I can't believe its been so long since i have written anything in this blog, more so because when in my life I have nothing else to look forward to or excite me there has always been and will always be Cinema and my film collection (sad but a true fact, for a poor friendless gal like me, can't help it if people are just jealous of my awesome personality and breath-taking looks.....sorry I digress :p :p ). Anyways i think one of the main reasons for me taking so long to put up a blog post is just the fact that I tend to over-analyse everything a tad too much. From now on my blog posts will be regular update, and well direct from heart.
So to start with Im going to write about Hrishikesh Mukherjee's Anand, a film that is set to be a start-up effort in the film movement of 70s known as 'middle cinema'. Middle cinema as the turn suggests is a compromise between mainstream commercial cinema and the parallel art cinema such as that of Satyajit Ray. Here were directors who were looking for styles to express their stories that would not just attract an audience to cinema hall but would keep them entertained as well as force them to think too. For me Hrishikesh da has always been one of the champion in this style, others included Gulzar, Bimal Roy and Basu Chatterjee. These directors/writers always spoke in a vocabulary that would attract anyone and that would entertain everyone and at the same time push the very same audience to seek the message and ponder on it. Here the messages were not of some great revolution or social upheavals or social evils; here messages were those of concern to an audience of 1970s, related to unemployment, shift in family traditions, fight between morals and monetary concerns, etc.
Coming Back to Anand...
Anand I believe is a story that epitomizes the saying "it's simple to be difficult, but it is difficult to be simple".
Anand is a very simple film to be viewed and understood, it doesn't have too many sub-texts, nor too many over dramatic twists in the plot, or something that would make you jump far off from the edge of your seats. This film is a simple story, with simple characters, in a simple plot, keeping in mind simple themes. Yet all together the film leaves an ever-lasting impact on the minds of its audience.
The film opens with Dr. Bhaskar (Amitabh Bachchan) being facilitated for his book Anand. As he takes on the stage he tells us that Anand is not a mere work of fiction, it is about scribblings in his own personal dairy, it is about a man called Anand. Then the story begins in a flashback, which covers the entire film from there on.
Anand (Rajesh Khanna) is a happy lively guy, who is suffering from Liver cancer; he comes to Mumbai and befriends Dr. Kulkarni (Ramesh Deo) and Dr. Bhaskar. Bhaskar is a straight forward man, who doesn't know how to mince his words but for sure doesn't know how to express his own personal feelings. Anand is exact opposite of that, he is completely free, someone who is in love with talking and with 'life' itself; even though he is very well aware that he is dying; yet that doesn't deter his spirits. This friendship is all about how opposites attract. Anand teaches Bhaskar and a lot of other characters in the film on how they should live their lives freely and should learn to be expressive; that is why he even helps Bhaskar to express his feelings to Renu (his patient who had come to him for a treatment of pneumonia, but whom he had never had got the courage to propose).
One of the most interesting characters in the film, other than Anand himself, is Isabhai (Johnny Walker). Anand who loves to catch hold of strangers, in efforts to make them laugh, by calling them 'Murarilal'; in Isabhai he finds a complete foil of his comic plan, as he responds with as much enthusiasm and acting as Anand.
There is nothing over-the-top dramatic about Anand, the audience from the very beginning are aware of the fact that Anand will die in the end; yet they still find themselves hoping that he would survive it all (one of them was me, when I saw the film for the very first time). The only dramatic moments (keeping in mind how much our cinema audience love the drama and the loud music accompanying that) are provided when the other characters in the film find out about Anand's condition and his impending death. This includes Mrs. Kulkarni, Dr. Kulkarni's wife, who is a loving kind hearted woman who takes instant liking to Anand and makes him her brother. Next is Renu, for whom Anand is like a brother as well as a brother-in-law, who helped her and Dr. Bhaskar express their feelings of love. Then there is Nurse D'susa (Lalita Pawar) who is the strict matron of the nursing home, but who is later taken in by the charm of Anand and thinks of him as her own son. And last but not the least, is Isabhai whose chance meeting turns into a good friendship. Hrishkesh Mukherji takes his turn into drama as he one by one reveals Anand's condition to each of these characters, who then handle the news in their own different ways whether through prayers or through comedy.
