Sinhasan (Marathi) – by Jabbar Patel

Cynicism, chicanery and political drama are not difficult to understand, even when the DVD offers no luxury of subtitles. This Marathi classic, scripted by the legendary Vijay Tendulkar, is a reflection of the times – the degenerative late 70s.

Said to be the most potent commentary on the Maharashtra politics of the day, ‘Sinhasan’ indeed shouts out from the top of Mumbai’s buildings: “Where is the exit?”

Veteran actor Nilu Phule plays the omnipresent reporter, covering the powerplays among the various coteries.

The movie begins with the Maharashtra chief minister getting anonymous phone call about brewing rebellion within the ruling party. The suave and ambitious finance minister, played by another veteran Shriram Lagoo, is the one looking to topple the CM, using a labour leader’s clout.

Then follows a series events, each a block in the overall power structure. At the end of the day, the CM saves his skin through some deft handling and also with the ample help from providence.

The maxim – the more things change, the more they remain the same – rules.

Bicycle Thieves -- By Vittorio De Sica

Relationships do not exist in vacuum. Even the most mundane of them are influenced by so many factors--some minor, some major.

This axiom is often so forgotten in our lives that when someone like Vittorio De Sica comes along and creates a little visual treat with his own understanding of it, we are overwhelmed with insights, followed by more questions and then more insights into human nature.

Last night, when I was watching this 1948 Italian classic, it was for the second time in as many months since I bought the DVD. Without doubt watching it was one of the most poignant, yet pleasurable, activities I have ever come across in the field of movie-watching. In the back of my mind was the lingering question: Why can't we take a leaf off the books of such filmmakers as De Sica.

Set in Rome during the Great Depression of the 1920s, the movies starts off on a pleasant note, wherein the desperate Antonio Ricci, a father of two in Rome, finds a job for himself: Sticking cinema posters. The only qualification required for the job is to own a bicycle. As luck would have it, Antonio has pawned his.

He, however, manages to reclaim it – thanks to his industrious – wife, Maria, who pawns her wedding bedspreads for Antonio’s sake.

In high spirits and full of hope of a better tomorrow, thanks to the decent pay expected from the newfound job, Antonio sets off the next morning along with his son, the simply adorable little Bruno, who also works as an attender at a petrol pump.

Within minutes of Ricci commencing his work, his cycle is stolen by a gang three who throw a momentary web of deception and misdirection to rob Antonio of his hopes.

Determined, however, to get back his bicycle – a Fide make of 1935 – Antonio, along with his son and couple of friends set off on a desperate search for the cycle, which they predict would have reached Rome’s flea market by the next morning.

Thus begins the long march of the father-son duo.

Taking us through the alleys and bylanes of Rome of the bygone years, this search resembles the march of a virtuous and duty-bound leader (Antonio, the father) and his follower (Bruno, the son).

Bruno simply follows Antonio, waiting for the emotion to spread on Antonio’s face to himself wear the same. He is shown always looking at his father’s face – in the process “looking up to him” – for the next step.

Yet, they obviously fail to trace the bike. Even after the thief is spotted, cornered and the police summoned, Antonio fails to press charges for lack of evidence – with Bruno almost playing the righteous son coming to his dad’s assistance whenever needed.

In one last act of desperation to keep his job, Antonio, after relieving his son of his duties and asking him to wait at a particular spot, tries to steal a bicycle himself and is caught – right before the eyes of his son, who misses the streetcar he was supposed to board.

Bruno, who hitherto looked up to his father for directions (symbolically, in life too perhaps), is shocked and distraught when his father is chased, caught and humiliated right before his eyes.
The kind owner of the bike avoids pressing charges against Antonio and just leaves it at that. Yet, Antonio is “fallen” in many senses.

However, at the end, just before beginning the long walk back home, Bruno picks up Antonio’s ‘fallen’ hat and hands it back to him—perhaps another symbolism for the son redeeming the father’s dignity.

Listed as the sixth best movie of all time, Bicycle Thieves is a textbook for good cinema. With no major props or visual wizardry, this movie is about pure and simple story-telling. Yet the profundity of it seeps into us and leaves a certain warmth that the most flamboyant of movies fail to do.

