Alternate Movies

Ardh sathya is a very intense movie.It is definitely one of the top 3 in my all time great indian movies.Om puri's potrayal of sub inspector ananth Walenkar is uncomparable with any acting i have seen so far in india.The intensity with which he has acted is just unbeleivable.

Ananth who is from a typical indian police family (Strict father, subservient, docile mother).Ananth grows up unable to stop his father from beating his mother or making his own choice on higher education. As a sub inspector he is trying to overcome all his inability of yester years by being a strick officer.But he finds it hard to survive in the corrupt world as a straight Shooter. when the politically well connected criminals get away so easily, He feels the same inability that he felt when his father used to beat his mother.He takes it personally as a dent to his male ego.

Nasrudeen shah comes as an once straight forward inspector. Because he was not able to adjust with the corrupt peoples, he ends up losing his job and literally begging on the streets for his livelihood. Nasrudeen shah becomes a symbolic warning for Ananth. Ananth compromises his principles to get himself out of a suspension. He makes himself half true to his self.But realizes it at the end and corrects it in his own way.

Great cast :Om Puri, Smita Patil, Amrish Puri, Naseeruddin Shah, Sadashiv Amrapurkar, Achyut Potdar, Shafi Inamdar

sadashiv amrapurkar is my next pick on the movie.Has played the part of a politician beautifully.Nonchalant acting. This was Sadashiv Amrapurkars acting debut and he won the film fare best supporting actor award. Om Puri won a national award for the best actor and the movie won the best hindi film award.It also won the Filmfare awards for Best Film and Story.

The first thing that i thought after watching the movie was, why i didn't see the movie all these time.None of the network channels have played this movie. Don't understand how they can repeatedly telecast so many garbage movies and forget a gem like ardh sathya.I remember Ramgopal verma telling how Govindh nihlani's ardh sathya was the inspiration for many of his movies. Well i can understand it now.




The movie is based on the short story surya by D.A.Panvalkar and the poems are by Dilip Chitre.Music is by ajit varman.

There is a poem in the movie which is very relevant to the theme. Om puri reads Jyotsna Ghokale's(smitha patel) poetry book and this is one of her favorite poem. It describes his state of mind at that time.

chakravyug mei gusne se pehle
kaun tha mei, aur kesa tha

yeh mujhe yaad hi na rahe

chakravyug mei gusne ke baadh
merey our chakravuy ke beech sirf jaan leva nikhatva thi
is ka mujhe patha he na chaley

chakravyug se bahar nikalney paar
mei mukth ho javun baley hi.
fir be chakravyug ke rachna mei farkh hi naa padega

Marun ya maaron
mara javun ya jaan se mar dhu
iska fesla kaabi na ho payega

soya huva admi jab needh mei se utkhar chalnaa shuru kartha hi
thab saapno ka saansar usey dhubara dhekhi nahi payega

us roshni mei,jo nirnay ki roshni hai
saab kuch saaman hoga kya?

ek paladey mei napun saktha
dushrey paladey par paarush
aur teek tharazhu kei kaantey paar

Ardh sathya

hindi version
http://www.aczoom.com/isongs/hindi/f/xht/2773.htm




Meaning

Before entering the circle of enemies
who was I and how i was

I didn't remember it

After entering it there was only dangerous nearness
between me and the circle and i wasn't aware of it.

After getting out of the circle
I would become free for sure,
but there wont be a change in the structure itself

whether i die or kill
This will never be decided

when a man starts walking after waking from sleep
He can never see the world of dreams again

In the light, the light of decision
will everything be equal

on one hand is cowardice and other courage
and at the center is half truth.

Here is my interpretation of that.

It could be interpreted in many ways.The first one is interpreting it to the physical world. Here the poem takes the analogy of chakravyug that abhimanyu breaks in mahabharatha to the corruption & political rowdyism.It says, what i was before breaking the chakravug and what iam now are 2 different persons. He knows that he has changed within the chakravug and he is getting closer to it(meaning his compromises with the politicians and his efforts to get himself out of the custodial death that he did).The structure of the chakravyug will remain the same even if he comes out safely(Meaning the politician , goondaism ,police nexus structure will be the same).It goes on to talk about his indecision in taking on the bad elements(kill them) or submitting to them(get killed).How will his action be interpreted in the eyes of the judicial system. The powerful and cowards on a scale can only balance at the half truth.

The second and a better interpretation is his fight with himself.
Here the chakravugh is the immoral and non righteous side of his mind, which the protoganist is fighting to avoid. And it is a constant struggle between himself on what is right and what is wrong.

Suraj ka satva ghoda (The seventh horse of sun) is a rashmonish movie by shyam benegal. The movie is based on Dharamavir Bharati novel of the same title. Iam not sure about how much of adaptation was done for the screen. The story is narrated in a non-linear style. It uses various techniques, story inside story, spacial and time discontinuities, stories narrated in different threads with hook points to relate them. Above all the story mixes fact and fictions and leaves the conclusion to the viewer.

