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.