it never seems to work out. The men who originally brought the baby return with a man of the baby's caste, but both Chowdharys object to him.

They keep looking, but in the meantime, they name the child Sujata (a name that ironically means "of good caste"), and start to raise her alongside their own daughter, Rama. Rama calls her parents Mom and Dad, and Sujata is taught to call them Mother and Father.

As Sujata grows, their kindness and their Brahmin rules frequently conflict. Mr. Chowdhury shrugs it off, but it greatly bothers Mrs. Chowdhury.

Eventually they give up on finding a good place for her within her caste and simply try to find another good place for her. They look into an orphanage and plan to send her there, with directions to provide generously for her, but they can't face taking her themselves. They ask Rama's tutor to do it, and not to tell her what's happening.

 

The tutor lures Sujata with fanciful tales of a magical place, and she agrees to go. When it comes time, however, she realizes she doesn't want to go anywhere without her parents, and the tutor has to lie and say that they are already there waiting for her. Upendra has pled lots of work and is absent, but Charu is home and steals a last look out the window. Sujata sees her and runs back in, where she finds Mrs. Chowdhary crying and gripping the bed frame, trying to fight her feelings.

It takes a moment, with her heart clearly struggling against something she has always been brought up with, but at last Mrs. Chowdhury relents and gives Sujata a hesitant caress. Yay!

Upendra is not-so-secretly delighted, and that night the Chowdhurys decide to give up for then and look for a solution when the girls are older.

The Chowdhurys move frequently, and about the time the two girls are grown they end up living near their favorite relative, Aunt (Lalita Pawar), who has raised a grandson. The aunt is old-fashioned and religious, and very antagonistic to Sujata's presence in the family.

At the Aunt's advice they begin looking for a groom for Sujata. The results are rather discouraging.

 At the same time, the grandson, Adhir (Sunil Dutt), a handsome and gentle scholar, somehow manages to be unaware of Sujata's position and falls in love with her.

Sujata (Nutan) herself has also never really understood how she fit into the family. Moving near the aunt has changed family dynamics, and she eventually begs an explanation.

Her Mother's answer is not gentle, so Sujata escapes into the rainy night to cry, beginning to contemplate suicide. A placard with a Gandhi quote gives her courage somehow, and she comes home to make the best of it. (Which is good; I was worried for a minute.) "The best of it" includes her growing romance with Adhir. She sings a sweet song, in which she asks, "Whom can it bother?"

Hmm, any guesses on that one? Here's a hint:

But that's not all the trouble!

But that's as much as I'm going to say. (Watch the movie to find out the rest!)

One of the things I appreciated about this film was its handling of caste. I feel like sometimes caste is shown as a prejudice mainly held by the really nasty or crotchety characters, but this movie shows a nice, normal couple struggling with a social construct that they've always accepted. This context helped me understand it better than before, but also to dislike it more. How awful is it to have barriers on kindness? There's not enough of that to go around, in any case.

So, if you like films about social inequality, or if you just like sweet films with good acting and really lovely songs, give this one a shot. I'll add a sample song: Charu sings this lullaby to baby Rama, and a little bit to Sujata.

I recommend it! (Thanks, Cindy!)

 

Hum Dono (1961)

(I wrote most of this review about a year ago, right after I had seen the movie. It's been a while now, and I no longer have access to it, so I'm sorry about the paragraph I'm a bit fuzzy on.)

Things I love:

• the way they don't speak in the beginning, going from acting sans dialogue to song

• jolly Major Verma! His moustasche, his big booming laugh, his ridiculous (and wonderful!) British accent

The movie:
A young man (Dev Anand) sits on the edge of a pond. A tinkling melody announces the arrival of his sweetheart (Sadhana Shivdasani), who has come to meet him and also to give him the cigarette lighter that made the melody. He has apparently been waiting some time, and is a little miffed, but she placates him. This entire scene is sans dialogue, and the effect is really lovely. It goes straight into a song without either of them having said a word.

