Filmindia (1941)

February^ 1941 FILMINDIA take the lands at his own prices. People were ready to sell. Everyone was miserable. Gokul, Nayeem, Thakur, Mirza, Girja, the children, the village, even the sad mountain air except Jairam and Omkar. Gokul decides to end it all by blowing off the old dam with dynamite and ruining the Dam Construction Co. But the thought of a crime makes him uneasy. He becomes secretive and cannot eat well. He is missing during the nights and everyone is worried. But with cold determination every night he charges the dam at several places with dynamite. The ceaseless and feverish digging continues and its sound spreads over the other sequences making the terrible mission more fearful and ever present. Nayeem has found out the intentions of Gokul and he informs Girja. A DREAMLAND OF HOPES Girja rushes to Gokul and finds him with the dynamite. She urges the plea of her love — pleads, weeps and ultimately paints an illusive word picture of their futul'e happiness together. In the midst of those fast rushing scenes comes an illusion of idyllic beauty wherein a dream land of wedded bliss is created. Superb artistry of technic is evident In taking these scenes. A soaring flight of creative imagination is used in malting the reflection in water of Girja and Gokul travel to the dreamland. But ultimately duty overwhelms personal considerations and Girja resigns herself to her fate and leaves Gokul to follow his destiny. But when Gokul goes to the dam. he is intercepted by Nayeem, who overpowers Gokul and ties him to a tree. Tn the village in the meanwhile, Girja goes to Thakur and tells hmi of the danger, Gokul is in. Tliakur rushes to the dam and arrives just in time to prevent Nayeem from igniting the gun-powder. This tussle between Thakur and J^ayeem in which Naj^e^m tries an argument of his being Mirza's son to persuade Thakur from stopping him, is portrayed in an affectionate -strain in which Thakur with his characteristic roughness threatens Nayeem with punishment if he disobeys the old man. Thakur drags Nayeem with the burning torch in his hand and takes him over the dam and in the subsequent struggle wrests the torch from him and throws it below. Unfortunately the burning torch falls accidentally on the gun-powder and lights up the dynamite charges one after another. THE LAST RITE OF FRIENDSHIP Thakur is caught in the midst of it all and cut off from the villagers who gather in crowds. Mirza also comes and forgetting the erstwhile Rai Bahadur Chiini Lall, VicePresident of the Motion Picture Society of India and General Manager of the Bombay Talkies has been appointed for the third time in succession on the Bombay Board of Film Censors by joint recommcudation of t)ic Society and Ihc Indian Film Producers' Association. Our film industry could not have got a more conscientious worker than the Rai Bahadur to represent its interests on the Board of Censoffij bitterness of feelings, rushes to the rescue of Thakur. Thakur who is however stunned by the loud reports of dynamite lapses into his usual fit of lunacy and sits down to play chess on the gravel, unaware of the danger he is in. Mirza drags him but very soon both are caught in the whirl of danger and blown with (he dam to eternity. The ending dialogues are very touching. Thakur: "I hope you will not leave me again. Will you brother?" Mirza: "No brother! No! May Allah have mercy on us. We shall now be neighbours through eternity." The next day their corpses are found in the stream with their hands clasped in an eternal bond of indisputable friendship and neighbourhood. Thus ends the story of two neighbours — of two friends— of two human beings, who were born as twins in the single cradle of their motherland, who travelled together through a life time hand in hand and were again received together by Mother Earth in her very same lap. Can death ever be more immortal? When such neighbours die who loses? None but the world they lived in. And the world — our world is becoming poorer and poorer day by day as in its distant corners the Thakurs and Mirzas are dying every day leaving behind a flaming memory in their final hand-clasp reminding generations to come of what the Martyr of Bethlehem said "Love Thy Neighbour As Thyself." THE PRODUCTION VALUES Turning to the production values of the picture, one thing must be remembered that it is a Shantaram picture and at that Shantaram's best. The story is studded with symbolisms which lend to the picture an artistic soul dazzling in its soaring flight of imagination. There is no necessity of wasting words on Shantaram's direction. It is like