Pakeezah

Pakeezah

The film Pakeezah has many significant meanings within its story. Maybe that is why I had such trouble deciphering this movie. I would like to focus particularly on the critique of the general patriarchy that was displayed within this movie. The general that I speak of would be Salim’s fathers stupid and ridiculous acts to prevent his son and future wife from being happy.

The general patriarchy in this movie represents biased ideals that a father expects his child, Salim, to find a perfect wife and live up to all these ideals that not every single woman can do. Sahibjaan is a very hard-working woman who was put into a lifestyle by her aunt without her knowing there would be much else, let alone something that she is good at. That to me is the essence of a good woman. Sahibjaan is someone who works hard every day to live. She does not complain and knows that her job has some very bad risks at times. These risks present itself when, in thanks to her aunt, she is almost raped by another man just for having a poor showing at her job. She is honest and you can see this when she confesses her job to Salim out of guilt for everything that he has done for her. She even agrees to dance with the man who calls off her wedding.

Regardless of all this Salim’s father instantly dislikes the female because Salim knows very little about her past. Since at the time the father makes all the decisions he tries to prevent them from being happy. He even goes as far as trying to kill her over her getting glass in her feet.

This movie in my opinion assaults a patriarchy by showing the stupidity of some males and what it could do to impact the lives of others. The happy ending was close to being tragic based on a father’s ridiculous beliefs on what a wife should be at the time of this movie.

Sholay

I would like to discuss the idea of the “Curry Western” for this post. The opening scenes are very similar to westerns from the 60’s and 70’s especially with the central plots evolving around a farm/ open arid desert or the train station/ tracks. The theme of the not so good protagonists is very prominent within the film, the first thirty minutes being spent on a song and dance number and montage of the brother’s current situation and their stint in jail. Relating this to many westerns of the time I was reminded of Quentin Tarentino in his earlier days as a nonsense mercenary who takes matters into his own hands.

A point I would like to raise was why the jailor’s mustache was similar to Hitler’s, was that a coincidence? It seems that there was a resemblance due to how he treated the prisoners but I am not sure. Amitabh Bachan’s character is also in stark contrast to Dharmendra’s character in this film, one is talkative, and the other (Amitabh) is skilled but silent. The two play off each other brilliantly and made for some great characters.

Another point I would like to raise is that the movie reminds me of a comedy western in certain scenes. This comedy western theme is especially true when Dharmendra’s character meets and then subsequently tries to win over his love interest.

The scorned sheriff character with his tragic backstory is very similar to many classic westerns in Hollywood. The more tragic the backstory the more understanding of prior behaviors towards the protagonists are forgiven, such as when he did not shoot Gabbar.

The super villain, Gabbar, certainly demonstrates in the film how evil he is, there is no remorse and in some cases no real reason behind some killings. He also uses torture and is just a despicable character throughout the entire movie. When I was reading the subtitles, his dialogue did not seem well written, but the actor was great with the scenes he was given. He seems like his character was to be this all-encompassing terror to the village and it was portrayed that way.

Mother India

Mother India

Mother India is a very powerful epic that arose from the depictions of Mayo’s book of the same name. First thing I wanted to blog on is the ethnocentric ideals that Mayo think she understands. She depicts a time and place and rashly generalized ad belittles a nation without fully understanding its strife and how it came through. I respect this movie for not only calling her out by naming it the same as her book, but tackling issues in the book and a realistic and fair way. To directly quote Dr. Ghosh’s blog  "We have intentionally called our film Mother India, as a challenge to this book, in an attempt to evict from the minds of the people the scurrilous work that is Miss Mayo's book" (Sinha, 2006: p.248) and the quote by Ghandi are excellent rebuttals to Mayo’s claims.

Normative Transgressive Femininity

The Normative Transgressive Femininity that arose throughout Mother India shows the growth of the mother of the village Radha. All the hardships she faces through the movie are so bad it would drive a person to very bad places. Seeing her children die, husband become virtually useless and then leave, her own child betrays her, plus starvation for her and her family. All these hardships are just too ridiculous for any person to cope. This is Radha we are talking about though. Throughout the movie she develops herself through her strong morals and tough mentality.

As Mayo claimed in her book that woman are mistreated and while in this movie Radha is taken advantage of by the money man Sukilula she opposes his evil as a strong female. The scene that really shows her character would the one where she is battling with herself in Sukilula’s house. She almost resembles Kali, the Indian goddess of destruction, as she debates and talks about her options. A woman who is broke, starving, and in need of help for her family she becomes the typical damsel in distress, but she becomes more then that instead.