The story is enriched with so many beautiful characters played by some great actor/actresses. The movie does not have one central character, there are two narrator 's in the story but the importance is not given to them but to the characters they narrate. The director uses different threads to develop the characters, the viewer comes to know the character’s little by little with every story.

I havn't seen an indian movie that has employed so many narration technique's. It keep's the viewer engrossed in the different stories, switching between fact and fiction. At the end of the movie i felt as if i was a kid and benegal like my grand ma told a fairy tale. You tend to believe everything when it is told , but after the story has ended and u look back at the story and say "that cannot be possible, it is not true". The movie comes together like a cloud formation and vanishes leaving you groping for truth.

If you are a fan of good movies/literature/non-linear style stories and don't mind off beat movies, check out the movie don't read the post anymore. For all those who will never see this movie here it is.

*********** spoiler alert*************

The story starts with raghuvir yadav in a modern art exhibition. He comes across this picture which reminds him of his mohalla (neighborhood) and his college days. He starts narrating about his days and starts talking about Manik mullah (Ranjit kapur) a railway employee who was a great story teller and how he and his friends would go there when ever they get free time and how manik would tell them stories.

The movie now shifts to a flashback where young raghuvir yadav and his friends discuss about the current literatures and romance. They ask manik to tell them a romantic story in his own style.Manik starts the first story "Being true to one's salt".Manik who is sitting in the window looks down at the next house and sees a cow tied to the shed and a girl walking towards the cow.He starts the story that when he was young they used to have a cow and the next door neighbour girl used to frequent to there house.

Even though manik starts talking about his story, the main character becomes jamuna( rajeshwari sachdev ).jamuna is kind of a romantic and dreamy character who is in love with another neighbor thanna.Jammuna is lonely and spends time thinking about thanna and reading romantic book's like devdas.Thanna is afraid of his father mahesar dalal and does not want to do anything against his will. In this first story you hear the voice of the father shouting to his son who is looking at jamuna and there are also references to what kind of a character he is,but you will never see who the person really is. In the next story he is revealed as amrish puri. jammuna keeps talking about thanna to manik and slowly manik and jammuna fall in love. jammuna later gets married to an older man.

At the end of the story manik and the gang start discussing about the moral of the story in a humorous tone. When the gang asks more about the fate of jammuna. He shows the horse shoe in the house and starts the next story " The Horse shoe". Jammuna married to a rich zamindhar is childless ,she often goes to the temples with a tanga(horse cart) driver randhan and he promises her that if she wears a ring made out of horse shoe she will have a child.Her frequent temple visits with randhan brings her closer to him .jammuna starts having a illicit relation with randhan and bears his child.

Again the gang start discussing the moral of the story and they further enquire about waht happened to the diff characters in the story. Manik starts the 3rd story. The 3rd story starts with the other side of the first story. Now you see amrish puri the father ,the story moves ahead and joins the initial point of the first story when manik meets jamunna near the cow shed. The same story also starts describing about the other women's lilly(pallavi joshi) and satti(neena gupta).lilly is chosen as the bride for thanna. Thanna has a child with lilly and he dies in a train accident. The story also starts developing the character of amrish puri as a womanizer. satti is a low class soap maker living with her uncle chaman thakur. Mahesar dalal makes advances towards satti and she resists it. Suddenly there is nobody in chamman thakur's house and a villager says that he saw chamman thakur driving a cart filled with his belongings and a body covered with white clothes. The people conclude that probably mahesar dalal and chamman thakur have killed satti.

The next day the gang again ask more story and mulla starts the story of lilly. Again a story discontinued in time. manik and lilly are in love. lilly is about to get married to thanna ,manik once again backs up and ask's lilly to forget him. Lilly get married to thanna.The gang again discuss about the story and someone says that manik's stories are plain and straight forward and he does not employ any technique in his stories. Manik answers by saying that only people who does not have anything to say use techniques and he is a fan of improvisation and pure story telling.He says he likes to make impromptu stories about any object that he sees and he likes flaubert, maupassant and chekov way of story telling. He narrates an incident with chekov where he told a lady that "writing story is not hard. keep any object before me and i will weave a story around it".Then one of the gang member challenges him to tell the story of satti around a knife that is in manik's room. Manik says he doesn't have to make the knife as the center as it is, a very important part in the story and infact it is the same knife that satti had when she met him the last time.

