The girl just wanted to be happy. And no actress! 'Usha, sing! - I don't want to, I won't, sing it yourself!' (The whole film was thinking - where is at least one Bhumika here?) /i>
Of all the Benegal films I've been privileged to see, this one is the calmest. You don't have any passion or drama. I mean, I was just watching the drama here. But the drama is ordinary, such dramas I collect for you in my entrance - a week to tell. Think, the girl Wushu in childhood was taken into circulation and forced to be an actress, to pull the family out of poverty - not on the panel sold, and not into slavery. You could. And the fact that a child at 10 years old already became the head of the family and fed everyone - so this is life. Think, married a man who is twice her age, and does not like a gramulic - this is life. She's an actress. She has roles to play. What's in her house, no one cares. And Usha loves another guy in general, also an actor, but her elderly fiancé (Amol Palekar, a generally disgusting type, but a very good actor, whom I remember from the film ' It’s all about the mustache!') regularly reminds her that it is to him that her whole family owes the coffin of life, that it is for him that she should go out, and in general, kiss his ass, wash his feet and drink water. He looks like a rat, like, God. How did the makeup guys handle it to make it so nasty? . . .
The girl in chains. In the chains of debt to her mother (with whom, by the way, I did not understand whether her wife had any love relationship, in my opinion, they still had, they twisted shura-mura while Usha was small), in the chains of debt to her fiancé, for whom she is only a profitable project. He quickly makes her a child, a daughter is born in marriage and all-where Usha will not go. I guess. A rising movie star and money is making good money. He wants to have a baby, he wants to have an abortion. Well, the money's gonna be gone. In general, the whole atmosphere of the film, despite all its usuality, is all kind of nasty and sticky. Like in a web, the heroine gets stuck in her life. I'd love to go somewhere, where would I go? To your film partner? But he's a decent guy in life, and the lover is not about him. I tried to talk to one director (Nassiruddin Shah) and he doesn’t need it. Everyone needs money from her, or her beauty, or her fame, and she doesn’t need herself. The director, to put it mildly, is strange. He thought that he did not celebrate Holi holiday, because that day his daughter died. Then it turns out it's fiction. Is he a normal person? Can you lie about that?
Then there is another comrade - an influential landowner, a rich man (Amrish Puri). There, the ear falls into a gold cage. Don't leave the house, don't come in. Why would you run away from one cell to get into another? I can't understand. By the way, the amazing role of Amrish Puri, where he does not drill anyone with eagle eyes, and does not malign - just a tired man who was offered - exactly offered, or rather, she offered herself - a beautiful actress plus a nurse for his paralyzed wife, plus a nanny for his young son. Why not agree? ... In general, men have changed, meaning zero. Swamp. . The woman and her inner demons. Who will take it apart? As soon as she got what she wanted, she no longer needed it. Everything was looking for perfection. God is her judge. But she certainly wasn't happy.
This is, as they say, my personal subjective opinion, which few people care. And the film is good, very interestingly built - has two colors, black and white shots tell about the childhood of the heroine, and a bright, multicolored part - about her turbulent present. Of course, it's the so-called '39; parallel' cinema, like most of Benegal's films, which is very different from traditional Indian films with their fabulousness. They show life, so to speak, in all its truth. Everything is based on the contrast - a bright illusion on the screen and the gray everyday life of the house, from which there is no escape, no-no. Of course, this is one of the most striking roles of Smith Patil. Like Shabana Azmi, it is a very special layer of Indian cinema, which even I, with my many years of experience, do not always understand. But what this film is, in principle, clear. Again, the whole world belongs to men, and a woman, even if she works and supports a family, has no right to decide for herself and be happy. Men are going to be arbitrary anyway. And all this stupid reaction of the Ear to everything that happens in her life is from complete, hopeless misfortune. Longing, after watching the soul is sadness. . . But you still have to look at it, because this is S. Benegal.
8 out of 10