Jews, the lost tribe of Indian Cinema

At a time it is reaching out to many countries, Bollywood seems to be losing out on a legacy - its Indian Jewish benefactors.

Their role in the Hindi film industry, especially during the pre-independence, silent era, was of great importance but is now largely forgotten - except in scholarly circles.

Not surprising since the number of Jews, consisting of three major lineages in India (Cochinis, Baghdadis and Bene Israelis), has fallen from some 30,000 in 1948 to about 5,500 today - after living in the country for over 2,000 years.

When India started producing films in the early 20th century, it was taboo for Hindu and Muslim women from "respectable" families to play the lead roles.

"The Jewish community, owing to the far more Westernised bringing-up, was more liberal when it came to acting in movies, especially by the womenfolk," the Indian Jewish Federation's founder chairman Jonathan Samuel Solomon told me in December 2005.

Solomon, a Bene Israel whose grandfather Solomon Moses ran the Bombay Film Lab Pvt Ltd from the 1940s to 1990s, will soon travel to Israel to interact with Indian Jews who have now settled there.

Bene Israelis are the descendants of one of the 10 lost tribes of Israel, which was shipwrecked at Navgaon, a small village south of Mumbai, in the second century B.C. and made India their home.

"The community was in a sense pioneering when it comes to the Bombay film industry with several superstars of the silent era hailing from Jewish households," said Manohar Iyer of Keep Alive, a group striving to collate and highlight achievements of vintage Bollywood artistes.

Actress Firoza Begum alias Susan Solomon, a Bene Israel, starred in a succession of Hindi and Marathi films like "Bewafa Qatil", "Prem Veer" and "Circus Girl" in the 1920s and 1930s.

Ruby Meyers (1907-1983), more famous by her screen name Sulochana (senior), was another Bene Israel, who was introduced into the world of films by Ardeshir B. Irani, the father of Indian talkies.

The Pune-born actress starred in movies like "Typist Girl" (1926) and "Wildcat of Bombay" (1927) and was one of the highest paid actresses of her time drawing a salary of Rs.5,000.

She is often remembered for her role of a nanny in "Julie" (1975), which also starred another famous Jewish actress Nadira alias Farhat Ezekiel, a Baghdadi Jew who debuted opposite Dilip Kumar in "Aan" (1952).

"The Baghdadi Jews (who arrived from Iraq, Syria and Iran around 1796, fleeing persecution in their native lands) were very fair and beautiful, making them ideal candidates for the silver screen," Solomon said.

"So they were a natural choice for lead roles," he observed.

Scholars also recall Patience Cooper (1905-1983), who played the first double role of Indian cinema in "Patni Pratap" (1923), Pramila or Esther Abraham and others.

David Abraham Cheulkar (1908-1982), better known as David, who portrayed the benevolent "John Chacha" of "Boot Polish" (1954) and is remembered for the song "Nanhe Munne Bachche", too was a Bene Israel.

Kolkata-born Ezra Mir alias Edwin Myers (1903-1993) was the first chief of India's Film Division, then called the Information Films of India under British rule, and is mentioned in the Guinness Book of World Records as the producer of the largest number of documentaries and short films.

Bunny Reuben, another Bene Israel, is a senior film journalist and author who has chronicled the trends in Bollywood since the late 1940s and was a close friend and publicist of legendary showman Raj Kapoor.

Reuben has penned several biographies of Bollywood personalities - the latest one being "...and Pran", about the life and times of the screen villain Pran.

Nadira, who hailed from the Nagpada area of central Mumbai, is perhaps the only Jew who continues today to do the odd role in television serials and cinema.

On their part, Jews - in India as well as in Israel - are fond of vintage Hindi film music.

"The 50,000-strong Indian Jews settled in Israel are perhaps the biggest fans of vintage Bollywood music. They associate these songs with fond memories they have of their time in India," said Solomon, who dreams of organizing a concert in Israel some day.

