Kalyug

Mahabharata is an Hindu epic. This epic tells us the story of two families fighting for the throne of Hastinapur. The film Kalyug tells us the story of two business families fighting for supremacy in the field of business. But this fight leads to sorrows and deaths. Kalyug is one of the finest Indian films ever made. Shashi Kapoor and Rekha have given the best performance of their lives in this film.

This Movie is a remarkable piece of work from Shyam Benegal. Influence of Mahabharata cannot be missed. Shashi Kapoor's screen presence is strong, Handsome man. No songs in an era when songs, music played major role was courageous on part of filmmakers. Not a surprise, owing to the strong performances and strong storyline, this film was awarded best film in 1981.

I had watched this movies 20 years ago and wanted to see it again. Still potent and impacting. For those who don't watch Bollywood due its loud and cheesy products, there is a parallel line of movies which will blow your mind. Especially if you don't know storylines of Mahabharat this may seem new. Presentation of the movie is at par with its subject. The only downside: print on Youtube is less than acceptable and I don't know if there are other options. No subs either :( Some relationships in the movie were left open-ended, which I like very much, but make be a reason for t Love Shashi Kapoor in this one. Rekha could have had more. Anant Nag was awesome!

Kalyug, an excellent film, is Shyam Benegal's (along with his writers Pt Satyadev Dubey and Girish Karnad) effort to extrapolate the Mahabharata phenomenon in modern context. Kalyug is a thorough and deeply analytical cinematic work. Kalyug is humanization of characters, deified in the mythological epic. Traits of Mahabharat's mythological characters are adopted and imposed on the characters of the film but hardly any character represents one single character included in the Mahabharata and one character may be an amalgam of many characters. Film doesn't let audience fall for easy conclusions that this character is this and thus so well defined as per the mythology, no it is not about fixed characterization. It is more about basic characterization of human being. Here in Kalyug, every character is doing mistakes and they can not be defined in a black and white manner. Kalyug has commercial actors like Shashi Kapoor and Rekha but camera does not stick to one character only.

Kalyug is rich in everything. Good story, good screen play and dialogs, fascinating cinematography,wonderful performances and a super class direction.

It's one of the finest films, ever made in Hindi cinema.

Now, this is what we call the power of cinema. I always have had a notion in my mind that movies should be a medium to showcase the raw potential of a director and the actors in an unstrung way, that is, whatever is shown on the screen is believable and can be related to. Kalyug breaks all fronts, and how! It's a new-age Mahabharata, India's ancient epic mythological book, and the characters are so vulnerably powerful in it. It's going to be years to come before any Indian director can possibly overshadow the sheer strength of this motion picture. Even Benegal can't strive to make this movie again as it possesses hardly any scope for improvement. Hats off to Shashi Kapoor and Anant Nag!