FilmIndia (Jan-Nov 1942)

OUR REVIEW "Roti" lieaues H Bad Taste In The mouth ! mehboob Fails To Deliver The Goods ! Morbid Story With No Entertainment! "Roti"' took a year in making. It should have cost over three lakhs of rupees. It was planned as an ambitious production of National Studios Ltd. by Producer-director Mehboob. Mehboob had i he control and the run of the entire studio and the best equipment money can buy. Nothing was denied — no unnecessary hurry — no haphazard thinking, in short, all that an arvist requires to reach his ideal was given ungrudgingly to Mehboob to make "Roti ' a great picture. Actually. "Roti" has become a thoroughly disappointing picture. It neither tells the story of its grim theme perfectly nor does it entertain the audiences in the lighthearted way in which some of the other Indian pictures do. In short, "Roti" fails to attract as a motion picture. At best, it is an erratic assemblage of some good ideas at long intervals padded with a lot of unconvincing nonsense throughout its fifteen thousand and odd footage. When I saw "Roti", I had tears in my eyes. In a moment I realised that Mehboob had wasted all his valuable experience; that the National Studios may now have to stop production; thai our film industry even after its thirty years of existence should still be where it was before it began on its career In India; that even after years of training we could not produce a decent picture after being provided with all facilities and finance; that my own labour of years as a critic had failed to improve those that produce our pictures and thus contribute to the stability of our film industry. Yes, I returned home a sad man. "Rot!" had forced the realization on me that we must have really educated men as our film directors. Mehboob, good lad that he Is, seems to have failed to size up the immense potentialities of the subject he was handling. The philosophical and the psychological demands of the subject entirely escaped him with the result that the picture has become an insipid, lifeless portrayal of a grim day-to-day story of human life. A STORY OF CONTRASTS As a matter of fact one finds more story and interest in the printed x>.xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxnxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx' ROTI \ Producers: National Studios 4 f Language: Hindustani $ % Story: R. S. Chowdhary % £ Screenplay: Vajahat Mirza ^ i Songs: Arzu, Ah and Behzad % 6 y £ Photoplay: Faredoon Irani £ % Audiography: Y. S. Kothare % i Music: Anil Biswas £ i Cast: Chandramohan, Sheikh 4 B y t Mukhtar, Sitara, % Akhtari Fyzabadi, % Ashraf Khan, etc. £ j Released at: Swastik Talkies, j % Bombay. & % Date of Release: 25th Aug. 42. ^ Director MEHBOOB ^.xx\xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxvK^^^^N^^^^xx• booklet of "Roti" than in the actual picture. The picture opens with some symbolic scenes of hunger and starvation. Some of, these scenes are very well taken but they are all presented in a crude and morbid mculd suggesting that life has nothing redeeming to offer save stark tragedy. An attempt is made to show a contrast between the rich and the poor but the scenes used to portray this aspect of life are so sharp and crude, that the gulf between the two conditions of life looks like a bottomless abyss unbridgeable by Director Mehboob human endeavour. And yet in a few hours a street beggar, by a slight confidence trick, jumps across the abyss and settles down as a leader of rich men. If the idea in the story was to awaken the social conscience of the rich and well-to-do in favour of the starving poor, the picture fails to do that and on the contrary succeeds in making the less rich grab more wealth to be away from the slimy, chilly claws of poverty as portrayed in the picture. While depiction of poverty should enlist sympathy and feelings of fellowship, the type of poverty shown in "Roti ' arouses revulsion in the mind of the audience. The writer claims to introduce a sort of a philosophic character, "Bhadak", in the picture. Bhadak preaches to the poor to be bold and grab the good things of life and incites the rich to commit crimes and be richer. And at all times he mocks at the world, suggesting thereby that all human efforts in whatever direction are misguided and doomed to failure. Surely, that is not the message that "Roti" was produced to tell, though the failure of the picture strangely enough proves that perfectly. "Bhadak"' is played by Ashraf Khan a well known stage and r-creen actor and his performance is so crude and appearance so slovenly 55