1947 – year of gems, stars and a nightingale

As India awoke in 1947, its tinsel dreams too got a providential thrust that year with the likes of Raj Kapoor, MGR, Lata Mangeshkar, Uttam Kumar and Dilip Kumar either making their debut or finally finding limelight with their first hit.

With the country marking 60 years of its political unshackling in 2007 it could certainly look back with awe at 1947 when a few vital building blocks of its film industry were laid by some formidable institutions and stalwarts.

The rise of a galaxy of stars was also accompanied by the establishment of seminal organisations like the Calcutta Film Society by Satyajit Ray (among others), AVM Studios in Madras and Udaya Studios in Kerala.

Indeed, just four days after Pandit Nehru first raised the Tricolour at the Red Fort, 17-year-old Hema Hardikar, who had been singing for Marathi films since 1942, got her first Hindi film song recorded.

"Along with the nation I think the stars of many of us were in favourable positions. It was a good time for all of us," the girl, now at a grand age of 77, reminisced during a chat with me.

Although that song for the film "Aap Ki Seva Mein" went unnoticed, a prescient Ghulam Haider and a genius Anil Biswas later mentored her into a phenomenon, which at different times soothed a nation, made its leaders' weep and serenaded several generations.
Lata Mangeshkar had knocked at Bollywood's doors that day.

"Imagine! I was having a really bad time trying to get work till August that year. Then suddenly some doors opened and there was no looking back," Lata said.

While the nightingale herself credits "propitious" time for the success of so many people in this trade, other experts cite historical reasons for the unprecedented spurt in activity.

“I feel the spurt seen in 1947 was a culmination of a build up that began after the end of the World War – II, when a period of great shortages had come to an end," veteran filmmaker Shyam Benegal observes. "Due to the severe scarcity of raw stock film there was rationing of material during the war. But after the war ended, suddenly things were available in plenty," he said.

Former National Film Archives of India director P K Nair notes that replacement of the studio system with the star-system, beginning in early 1940s, put the emphasis on numbers instead of quality and dependence on extensive use of music and dance, spawning stars even among singers and music directors.

Lata recalled that after being rejected initially for her "thin voice" by musicians who were more used to nasal and full-throated voices, it was a Pathan supplier at a studio who introduced her to Ghulam Haider and subsequently to unimaginable fame.

Meanwhile two other Pathans from Peshawar had already begun exploring their paths towards cinematic glory.

Having bid goodbye to formal education and having trained his sight on mastering the craft, Ranbiraj, a one time voluntary clapper-boy-cum-sweeper at Bombay Talkies despite his genes, ended up acting in Kidar Sharma's "Neel Kamal" that year – his first lead role.Soon he used that early Bombay Talkies "underdog experience" to propel himself towards the title of Bollywood's greatest showman under the name Raj Kapoor."

1947 was a very important year for Raj (Kapoor) ji. `Neel Kamal' was released. His son Dabboo (Randhir Kapoor) was born and he got his Ford," veteran actor Shammi Kapoor, Raj's younger brother, recalls. "I remember Raj ji was extremely busy as he was totally involved into films by then. He had begun shooting `Aag'," said Shammi, who himself passed his matriculation in 1947.

The other Pathan – a former neighbour of the Kapoors in Peshawar – too was set to make his rendezvous with destiny.

An Afghan Pushtun fruit-seller’s son, Mohammed Yusuf Khan had already been spotted by the legendary actress Devika Rani and had acted in films like Bombay Talkies' "Jwar Bhatta" (1944). But it was "Jugnu", released in 1947, which brought the first rays of stardom to Dilip Kumar.

The reigning singing-star Noorjehan, crooning the evergreen sentimental "Yahan Badla Wafa Ka" in that film, perhaps may not have realized that she was witnessing the ascendance of two meteors of Indian cinema.

As she shared screen-space with Dilip Kumar in “Jugnu”, her voice was also matching notes with a certain Mohammed Rafi, for whom this song acted as a catapult to fame.

Such was the sudden creative fervour that erupted in that watershed year that according to NFAI figures, from a modest 199 films released across India in 1946 the figure jumped nearly 40% in 1947, touching 280.

While all this and more was happening in Bollywood a similar phenomenon was being witnessed in other smaller industries too.