Anand, might be a simple story, but there is always more than what meets the eyes. Anand is a message as well, in the times when people where running after money and making basic ends of life meet, they forget that life is not about how long it is but about how big you make it. Other than this there are other social elements as well, such as poverty, pessimism in society, empty aspirations and empty ideologies; that both Bhaskar and Anand continuously make fun of.
Two most mentionable things about the film are; its cinematography and its music; both of which provide a great height to the story. The music lends a pace and an emotion to the story. None of the songs in the film look unexplainably imposed in the plot; they gel well in the screenplay to take the story forward. Songs penned by Gulzar and Yogesh are soft and hummable and complete go with the feel of the film. Salil Choudhary's music is near to prefect as there is hardly any jarring or loud note escaping into the plot, unnecessarily.
Cinematographer Jaywant Pathare seems completely in sync with the director's vision and the story. He seems at the top of his game and knows how to utilize the space given to him, as most of the film has been shot indoors, often being confined to just a room for quite a few sequences. He is able to use his creative vision all throughout.
Anand is a superb comedy-drama, a rare combination but only a master such as Hrishikesh Mukherjee can achieve it. It is blessed with talented actors, and great technicians. It is a film that is about life, hope, friendship and love. It provided a perfect start to the era of 'Middle Cinema'.
Anand (1971)
Director and Editor: Hrishikesh Mukherjee
Starring: Rajesh Khanna, Amitabh Bahchan,
Johnny Walker, Lalita Pawar, Ramesh Deo,
Sumita sanyal, Seema, Dara Singh
Writers: Bimal Dutt, D.N. Mukherjee,
Hrishikesh Mukherjee, Gulzar
Cinematographer: Jaywant Pathare
Music Director: Salil Choudhary
Lyrics: Gulzar and Yogesh
Producer: Hrishikesh Mukherjee & N.C. Sippy
So to start with Im going to write about Hrishikesh Mukherjee's Anand, a film that is set to be a start-up effort in the film movement of 70s known as 'middle cinema'. Middle cinema as the turn suggests is a compromise between mainstream commercial cinema and the parallel art cinema such as that of Satyajit Ray. Here were directors who were looking for styles to express their stories that would not just attract an audience to cinema hall but would keep them entertained as well as force them to think too. For me Hrishikesh da has always been one of the champion in this style, others included Gulzar, Bimal Roy and Basu Chatterjee. These directors/writers always spoke in a vocabulary that would attract anyone and that would entertain everyone and at the same time push the very same audience to seek the message and ponder on it. Here the messages were not of some great revolution or social upheavals or social evils; here messages were those of concern to an audience of 1970s, related to unemployment, shift in family traditions, fight between morals and monetary concerns, etc.
Coming Back to Anand...
Anand I believe is a story that epitomizes the saying "it's simple to be difficult, but it is difficult to be simple".
Anand is a very simple film to be viewed and understood, it doesn't have too many sub-texts, nor too many over dramatic twists in the plot, or something that would make you jump far off from the edge of your seats. This film is a simple story, with simple characters, in a simple plot, keeping in mind simple themes. Yet all together the film leaves an ever-lasting impact on the minds of its audience.
The film opens with Dr. Bhaskar (Amitabh Bachchan) being facilitated for his book Anand. As he takes on the stage he tells us that Anand is not a mere work of fiction, it is about scribblings in his own personal dairy, it is about a man called Anand. Then the story begins in a flashback, which covers the entire film from there on.
