Mausam

One look at the movie poster and my mind was made up! Two of my
favourite actors, Sanjeev Kapoor and the very sexy Sharmila Tagore,
sure promise a few hours of good cinema.

Mausam (season)
though decades old, stills remains an attractive movie
owing to Gulzar’s candid story telling. While the plot itself is not
what I would rave about, its the way Gulzar and his actors have handled
the story, that glues you to the expected end. Amarnath Gill (Sanjeev
Kapoor) guilty of a failed relationship with a small town vaid’s (local
village doctor) daughter Chanda (Sharmila Tagore) and incidentally,
twenty odd years later stumbles upon the remnants of Chanda’s life, in
an off-season vacation in Darjeeling. Filled with remorse and regret,
Amarnath embarks on a journey to seek what remains of his lost love,
Chanda’s daughter Kajli (also Sharmila).

Of the several paths that this story could walk down, the choice of
simplicity and bare truth exposed in the character s feelings makes the
movie so convincing! Without actually dwelling on the notes of sympathy
(for Kajli’s life as a prostitute), or revenge / hatred (for Kajli
towards Amarnath, the lover who failed her mother) or self-loathing
(for Amarnath who realizes the cost of his erroneous choices in life),
the movie paces on, leaving it for its viewers to experience this
basket of emotions.

Some rather nice tracks, befitting its generation, accompanies this
movie. Take those hours off and grab yourself a copy of this film.

PS: An interesting thing pointed out to me was that this movie has a slight take off from the AJ
Cronin novel Judas tree!

Haazar Chaurasi Ki Maa

Its been about a year since my last post, but rest assured the movie count has only gone up!

Among many others, this weekend I saw Haazar Chaurasi Ki Maa. This much acclaimed film is a narrate of Sujata Chatterji's (Jaya Bhaduri) discovery of her son's (Brati Chatterji played by Joy Sengupta) life. Made in the backdrop of the Naxalite uprising in Bengal's Naxalbari, the film mostly deals with Sujata's quest for understanding her deceased son's ideologies and outlook to life. Starting off with a mere corpse number '1084' (which lends the film its name), she establishes her son's true identity, despite the social barriers surrounding her.

What appealed to me the most was Sujata's character defined as a simple minded mother whose love for her son gave her the strength to not only discover his pursuit in life, but also, find meaning in her own. That apart, Govind Nihalani brings out a nice diagnosis of the varying ideologies of an entire generation - how a protected and almost shrouded environment can co-exist with an uprising that seeks to change the very foundation of society. The movie explodes at a point where Sujata questions this very oddity, thus marking a moment of change in her own life.

The film has tremendous talent in its actors like Anupum Kher, Seema Biswas, Nandita Das, Joy Sengupta, Milind Gunaji and of course Jaya Bachhan making a comeback in 1998 after a long gap in her cinema career. A very good film to watch.