Manik starts the story of satti .He frequents her place to help them with their soap business accounts. manik and satti kind of get close to each other. Mahesar dalal befriends chamman thakur ,buys him drinks and gives him money to marry satti. mahesar dalal rapes satti. satti comes to manik's house escaping from her uncle and mahesar dalal and pleads with manik to take her some where. manik asks her to sit in another room and reports it to his brother. His brother brings mahesar dalal and chamman thakur, she fights them with the knife but is over powered by the 2 and she is taken away by them. The story end with the previous scene in the 3rd story where a villager narrates that he saw chamman thakur riding a cart with a body.

Again they start discussing the story and manik says he regrets his decision of betraying satti and after her death his poetries are filled with morbid thoughts. manik then says he has to go to work and the gang asks him to buy a tea for everybody . manik agrees and on the way to the tea stall raghuvir yadav says that when manik was narrating the story he had lot of imaginations , he says he saw a rainbow and a cart being pulled by mahesar dalal with 3 children’s the children’s of jammuna, lilly and satti and the served legs of chamman thakkur walking etc. manik after hearing to it says that his ability to imagine is a gift and that he should reform his dreams into a story. He goes on to say that stories are a medium to mold one's dreams with reality to fulfill one's own desires and stories are a strange mixture of reality and dreams. As he is talking this to the gang some beggar woman asks for alms ,manik turns and is shocked .It is satti with a child and chamman thakur in a cart that she was pulling. satti is also shocked looking at manik and she backs off and runs to the cart .manik runs behind her into a fog. Raghuvir yadav ends his narration saying that he never saw manik after that , but he as become a successful writer now.

As the movie ends ,you are left with hundreds of question on what is real and what is fiction. Did manik invent the stories on the fly with the objects that he saw?. If it is true then what about satti??. Manik’s confession that he likes flaubert makes you realize that the jamuna character has the resemblance of madame bovary , it again puts a question what is real and what is fiction. when talking to manik Lilly reference’s one of his character called jammuna which again adds to the confusion. If he was making up the stories why was he shocked seeing satti ??.

If you come out of manik, then there is a higher level narrator raghuvir yadav. Going back on his statement that he has became a successful writer makes you wonder on how much was reality in what he told. Did he give shape to his imagination?. Did he mold his imaginations with reality? Did he invent the whole story on the fly after seeing the modern art??. The movie leaves you dumb folded by its complex narrative style.

Last weekend i saw this movie. One of the great movies i have seen in recent times. If you like parallel cinema , you will definitely like it. The movie cover said "india's Official entry for 1985 oscar's".This is a mahesh bhatt movie with anupam kher and H.rohini in the lead roles.Saransh's credit's at the start said "Introducing Anupam kher".It is said that anupam played the role to such an extent that after saarash , he only got grandfather, father,uncle kind of roles.



**spoiler alert***

The story revolves around anupam kher who is an retired school principal Mr.B.V.pradhan and his wife parvathi is played by H.Rohini. Pradhan's son gets killed in a mugging incident in USA. He loses his interests in life and lives without any purpose, while his wife drowns her sorrow in religious activities. Parvathi's guru says her that there son's athma is looking for a womb and soon he will be reborn,very close to them.

Pradhan in order to add to his meager pension, rents his house to sujatha(soni razdan) a budding actress.sujatha's boyfriend vilas is the son of local politician gajanan chithre(Nilu phule). Pradhan goes out in search of a job and gets caught in a riot.He get's mugged in a subway.Having undergone the same thing that his son might have undergone, humiliated, his helplessness drives him to an suicide attempt. But he is saved by vilas.

Parvathi says Next time she will also join him in his suicide bid.Pradhan says courage is needed for suicide and she does not have any. But parvathi says she is ready and they both decide to end there life on sujatha's bday. But right before paravthi is about to drink the poison she comes to know that sujatha is carrying vila's baby.she concludes that it is her son reborn in sujatha's womb.

Vilas asks sujatha to abort the child,but parvathi is against it.On parvathi's insistence pradhan sees vilas father chithre and as usual he refuses for there marriage and ask's pradhan to vacate sujatha from his house. chithre's intimidation strengthens pradhan's resolve and he find's a new purpose in his life, to bring the child into the world. He feels that he didn't have the power to save his son, but he has the power to save sujatha's baby and he will do what ever it takes to do it. But he is practical and does not believe that his son is being re-born. After a lot of hardship he unites vilas and sujatha. And as soon as he unites them, he asks them to leave his house, cause he wants to fight his wife's superstitious belief.

Parvathi is heartbroken on sujatha's exit and reminds pradhan of there suicide pact , but pradhan is unwilling. He tells her that courage is needed only to live and not for dieing. One can't die for the dead and life itself cannot end and must continue.

**************

Pradhan undergoes feelings of bereavement, helplessness, resolve and hope which are brought out beautifully by mahesh bhatt and anupam kher.The movies becomes little regular masala type in the middle for a while and then comes back to a great finale. A very powerful, moving and positive movie.Mahesh butt has to be commended for directing such a beauty with 2 old couples in the lead.A masterpiece.