Anand (Rajesh Khanna) is a happy lively guy, who is suffering from Liver cancer; he comes to Mumbai and befriends Dr. Kulkarni (Ramesh Deo) and Dr. Bhaskar. Bhaskar is a straight forward man, who doesn't know how to mince his words but for sure doesn't know how to express his own personal feelings. Anand is exact opposite of that, he is completely free, someone who is in love with talking and with 'life' itself; even though he is very well aware that he is dying; yet that doesn't deter his spirits. This friendship is all about how opposites attract. Anand teaches Bhaskar and a lot of other characters in the film on how they should live their lives freely and should learn to be expressive; that is why he even helps Bhaskar to express his feelings to Renu (his patient who had come to him for a treatment of pneumonia, but whom he had never had got the courage to propose).
One of the most interesting characters in the film, other than Anand himself, is Isabhai (Johnny Walker). Anand who loves to catch hold of strangers, in efforts to make them laugh, by calling them 'Murarilal'; in Isabhai he finds a complete foil of his comic plan, as he responds with as much enthusiasm and acting as Anand.
There is nothing over-the-top dramatic about Anand, the audience from the very beginning are aware of the fact that Anand will die in the end; yet they still find themselves hoping that he would survive it all (one of them was me, when I saw the film for the very first time). The only dramatic moments (keeping in mind how much our cinema audience love the drama and the loud music accompanying that) are provided when the other characters in the film find out about Anand's condition and his impending death. This includes Mrs. Kulkarni, Dr. Kulkarni's wife, who is a loving kind hearted woman who takes instant liking to Anand and makes him her brother. Next is Renu, for whom Anand is like a brother as well as a brother-in-law, who helped her and Dr. Bhaskar express their feelings of love. Then there is Nurse D'susa (Lalita Pawar) who is the strict matron of the nursing home, but who is later taken in by the charm of Anand and thinks of him as her own son. And last but not the least, is Isabhai whose chance meeting turns into a good friendship. Hrishkesh Mukherji takes his turn into drama as he one by one reveals Anand's condition to each of these characters, who then handle the news in their own different ways whether through prayers or through comedy.
Anand, might be a simple story, but there is always more than what meets the eyes. Anand is a message as well, in the times when people where running after money and making basic ends of life meet, they forget that life is not about how long it is but about how big you make it. Other than this there are other social elements as well, such as poverty, pessimism in society, empty aspirations and empty ideologies; that both Bhaskar and Anand continuously make fun of.
Two most mentionable things about the film are; its cinematography and its music; both of which provide a great height to the story. The music lends a pace and an emotion to the story. None of the songs in the film look unexplainably imposed in the plot; they gel well in the screenplay to take the story forward. Songs penned by Gulzar and Yogesh are soft and hummable and complete go with the feel of the film. Salil Choudhary's music is near to prefect as there is hardly any jarring or loud note escaping into the plot, unnecessarily.
Cinematographer Jaywant Pathare seems completely in sync with the director's vision and the story. He seems at the top of his game and knows how to utilize the space given to him, as most of the film has been shot indoors, often being confined to just a room for quite a few sequences. He is able to use his creative vision all throughout.
Anand is a superb comedy-drama, a rare combination but only a master such as Hrishikesh Mukherjee can achieve it. It is blessed with talented actors, and great technicians. It is a film that is about life, hope, friendship and love. It provided a perfect start to the era of 'Middle Cinema'.
Anand (1971)
Director and Editor: Hrishikesh Mukherjee
Starring: Rajesh Khanna, Amitabh Bahchan,
Johnny Walker, Lalita Pawar, Ramesh Deo,
Sumita sanyal, Seema, Dara Singh
Writers: Bimal Dutt, D.N. Mukherjee,
Hrishikesh Mukherjee, Gulzar
Cinematographer: Jaywant Pathare
Music Director: Salil Choudhary
Lyrics: Gulzar and Yogesh
Producer: Hrishikesh Mukherjee & N.C. Sippy
Well said Damini. Simplicity has lost its meaning in this materialistic world !! These simple sweet movies remind us of the lost meaning!!
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