Madre India

This film had me in tears at least three times; and not tears of sadness, but because it was just so beautiful. Don't expect anything near Hollywood slickness; if you want to find errors and things to laugh at, there are dozens. But the whole spirit of the piece is very poetic. In Hollywood movies, the musical numbers are when I take a break and go out. But in Indian movies, the musical numbers are spellbinding! And in this one, perhaps the best. The lyrics, the melodies, the staging (even with noticeable lip-sync) are just wonderful. Take the best songs from Broadway musicals and compare them to these, they've met their match. The passion in the lead female voice matches Callas. Superb!

This Indian Hindi-language epic is considered one of the greatest films ever made in that country. A new wife (Nargis) tries her best to be the best possible woman to her husband and her village. The newlyweds struggle to survive as subsistence farmers in debt to a venal landowner, and their lives become even tougher as they begin having children. Various disasters, including family deaths and injuries, as well as flooding, threaten to doom the family and their village, but the bride/mother always perseveres in the face of hardship.

This nearly 3-hour family melodrama is also a musical, with nearly half of the running time spent in song. The version I watched had excellent English subtitles during the dialogue scenes, but none for the songs, so the meaning of them was lost. However, after a while I began to enjoy them a bit just for their tonal quality, like listening to an opera. The film was meant as a repudiation of an English book of the same title that harshly criticized Indian culture.

The wife/mother character is crafted to be an exemplar of Hindu womanhood. As such the film has a didactic quality that oftem overwhelms the attempts at real human drama. It was an interesting movie in many regards (it makes no concessions to non-Hindu Indian viewers, and one has to figure out the culture as one is watching the movie), but not one I'll likely revisit. In its native land, it is said to have played theaters continuously from its release in 1957 into the 1990s.

In present day India, elderly mother Nargis (as Radha) is reluctant to attend the ceremony opening a new water canal for her village. Eventually agreeing, the old woman recalls her life… We begin with Ms. Nargis' marriage to Raaj Kumar (as Shamu). The very attractive young couple are blissfully in love. Farmers by trade, they have three children. But, all is not well. The couple have borrowed from greedy money-lender Kanhaiyalal (as Sukhilala). They do not seem to be aware of the fact, but Mr. Kanhaiyalal has cheated them out of land and future profits...

Dealing with the money-lender meant Nargis and her family work harder and harder, for less and less. Adding to the tragedy is a faming accident. Then, the children are threatened with starvation. At one point, Nargis considers prostituting herself to Kanhaiyalal, who desires the woman as well as her money. She resorts to begging, and saves son Sajid Khan (as Birju) with a few grams of food. "Master Sajid" is the son you should be watching, by the way. And, you won't have any trouble finding him - young Khan takes over the screen for a good portion of the movie...

Khan grows up to be Sunil Dutt (as the adult Birju). Rajendra Kumar is "Ramu" the more stable son. Mr. Dutt continues to be the "bad boy" of the village. You'll notice "Birju" the young man is very reminiscent of "Birju" the boy. As a boy, he didn't like the money-lender. As a man, Mr. Dutt holds Kanhaiyalal responsible for his family's misfortunes. Dutt decides to take matters into his own hands. Nargis loves and protects her son, but wants to honor the community's decisions regarding the old loan and "interest" agreed upon. This leads to a conflict between "Mother India" and son...

This classic film was an huge critical and commercial success; it almost won the "Academy Award" for best foreign language film of 1957. "Mother India" isn't easy to watch, however, even if you like foreign films. It startles with traditional musical interludes, makes unaccustomed cultural connections, and runs almost three hours. If bravely enduring a second viewing, you could get engrossed in Nargis. There is fascinating symbolism and story-telling herein. Near the end, Nargis makes a decision regarding her son which is thought-provoking - does it contradict her earlier emotions and stated beliefs?

******* Mother India (2/14/57) Mehboob Khan ~ Nargis, Sunil Dutt, Sajid Khan, Rajendra Kumar

I hate bollywood. But this isn't bollywood. This is epic, moving important filmmaking. The story is heartbreaking, the imagery is fabulous, even in Technicolor, and the music is, for once, really rather good. The songs do actually seem to signal major changes in the plot, rather than being tacked-on, globetrotting, multicostume sex-substitutes. Sadly for me, the DVD version I saw had subtitles for everything apart from the song lyrics, but the physical acting was so strong that it didn't matter. Yes, there are amateurish moments, and in the middle of the film, it takes some time off from the serious tone for an unnecessary extended piece about teasing girls. But that really is the only complaint I can make about this film. Essential viewing.

Mother India sits right at the top and shares the seat with just a handful of other movies as one of the best films ever made in Indian Film History. Deservedly, it also garnered an Oscar Nomination for Best Foreign Film - a first for Bollywood. Need I say more? Let me try...

Five years after her wedding, Radha, a regular village girl finds she has been abandoned by her husband (who leaves her in despair) and left to cope with his never-ending debt to Shuki Lal, the village "Munshi". To feed her children, Radha toils like a farm-animal and is able to save just enough food to eventually bring up her children. The injustice to and torture of their mother is interpreted in opposite ways by her children: while the elder Ramu is humble and just, the younger Birju who seethes with hatred for Sukhi Lal turns outlaw. While Radha tries to bring back Birju with love, Birju plans to finish Sukhi Lal's debt once and for all.

Mehboob Khan had made some good movies in his career, including a milestone first all-colour (technicolor) Bollywood feature. But nothing could have hinted at the brilliance to come in his waning years. Defying a very many stereotypes, his was the first major Hindi film with a female protagonist, a cowardly abandoning husband (how RajKumar, men of men, agreed for that role is another story), no definitive hero-heroine pairs, etc. He tells the 172-minute story in flash-back as a memory of an old Radha inaugurating irrigation canals in her village. Taking his titular heroine through happiness, desolation, compulsion and resignation, he transformed box-office darling Nargis into an actress nothing short of a legend. We see her go from an innocent bride to an anguished mother to a revered "Mother" of the village.

Nargis herself is most remembered for this career-defining and image-breaking portrayal (soon after which she married Sunil Dutt, who portrayed her bitter son Birju*). Sunil Dutt was a very under-rated actor, for the simple reason that all his great performances were never title characters, and were over-shadowed by more famous co-actors. His Birju is played with such realism and conviction that even today many comedians mimicking Sunil Dutt are actually mimicking Birju.

The director's production team does work beyond their era and workstyle to create the look of the people and place over time. From famine to flood for the backdrop, youth to old-age for Radha and from bright to dirty earthen to faded colours, the team wins complete involvement of the audience by filling our visual and audio sense with realism just next to reality. The director chose to spend more of his limited budget on these aspects, and in turn had to sacrifice on the equipment he could use to capture the sights and sounds that were being realised: the movie was made on 35mm and mono-sound.

Surprisingly, something I have noted as not being mentioned anywhere in literature connected to this movie is how without obviously being so, Mehboob created the most patriotic of Indian movies. The only give-away is in his choice of title Mother India. Depicting his motherland as a repressed and abandoned woman, and her children as peace-loving Gandhi-Ramu or rebellious Bose-Birju, Mehboob layers his movie with such fierce passion, it is impossible not to be overwhelmed by it.