Reshma Aur Shera

In Sunil Dutt's true spirit - he had made a great movie with a really different story line for the period.

I have seen this movie long back, so what I remember:

Great playback music and soundtrack from Jayadev. Excellent, true literary songs, by one of popular poet Bal Kavi Bairagi.

Good photography with panoramic view of Thar desert of Rajasthan and blue sky above it. There are few scenes with breath taking beauty of the desert.

Great acting from all the cast. Amitabh Bachchan plays a mute man - and he proves that he is capable of speaking with his gestures more effectively than his superb voice.

Must see!!

"Reshma Aur Shera" differs from the typical Hindi movies from 70s with a familiar premise of character development. Here the focus is on the cinematography and costumes as a result of which the first half of the film is very slow. Most of the actors like Amitabh Bachchan, Ranjit, Vinod Khanna, and Amrish Puri were doing their earlier roles which get less footage in the film. Waheeda Rehman and Sunil Dutt share much of the screen presence; and I say Waheeda Rehman's performance overshadows Sunil Dutt's role by the climax. The film deserves a big applause in terms of its cinematography and a spectacular climax. Sadly, this huge scale artistic movie though is impressive at times and different fails to fully give its impact due to its poorly developed characters and a dragging pace at the first half. Overall, this Rajput feudal drama starts with a lackluster beginning and heads for a better second half.

Rating: 1.5 stars out of 4

Sunil Dutt nearly went bankrupt producing this movie.The original Reshma aur Shera ( if my memory serves me right ) was directed by some another person ( who was supposed to be a great 'new wave' director of that era !!!) .That film sounded and looked like a documentary film.Sunil Dutt had to take over the reins and lo and behold we have at least 3 new upcoming and future superstars in that film ...Amitabh Bacchan , Ranjit and Raakhee. Music by Jaidev as always was excellent and he used raag todi and marwah which essentially enmates the flavour of Rajasthan. The song Tu Chanda ... still brings tears to my eyes after all these years.Mind you when I first saw that film I was a teenager.To me it was the the greatest composition ever sung with such feeling and fantastic portrayal of emotion contained in the lyrics , by Lata Mangeshkar. In that one song one can experience the love, the pain , the hope and the longing. We shall ever be thankful to Sunil Dutt , Jaidev and Lata Mangeshkar