FilmIndia (1940)

August 1940 FILMINDIA The Hindusthan Cinetone promise to give a better picture in "The Husband." bla. This Laurel-Hardy type of clowns reappeared in "Life Is A Stage" as "Fat Tummy" and "Thin Leg" (both specifically mentioned as "Comedians" in the cast!) and, finally, we saw them in "Vidyapati" as Vidushak (Nemo) and Pitambar (Kedar Sharma). I won't be surprised to see them again in "Nartaki." "Sonehra Sansar' began the "Merry Gang" menace and after vulgarly lampooning the life of tho educated unemployed in "Sonehra Sansar", they reappeared in "Sapera", waving tree branches and jumping and dancing to music that suspiciously sounded like the hoodoo hocus of the African Jungle pictures of the Tarzan variety. It is still a mystery how a man of undoubted aesthetic taste like Devaki Bose can tolerate such nonsense in his pictures. The only reason that can suggest itself to me is his continued adherence to the old dramatic technique which is again illustrated by the presence of the same blind singer right from "Seeta" to "Sapera" in every picture! FAR FROM REALISM Now the point I wish to make is this: that in spectacular costume dramas, overflowing with devotional and romanticist sentiments, such lapses are easily glossed over. Everything is done and said with an extra flourish and no one expects realism. It is in pictures with a modern background, however, that technical excellence — in sound and photography as well as in scenario construction — counts and the slightest crudity is noticed. Hence the seeming disparity between the standards of his 'social' pictures like "After The Earthquake" and his 'costume' pictures like "Vidyapati." And if anything more were needed to conclusively prove Devaki Bose's lack of grasp on modern cinema technique it was provided by "Sapera." Here was an out-door subject full of possibilities for being turned into a first rate documentary. But what do we get? A few chalky exteriors and studio-made backgrounds! The landscape, the very earth, that is the background of the snake charmers' life was nowhere seen. Contrast it with the authentic rural shots of "Woman" and you know what can be done to synthesize atmospheric effects as an integral part of the dramatic pattern. Here was a subject that demanded hundred per cent realism and instead we got that jumbojumbo dance of "Merry Gang"! MEANT FOR EMOTIONAL ESCAPISM Devaki Bose's persistent failure to make purposeful modern films is patent. And so, after every such 'flop,' he reverts to those tales of bygone days, of Gods and Goddesses of Kings and Princesses and romantic poets. Being essentially a poet and a conservative, he will make these pictures with no desire to put any progressive ideals into them. And being a genius he will breathe into them a certain emotional appeal and charm that will be like a soothing balm to the frustrated souls of the romantic youths of the country to whom his pictures have come to mean one more escapist formula for emotional satisfaction. Call it mysticism, call it inspired poetry, I call it hocus-pocus. And in a country already suffering from an excess of religion, superstition, poetry, mysticism and fatalism, anyone whether he is a Tagore or a Jinnah or a Devaki Bose — who radiates these reactionary influences is a menace. YAKUB and INDU RANI in a gipsy situation in the next gipsy picture of Mohan Studios 57