FilmIndia (1940)

September 1940 FILMINDIA logical films. But there are some who sincerely appreciate films with mythological themes, and let go no opportunity of "rushing to a Saint." If a girl sees a mythological picture, be sure she is either a theosophist or a research scholar in Sanskrit and there are not many scholars of Sanskrit or theosophists among college girls. They are more this-worldly and materialistic. This is no disparagement of pictures like "Tukaram" and "Tulsidas". but it is just how they feel about them. THE TAJ— THE SYMBOL OF HUMAN LOVE Historical pictures are liked and appreciated provided they are well presented and cleverly directed. Mere chronicling of facts is the business of the historian, and to attempt to emulate him in his job is futile for a producer. Human emotions ought to be diffused into historical facts, and the past should be made to rise before the eyes of the spectators as a living, pulsating reality to guide the present. It should not be merely history — for better qualified men are in charge of that branch of knowledge — but a piece of art vividly reviving life as it existed then. The Taj commemorates the death of a Queen, but the imagination of the artist has brought human emotions to bear on the cold marble, and the result is a monument to love which has beauty, poetry, music, and, more than all. a message. If a producer wishes to produce a historical picture he should have the Taj as his ideal. Of the historical pictures, "Pukar" came near it, but a few but grievous faults marred an otherwise artistic perfection. Undue importance was attached to Sangram Singh, and he, with his convulsively stagy gesticulations, was a sore to the eyes. Sheela was wrongly cast. Was she put in to set off the proverbial beauty of Nur Jehan? The high light of the picture was, however, Chandramohan whose beautiful diction and superb performance eclipsed the convulsive Sohrab Mody and consumptive looking Sheela and a hundred small and big things which without Chandramohan's overwhelming personality would have gone unnoticed. Naseem looked Nur Jehan, beautiful and queenly. Yakub seems to be doing things in other studios too. Here he is in "Thief of Tartar" a Mohan picture. OUR FAVOURITE PICTURES Social pictures are undoubtedly the most favourite with us. But it is here that our producers are most disappointing. The number of the worthless social pictures that have been produced in recent years is appalling. The directors set out to give both instruction and entertainment, and end by giving neither. When they stick to instruction, they sermonize, and make the characters speak out-of-character. long, tiring and artificial speeches on morality, goodness, and other time-worn virtues. If they wish to give us entertainment, they end by being funny themselves, and the spectators return laughing at their own stupidity in having seen the picture. One admires the unending courage of our producers in repeating these mistakes over and over again. It is refreshing to find about a dozen really good social pictures like "Admi", "Unexpected", "Adhikar," "Bari-Didi". "Thokar", "Woman", "Bhabi" etc. These are by far the best social pictures that have been produced in India. These are the pictures which satisfy to a more or less extent all the essentials of a good social film. Each was an attempt in its own way, to solve the social problems of India which are many and varied; pictures, which, while they portrayed life in all its stark and grim reality, infused in us the courage to shake off languor and shedding the rotten timehonoured conventions, to head on towards progress and happiness. CHOCOLATE-CHEWING GIRLS "Admi" has been, perhaps, the most hotly discussed picture of the year. There is a "strong minority" (to borrow from Jinnah) of girls who quarrel with its title and its ending. They are, most of them from the upper middle class, who talk to dazzle and are intolerant of opposition. They get to know life through romantic novels where the hero rescues the damsel-in-distress, and marries her as the prize of his bravery and prowess. The death of the hero or the heroine is unthinkable to them; for it is not in keeping with their knowledge of the world which is peopled by men who are brave and chivalrous and damsels who are all darlings. They are escapists like Keats, but without his genius. There 25