FilmIndia (1940)

fecial Picpac^anda and the (Indian "film HARNESS THE FILM FOR A BETTER IDEAL • By JOHN ALEXANDER ("An article every serious producer should read" — says Baburao Patel) The Indian film today can be broadly divided into two classes. There is, on the one hand, the historical and religious film, the pictures that delve into the archives of the past and give their audiences glimpses of lives as (perhaps) lived by the saints and heroes of bygone ages; on the other, there is the so-called "social film," the motives for whose production are more or less based on an honest effort to portray life as it is lived now and to point out where improvements can take place in it. These have always been the two main lines of development in the movies. In Hollywood and England the main distinction has been between the films of modern life and the films dealing with the romantic past. But there exists another distinction in the social film itself, the one that can be accurately observed in the difference between Warner Bros' "Dead End," and Columbia Pictures' "You Can't Take it With You," and between "Achhut" and 'Kangan". The distinction lies in the two divergent attitudes to the sadder sides of existence. "Dead End" set out to paint the darkest picture possible of the life lived in a New York slum. It succeeded, and the impression left at the close of the film was clearly that the existence of such a life was indefensible, and that the social system was faulty that had produced it. DEFEATING ITS REAL PURPOSE "You Can't Take It With You" also dealt with a real problem of modern life; how far is the possession of enormous riches reconcilable with an honest and happy private life? "No," said the film, "They cannot be reconciled" (a kindly sop to those in the audience who did not possess enormous wealth), but the main problem was side-tracked. The millionaire banker found happiness by giving up his riches (or so it appeared), by playing the mouth organ once again, and by taking to living in careless ease with a Bohemian family. In a very subtle way, Frank Capra, the director, escaped the real implications of the film. There were two evasions of the issue. One was that he reduced the problem raised by MOTI in "Amazon" a Paramount Picture. the existence of an indefensible system to a problem to be solved by the individuals within that system. If he had attacked the system he would have been honest; instead he attacked the individual, and the real message of the film was lost. It is in this way that the wouldbe social film can skatD delicately over the real issues of a social problem, and leave the core of it untouched. The conclusion of "Dead End" was unmistakable; the conclusion of "You Can't Take it With You" was, to say the least of it, vague and unsatisfying. But the brilliance of the dialogue and the slickness of the situations made the film appear more profound than it actually was. "KANGAN" AND "JAWANI.KIREET" This is a danger, I feel, that besets the Indian social film. Two of those I have seen recently, "Kangan" and "Jawani-ki-Reet," both seemed to me to deal in a slightly empty way with the problems raised by the possession of wealth and privileged class. In both the heroes were the sons of rich men, one the son of a landowner, the other of a lawyer. Both found the paths of wealth and social privilege unacceptable; both married girls of a lower class, and gave the impression that they were about to devote their lives to the service of the poor. But the message and moral were by no means clear. The hero of "Kangan" went off in a formidably large limousine to the service of the poor, and, at the close of the film, he accepted with evident unconcern the opening of doors for him by his servants. The issues were again depressed to the level of individuals. One felt in "Kangan" that, had the youth not fallen in love with a low class girl, he would not have felt so keenly about the position of other low class girls. "Jawani-ki-Reet" was more honest; the hero felt the pangs of a social conscience without any promptings from the laughing love god, and left his father's possessions of his own accord. But here, again, the empha 45