THE most prolific film industry in the world is in India; its films are widely viewed throughout the subcontinent and the East, and are avidly seen by the Indian community in Britain.
Indian films are escapist, romances laced with song and dance, and drowning in sentiment, or wildly absurd melodramas full of suspense and wicked villains. Even popular is a mixture of the two. Chums Like Hollywood, the Indian film industry endlessly churns out films which avoid the real issues; for India, the problems of land and food shortage, illiteracy and, for many, actual survivar. few films break with this pattern but a notable exception Benegal's Bhumika (The Role), which was recently screened in London.
Like Mizoguchi's films feudal Japan, Benegal's work shows a compassionate understanding of the plight of Asian women who are oppressed in a far more complete way than • women in modern society.
In fact one of Benegal's stated aims in making Bhumika was to show 'the problems of women in our society, the search for their own identity, their desire to achieve independence'.
Flashbacks The film is also remarkable for its expose, through flashbacks, of the superficiality of Indian films, and in particular of the shallow assigned to women faces, gorgeous saris, and Shit. The aquascutum a be is still on T.l my Marks & Spencer Sh dress.
1,000 1,500 2,050 cialist Challenge 24 April 1980 Page 15 songs of love.
Smita Patil brilliantly romantic roles she plays. loosely based on Middle Wadkar, either Alcoholic HOIC and bullying But while still freed fetching and carrying for launched on a career film star.
her; she marries Come are career, about ting her filming.
Trendy
Western like herself, and trendy exploits her nothing in return.
Stability and security -when SUCCS roles second child.
endless Bombay film world to Steel at pollays Usha, a talented actress whose real life contrasts sharply with the simple.
The film is the life of Hansa misleadingly described in wife. the London Film Festival brochure as the "Joan Crawford of the Marathi scene, getting through men by the dozen and bottles by the thousand'.
Daughter of an alcoholic father mother, Usha's face childhood is dominated by conflict.
La small child, her same.' musical talent is discovered and she is the traditional role of men and her. as an adored But her career does not liberate older. man, Keshav, while still very young, and he exploits her; tightly controlling her ineven withholding the news of the death of her dearlyloved grandmother to avoid interrupOther men prove to be no alternative as she finds in her affairs with weak self-centred Rajen, a film idol Westernised Sunil, an egotistic film director who sexually and gives She leaves Keshav several times, diences but returns because she needs respecand that means a man - only leaving for good abort her She then flees the emptiness of the find refuge Sometimes 1 June.
Salvador.
branches with rich businessman Vinayak, on • his country estate. There Usha finds solace in her role as mistress of the household, generously caring for the needs of 'husband', his affectionate small son and his suffering bed-ridden But Usha's dreams of finding happiness in domesticity are shattered by discovering she is literally a prisoner. The businessman's 'high principles' include a ruling that no woman can set foot outside the estate.
The sick wife advises her to accept face fate, saying bitterly, 'Only the the changes bedrooms and kitchens remain the Having written secretly to Keshav, Usha waits passively for him to rescue Thoroughly defeated and humiliated in her attempts to find a satisfying life, she returns to Bombay.
Now, there are few roles left for
----- pull-quotes -----
2,500 * the budget
stop cari clapping
like Im being watchea by know- nothing militants