Although bitten by the acting bug right from childhood, thanks to a family-run theatre group, Arun Kumar Chatterjee, a mellow-voiced youth from north-Calcutta also devoted time to other activities, primarily sports like `lathi-khela’, swimming and horse riding.

He went on to become the biggest icon of Bengali cinema and one of the greats of the Indian cinema as none other than the hypnotic Uttam Kumar. While it was the 1949 flop “Kamana” that launched him as a lead actor, the “Mahanayak” of Bengal took his baby step in 1947 with a Hindi film “Mayador”, which although was never released.

Tamil cinema, whose few month’s delay in launching talkies, made its second position behind “Alam Ara” a mere technicality, could not have been behind in this case either.

Charulata

While many of us will disagree with them, great moviemakers often consider the sensitivity with which a theme is treated a more important trait of good cinema than the plot or story itself.

For untrained audiences, of which a majority of us are members, the proportion of the above traits is perhaps what puts a movie into the "boring" or "entertaining" -- and in turn the "good" and "bad" -- categories. Only a few directors have bridged the gap.

Inevitably the maestro, Satyajit Ray, falls in that category which does not believe in heightening drama, bamboozzling sequences or even poetic justice.

Yet, the sights, sounds, music, those raised eyebrows, those furtive glances, the play of shadows, which Ray's craft is replete with, including in "Charulata", make for the kind of sublime drama that penetrates the mind through some kind of osmosis rather than through bombardment of the senses.

Based on Tagore's "Nastanirh" (The Broken Nest), considered an autobiographical work that maps the platonic-romanitc relationship between Tagore and his sis-in-law, the highly telented and ethereal Kadambari Devi, "Charulata" is the story of the quintessential lonely, yet talented housewife.

Bhupati, a well-meaning and well-to-do Bengali intellectial of 19th century Calcutta is obsessed with politics and his newspaper. So much so that he begins to realise that his beautiful and creative wife Charulata (Madhabi Mukherjee) needs some kind of engagement. Enter Amal (Soumitra Chatterjee), the 23-year-old, equally talented and musically oriented, good looking cousin of Bhupati, along with a storm!

Amal kindles Charu's in-born brigthness and is himself bewildered by what he finds. The subsequent intimacy develops into a romantic inclination on the part of Charu, which Amal senses and avoids out of guilt.

Meanwhile, Charu's brother, Umapada, who is also the newspaper's manager, cheats the idealist Bhupati of a huge amount of money, in the process destroying the latter partially and the newspaper completely.

Just when the half-devastated Bhupati reposes his complete faith in Amal--who leaves that very night--he discovers Charu's feelings for him.

The last scene is telling. A distraught Bhupati returns home after long hours of listless wandering. The frame freezes just as Charu and Bhupati move towards a tentative reconciliatory gesture, indicating some kind of an unbridgeable gap.

Aamir (Meaning: The Leader in Arabic)

Tight situation, taut nerves, tense minds.

While the plot may seem similar to the Johnny Depp-starrer “Nick of Time”, “Aamir”, newcomer Rajkumar Gupta's attempt at portraying the moderate Indian Muslim's mind through small screen heartthrob Rajeev Khandelwal’s histrionics, is a short yet gripping story of a young UK-returned (just about) Muslim doctor's entanglement with the dark, unsavory world of Islamic terror.

The boy-next-door Aamir finds himself completely helpless and bewildered when -- just he steps out of the Mumbai airport -- he is informed that his family is held hostage by a terror master, who wants a certain "task" to be performed by Aamir.

Before he is even able to give it a thought, Amir finds himself strolling through some of the Muslim-dominated localities of Maximum city. The camera excruciatingly pans seedy bylanes, a revolting visit to a stinking local latrine, a chase by a suspicious policeman and other such "experiences" comprises the package tour planned for the well-to-do doctor, living a life sanitised of the supposed daily tribulations of Muslims in India.

Of course, as one would have obviously guessed, the whole idea of the excursion was to brainwash Aamir into doing "something" worthwhile for the Qaum! And that "something", as Aamir discovers by the end of the movie, is to plant a bomb in a packed Mumbai bus.

