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Mother India

  • 1957
  • Tous publics
  • 2h 52m
IMDb RATING
7.8/10
10K
YOUR RATING
Nargis in Mother India (1957)
An epic blockbuster of a brave woman who raises her sons through many trials and tribulations, but no matter the struggles, always sticks to her own moral code.
Play trailer0:43
1 Video
91 Photos
ActionComedyDramaFamilyMusical

In this melodrama, a poverty-stricken woman raises her sons through many trials and tribulations. But no matter the struggles, she always sticks to her own moral code.In this melodrama, a poverty-stricken woman raises her sons through many trials and tribulations. But no matter the struggles, she always sticks to her own moral code.In this melodrama, a poverty-stricken woman raises her sons through many trials and tribulations. But no matter the struggles, she always sticks to her own moral code.

  • Director
    • Mehboob Khan
  • Writers
    • Wajahat Mirza
    • S. Ali Raza
  • Stars
    • Nargis
    • Sunil Dutt
    • Rajendra Kumar Tuli
  • See production info at IMDbPro
  • IMDb RATING
    7.8/10
    10K
    YOUR RATING
    • Director
      • Mehboob Khan
    • Writers
      • Wajahat Mirza
      • S. Ali Raza
    • Stars
      • Nargis
      • Sunil Dutt
      • Rajendra Kumar Tuli
    • 28User reviews
    • 27Critic reviews
    • 53Metascore
  • See production info at IMDbPro
    • Nominated for 1 Oscar
      • 8 wins & 2 nominations total

    Videos1

    Mother India - Trailer
    Trailer 0:43
    Mother India - Trailer

    Photos91

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    + 86
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    Top cast22

    Edit
    Nargis
    Nargis
    • Radha
    Sunil Dutt
    Sunil Dutt
    • Birju
    Rajendra Kumar Tuli
    Rajendra Kumar Tuli
    • Ramu
    • (as Rajendra Kumar)
    Raaj Kumar
    Raaj Kumar
    • Shamu (Radha's Husband)
    Kanhaiyalal Chaturvedi
    Kanhaiyalal Chaturvedi
    • Sukhilala
    • (as Kanhaiya Lal)
    Jillo
    • Shamu's mother
    Kumkum
    Kumkum
    • Champa
    Chanchal
    • Roopa
    Sheela Naik
    • Kamla
    Mukri
    Mukri
    • Shambu
    • (as Muqri)
    Siddiqui
    Ram Shastri
    Fakir Mohammad
      Geeta
      Hameeda
      Master Surendra
      • Young Ramu
      Mastan
      Nawab Khan
      • Director
        • Mehboob Khan
      • Writers
        • Wajahat Mirza
        • S. Ali Raza
      • All cast & crew
      • Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

      User reviews28

      7.810.2K
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      Featured reviews

      8pedicabwallah

      Flawed pearl

      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.
      7AlsExGal

      One of a kind

      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.
      Sleepy-17

      Incredibly moving: It's the Music!

      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!
      6gavin6942

      The Ultimate in Indian Film

      In this melodrama, a poverty-stricken woman raises her sons through many trials and tribulations. But no matter the struggles, always sticks to her own moral code.

      "All Hindi films come from Mother India," said Javed Akhtar, the Hindi cinema poet, lyricist and scriptwriter. And of that I have no doubt. It does seem to be a very strong touchstone of Indian cinema, and one of the earliest films from India to get an international audience fawning.

      But this is, perhaps paradoxically, the reason I do not care for the film. It is nothing that the Indian cinema has done ,but for some reason I just never care for Indian films, this one included. The grand, over-the-top nature of them, the singing where singing should not be by people who should not singing... the trend has gotten worse today, but I can see the germ here.
      gregcouture

      For the average Western viewer, a grueling experience.

      Turner Classic Movies just played this nearly three-hour Indian epic and I decided to give it a try, despite TCM host Robert Osborne's caveat that its length might seem a daunting viewing challenge, but one that would prove rewarding by its eventual conclusion. Alas! I failed to make it past the midway point. My capacity for submitting to movie masochism had reached the full-to-satiation level. In fact it had long since overflowed, much like the farms after a terrific monsoon during one of the film's earlier episodes.

      The video transfer of the original Gevacolor negative (apparently an unstable single-strip process), with prints by Technicolor, looked pretty good on Turner's presentation, with some ravishing shots during the opening wedding sequence and the occasional insert of glowing sunsets, etc. But, oh! the tedium of the endless travails of the central protagonists, bedevilled by the almost cartoonish evil of Sukhilala (played by an energetic actor named Kanhaiyalal), a villain so heartless he makes Simon Legree look like the endlessly compassionate Mother Teresa of Calcutta.

      The actress Nargis, playing Radha, the matriarch around whom this mostly sad tale revolves, is a standout in a cast most of whom seem to have been encouraged to overact to an almost absurd histrionic intensity. With some contrasting subtlety, she more than holds her own and appears to have been subjected to some extraordinarily difficult torments in order to realistically depict her character's many agonies.

      But this early example of what has become known as the Bollywood school of international cinema is definitely an acquired taste. If you like screen exotica, liberally spiced with production numbers sung in Hindi that frequently seem to exceed the length of an entire Hollywood film from the Golden Age of Movie Musicals, then this just may be your dish of curry. But for this viewer it seems less a "classic" and more a prime example of how Indian audiences have been traditionally willing to submit to films that are routinely as long as those blockbusters that bombarded our roadshow houses back in the late Fifties through the 1960s. I can still watch one of those English-language spectacles with a degree of satisfaction, but I confess, this epic from the Indian subcontinent was more than I could digest.

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      Family
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      Musical

      Storyline

      Edit

      Did you know

      Edit
      • Trivia
        Was nominated for an Academy Award in the Best Foreign-Language Film category. It was India's first Oscar nomination.
      • Connections
        Featured in Century of Cinema: 100 ans de cinéma: 100 ans de cinéma indien (1996)
      • Soundtracks
        O Gaadi Wale
        Performed by Mohammad Rafi and Shamshad Begum

        Lyrics by Shakeel Badayuni

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      FAQ17

      • How long is Mother India?Powered by Alexa

      Details

      Edit
      • Release date
        • October 25, 1957 (India)
      • Country of origin
        • India
      • Language
        • Hindi
      • Also known as
        • Madre India
      • Filming locations
        • Arthan, Surat, India
      • Production company
        • Mehboob Productions
      • See more company credits at IMDbPro

      Tech specs

      Edit
      • Runtime
        • 2h 52m(172 min)
      • Color
        • Color
      • Aspect ratio
        • 1.37 : 1

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