FilmIndia (1946)

June, 1946 FILM INDIA is an insult to the great organisation that sent the Indian doctors to China. Is the Gandhi cap an anathema? Is Shantaram afraid of the bureaucrats at New Delhi? Or is it due to the fact that after his short career at the IFI he has begun to hate this national symbol? Will Shantaram please explain? "Even now it is not too late; the picture should be revised and the doctors (Shantaram & his colleagues I should adorn Gandhi cap and this much change, if not more, is necessary. That will certainly bo a pride to the nation and an improvement in the picture itself. Will Shantaram consider this and act?" BOMBAY. //. S. Narayan. SILLY AMBITION "In South Indian films in general, and in Tamil films in particular, we are again and again seeing the same stars in title roles and hardly new faces are seen. Will the producers connected with the Tamil film world try to introduce new stars who have talent?" *'i NAGORE. .V. Vaikatesan. HARDEN* YOUR HEART "After seeing a Hollywood picture, when I return home, my heart is usually light and buoyant ; but when I return after seeing an Indian picture, my heart is often Samson plays the title role in "Pick Pocket" a picture of Brij Prakash Productions. heavy and depressed. However good the Indian picture may be and whatever other people may say in praise of it, somehow I intuitively feel there is something inexplicably unsatisfactory in it. Why do I feel so? Does it mean that my sense of understanding has not fully evolved to appreciate Indian pictures? Or what can be the matter with my poor brain, can you say? "India's film magazine, the 't'ilmindia' is reputed to stand as the Second Best Film magazine, in the whole world. That is great. But how about India's film industry itself! Where does it stand? "Why does India produce films? Is it to entertain the people or to make the people weep over the glorified folly that is Ind? I think India is better fitted to ply the charkha and produce khaddar than to produce any film at all." M ELVISH ARAM. .1. Xajmunnim. EXPECTING TOO MUCH "The other day I saw Hind's "Leila-Majnu" — a picture acclaimed by one and all to be Nazir's best, both in direction and in performance and came out of the theatre with a splitting headache and with a greater dose of dejection. By sheer accident I had happened to see, years back, Madan Theatre's "Leila Majnu" with Kajjan and Nisar, Sohrab Modi's stage performance of this great love story and various other versions of the same story — all entirely different from one another and with an admixture of grotesque and stupid incidents. The play under reference was by no means an exception to this rule. "But the dance scene before Leila and the Prince in the hitter's house is, to say the least, morally reprehensible. It is sickening to note that our producers and directors have developed very keenly the fancy of parading before the cine-goers such crude and vulgar • lances, with the mistaken belief that those who go in for recreation prefer such silly stuff. But they blissfully forget that by pajidering to the baser impulses of man. they are actually murdering (boa fine art. besides actually do ing an act of great disservice to the film industry, as such crude scenes serve only to drive one's patience to the breaking point. "Instead of the sublime and the emotional in the dance sequences, we see nothing but the ridiculous and fantastic." Md. Ameenxidin, B.A. BANGALORE CITY. HYPOCRITICAL ART "Sex and Life! both mean the same thing: one cannot exist without the other: both are indivisible. Sex appeals to Life and Life appeals to Sex: so we live. Without sex-appeal there will be no life, no entertainment, no cinema, no 'fihnindia' and nothing. "But here and there I see some persons denouncing sex-appeal in Indian pictures as wicked and sin. Sex-appeal if displayed beyond the bounds of decency is certainly bad; but so far I do not seem to have seen any such indecent display in Indian pictures. It seems that to some sex-hating Sadhus and Sufis of our Holy Land even the ordinary acting of women on the screen is sex-appeal and sin. "Then, without some sex-appeal appropriately displayed as occasion requires, how can true life be portrayed in all its multifarious intricacies, in all its conflicts between virtue and vice, in an entertaining and enlightening manner? I wonder what kind of entertainment these sex-haters want! "Is it about Buddha squatting under the botree teaching the way to self-annihilation and Nirvana, and Diogenes sitting in the tub preaching cynicism and misanthropy, and Zeno discussing Stoicism and lethargv in the Porch etc.? "Or is it about Humpty Dumpty falling off the wall, and Jack and Jill tumbling down the hill and the adventures of Tom Thumb etc.? "Or what on earth do they want for entertainment in these enlightened days, can you say?" H. A Rahman MELVISHARAM 57