She arises in this scene as she comes to her moral senses and fights off the easiness that would have been to sleep with lula for money. She then fends off his pleading and even fights him off when he tries to take control of her. This scene shows that she is very much her own independent woman and will find a way to provide for herself, family, and village. This scene is truly magnetic as the music continues to play frightful music, but the positions are quickly switched. Ragda quickly gains the upper hand, and still resembling Kali, beats the crap out of that pathetic excuse for a man. The icing on the cake for this scene is how Lula ends up looking like a chicken when he falls into the pillow showing how he went from the power position to nothing to Ragda just like that.

In the scene Ragda undergoes a very dramatic change of character. She goes from begging and hopeless woman (a woman that Maya believes Indian culture at the time would be present as such) to a total independent and motivated woman that kicks butt. Slowly, but surely this movie implants the idea that woman are strong individuals that when called upon will defend herself and her morals. 

Pyaasa

Pyaasa

            Pyaasa was a very depressing and realistically accurate depiction of poverty. Vijay is an interesting protagonist throughout the film and correlated properly with the theme of hypocrisy of views of a person based on their income or overall worth. This film brings on a wealth of emotions through Vijay’s troubling journey.  Many of the scenes in the movie accurately depict this, but three stood out to me. The two scenes I am speaking of are the scene where Vijay is being belittled by his brothers and the scene of Vijay talking at his funeral gathering.

            When Vijay is belittled by his brothers they are merciless. The script and acting was fantastic and ruthless with their assault on Vijay. Insulting his works, selling his livelihood as a joke, and even going as far to wish he was not born all within a quick span with no time for Vijay to react. What is interesting is the mother’s reaction throughout this. She is appalled not at Vijay for his lack of success, but her other two sons for their attack on Vijay. The mom is the voice of reason for this scene. She is what we would hope most people would act like, but in Vijay’s society she is a rare person.

It becomes even better in the later scene where Vijay is believed to be dead. The brothers lie and charm their way into winning his inheritance and are quickly shut down. They even go as far to disown their now rich brother thanks to Mr. Ghosh telling them to deny his freedom and they will receive some riches. The brothers quickly agree smiling in extreme eagerness to obtain wealth at the cost of a brother. Than when Vijay gets freed and Mr. Ghosh is screwed for his wrong doings the brothers quickly switch sides back to their brother acting like they loved and cherished him.

The funeral gathering scene was a place where the crowd came to adore and cherish the memory of Vijay. Even though when he was alive no one gave two annaas if he was starving or had a place to stay. Vijay then attempts to prove he is himself, but the crowd is quick to shut him down until people account to him being the real deal. Then when they do Vijay quickly throws it all away because he realizes it is basically nothing. These people that are in his society have no morals and could care less about the poor and only care about the rich. It is a sad conundrum that isn’t really solved, but through the movie it is shown as a real problem and hopefully people can reconsider the hypocrisy of their views and appreciate people for more than just money.

Shree 420

Shree 420

            This being my first post and one of the first movies on Bollywood I have ever watched, I was thrilled to see this. My sister has constantly held Bollywood Movies in high praise and it is not something I have had the leisure of time to be able to get into. I am not trying to come off as bashing on “Cinema! Cinema!” as in no way do I think it is a bad movie, but in comparison to Shree 420 I was much more enticed and excited to see how this one played out. There was a plot that I could follow cleanly and made sense to me. Maybe that is due to my inexperienced eye, but I am a sucker for a central character to root for as he grows and develops throughout the movie.

            The Central protagonist, Raj Kapoor, was an odd one at first. I never really knew what he was going to do. In the opening car scene his charismatic ways instantly got me hooked on his character. He was quick-witted and smart, yet still came off as compassionate. I knew he was good and had a moral conscious and that cause me to wonder how he would deal with his poverty. Especially with so many signs in the beginning of the only way to make it was to throw away whatever morals he had to succeed in a place like Bombay.

            The scene where Raj and Dharmanand are talking to the public as prominent figures was hilarious and I think a good representation of what the nation wanted at the time. Dharmanand spent his time preaching about people and their dedication to faith would lead to success as long as they kept working hard. On the other hand, Raj spent his time preaching about how people cannot work hard without food in their bellies and stole followers away from Dharmanand by just preaching about how everyone would do better with a full stomach, particularly some bread would be nice. I see this as a nice analogy for what people saw as necessary vs what the government saw as necessary with Raj representing people and Dharmanand representing the government. Relating to chapter one and the unrest India was going through at the time in the during the 1950's being freed of Britain's rule.

            On the topic of citizenship I see Raj’s opening song and repeat of that songs chorus, “My hats Russian, English pants, Indian heart”, as a good sign for the confusion that was on going at the time. Indians at the time had just come into independence from Britain so the Indian people were trying to find their place in the world. Raj does a very good job of saying no matter what you’re composed of as long as your heart beats for India you will be considered an Indian, or at least to Raj.