Torn between the options of saving his dear ones and blowing up scores of innocent people, Aamir does the unthinkable (Oh! not the usual Bollywood brand of "unthinkable". Something more poignant, simple and obvious). Find out what for yourself.

Till then following orders out of fear and desperation -- uncharacteristic of the meaning of his name -- the youth proves to be the real attitudinal leader for his community in the climax.

The slick cinematography, with the camera zipping in and out of Mumbai's dark underbelly, keeps you glued.

For a big-screen fresher Rajeev Khandelwal comes across as a real find. His shades of expression, with sprinklings of agony, fear, frustration, desperation, anger and moral rectitude in a way brings out the dilemma of many a Muslim youth of the day.

However, just one scene exposes the director's bias against the Muslim community, thereby making me biased against the otherwise splendid movie.

As Aamir takes away the deadly explosives in a suitcases from another Muslim dominated locality (I suspect south Mumbai’s Nagpada), every Tom, Dick and Harry -- right from the stereotyped Muslim butcher, to the paanwallah, to the shopkeeper, to the bystander to the customer in the shop -- is portrayed as silently colluding in the conspiracy by virtue of the pregnant stares they give Aamir and the suitcase.

My view: Go for it.

Meghe Dhaka Tara

I had heard a lot about this black and white Ritwik Ghatak classic from my PG days. I was particularly enamoured after watching a few clippings. So I thought I'll start off the New Year with a good movie--Meghe Dhaka Tara--and good old Old Monks. 

A hauntingly beautiful Neeta (Supriya Choudhury) is virtually the sole bread-winner of a lower middle-class family, with an almost senile but seemingly well-educated father and a frustrated mother. Of the four children -- herslef being the second--the eldest is a talented and eccentric but jobless singer and particularly close to the loving and self-sacrificing Neeta. 

Stressed out by chronic poverty, physical duress, a round-the-clock swearing mother, indifferent younger siblings and an imbecile lover, who gives her up for her more chirpy and sensual younger sister Geeta, Neeta's character often shows glimpses of the Orwellian 'Boxer'. Soon she falls prey to TB and ostracises herself into a separate room. 

Her singer brother, who meanwhile leaves the houshold, fed up of the ignominy of being reduced to a nobody in the family and unable to bear Neeta's abuse, manages to make name and money in distant Bombay. By the time he returns as a successful artiste, Neeta is almost on the verge of collapsing. Heartbroken, he puts her in a sanatorium in Shillong--where the famous and heartwrenching "Dada, Ami Baachte Chai" (brother, I want to live!) scene is played out in all its agony to end the drama.

The story as such is nothing great, especially for us Malayalees, who are fed on a regular diet of pathos-filled drama like "Thulabharam", "Bharya" and other such flicks of yore. But what does strike the viewer is the stunning camera work that makes use of shades, shadows and sparkles to the hilt, the sensitive performances of almost all main actors, and use of music--prdomnantrly Hindustani--to emphasise the nuances.

The story as such is nothing great, especially for us Malayalees, who are fed on a regular diet of pathos-filled drama like "Thulabharam", "Bharya" and other such flicks of yore. But what does strike the viewer is the stunning camera work that makes use of shades, shadows and sparkles to the hilt, the sensitive performances of almost all main actors, and use of music--prdomnantrly Hindustani--to emphasise the nuances.

In this regard, one aspect to be particularly noted is the childhood dream of Neeta to climb a beautiful hill along with her elder brother to witness the sunsrise from there. The hill being symbolic--from what I percieved--of success (for her brother) and escape from penury and struggle (for herself). But as fate would have it, finally when she does get to climb a scenic hill, on which the sanatorium is located, she loses the battle for life. 

The hill, which she climbs with her brother's help, ends being only the fulfilment of her dream for her brother, while her own aspirations are all lost--like her painful cry "Dada, Ami Baachte Chai", that is lost in her own echoe.

While I may not have felt the impact of a Mahanagar or Nayak, being my first Ghatak film, Meghe Dhaka Tara comes across as a 50-50 venture. A collector's item, it remains though!