PM Review

  It was 1949. The new born country was in the process of coming out of British influences in every aspect and facing a great crisis of duality of cultural & intellectual blending and existential crisis. On the high moment, Mehboob Khan’s Andaz [1949] shed lights on the exact spot through a rom-com narrative. The Indian upbringing with European liberalism of Meena played by Nargis had reflected in a balanced way in the movie.   The trio mega stars of that time [Nargis Dutt, Dilip Kumar & Raj Kapoor] in the same movie made it a big attraction that time I suppose. The narrative also reminds me of Adhiyaman's Hum Tumhare Hain Sanam [2002] starred by another trio Madhuri Dixit, Shahrukh Khan & Salman Khan with a different rendition.   The high value of women's loyalty and morality over love, lust & marriage are significantly exercised as it has been in Mother India [1957].   Andaz [1949] Mehboob Khan Hindi, India

  Mehboob Khan’s Mother India [1957] is a melorealistic movie [I prefer to use MELODRAMA when the story is written fully on fictional ground & MELOREAL when story is adapted from real incidence with fictional touch ] I have seen after Bimal Roy’s Do Bigha Zamin [1954] just the following Satyajit Ray’s Pather Panchali [1955]. It’s evidently clear that South Asian cinema had flourished after post-independence & partitions.   The first half, till Ramu & Birju being grown up, is a superbly a true realist film and is commendable but it turned into melodramatic with so many subplots and compulsively emotional chronicles that made Mother India a near epical cinema. Mother India had a probability to fall into the genre of Akira’s Rashomon [1950] in respect of the high morality of women character and with all the loopholes of social justice. But its hyperbolic melodrama kept it stayed back with the Indian formula film.   There are some establishing and epic s...