The young man, Anand, and the young woman, Mita, decide as they part to talk to their parents about getting married. Anand's mother (Leela Chitnis) has been expecting this, it seems, but Mita's rich and doting father is unpleasantly surprised. At Mita's confident urging, he reluctantly agrees to meet the poor and unemployed Anand, in spite of his misgivings.

Throughout their interview he becomes increasingly agitated at the thought of giving his beloved daughter, for whom he acquired his great wealth, to someone as poor and unproven as Anand.

At last, he buries his head in his hands and sobs out his consent for them to marry, but Anand is too offended to stay, and also, I think, too afraid that her father is right, and he immediately leaves, joining the army on his way home. His mother is pretty unhappy about this, to say the least.

Before long Mita, who was out of the room getting tea while Anand met with her father and still who doesn't know why he left or what he's done, comes to look for him. She finds Anand's mother, who seems to be trying to both go mad and die with sorrow on the spot, and who throws Mita out summarily, leaving her sobbing by the door. She hears her outside crying later, and seeming not to remember her, asks her who she is.

(Okay, this is the paragraph I'm summarizing from memory.) Mita moves in with her "mother-in-law," Anand's mother, who is not well. Meanwhile, Anand is moving up the ranks in the army, still in love with Mita but ignorant of everything back home. One day he finds a wallet on the road and tries to find the owner. The owner, it turns out, is Major Verma, a man physically identical to Anand, but who has a different hairstyle and a very silly English accent.

It turns out that Anand and Major Verma are from the same town but have never met before (and no one in their social circles at home or in the army knows both of them, either, apparently). They sit down and drink together and discuss love and war. Major Verma speaks eloquently on both, and Anand sings a beautiful song. Clearly this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

Major Verma invites Anand back to his tent to stay, where they entertain themselves by scaring the living daylights out of Verma's servant by pretending to be Major Verma and his "ghost."

Major Verma shows Anand pictures of his wife, mother, and house, helpfully including all the information that should be necessary should the plot require Anand to impersonate him in the future (Nahiiin!).

Also, I can't but think it is very weird (and hilarious) that two women would not only fall in love with identical men, but pick out identical handbags as well.

At any rate, a year has passed since Anand signed up, and he and Major Verma have become best friends. Verma writes to his wife, Ruma (Nanda), to tell her and his mother (Lalita Palwar) that the war will shortly be over, and he will be bringing home a friend whom he'd like her to meet. Anand writes the same message to his mother, still unaware that Mita is living in his house and taking care of his increasingly frail ma. Both fail to mention the uncanny resemblance between themselves and their new friend. Before they head home, Major Verma and Captain Anand must participate in one last skirmish, led by Capatin Anand under radio direction from Major Verma.

In Anand's perilous and outnumbered position, the enemy seems to come like a never-ending horde, constantly mown down but always coming. And yet, the camera also takes a few short surprising breaks to focus on enemy soldiers who have just fallen, not on the blood or the wounds, but just on their still forms and faces, as if to say, "Here were men, too, with mothers at home."

In the middle of this battle, and right in the middle of the movie, I had to go to bed. No! So many unanswered questions! I went to bed thinking, clearly both friends can't make it out of this unscathed. Will it be capture? Death? Amnesia? Incapacitating wounds? In the inevitable identity mix-up, will both be confused for the other, or will one of them be beyond mix-ups? What of Anand's dying mother? Will some heartbreak caused by this confusion cause Mita's lonely and unhappy father to do something desperate? (Actually, her father's role in the second half of this film surprised me a bit.) Is Major Verma's mother actually evil (I had trouble believing Lalita Palwar could be playing a nice mother)? Are they somehow lost brothers (they're always lost brothers, right?)? What was going to happen?

Along with all my questions, I thought about all the things I liked in the movie: the chemistry between the stars, the sweet tone and pace of the movie, the songs, and everything about Major Verma. And now that I've finished it, (with some yelling at the screen), I'm still a fan. I liked Sadhana's performance particularly, and Dev Anand also did a very good job. Nanda looks lovely. You should see it!