Another highly provocative and extremely well made documentary from the director on religion fundamentalism, intolerance, communalism and cultural amnesia. A must see, given that the judicial decision on the Ayodhya issue was given just a few hours ago, following 61staggering years of dispute, violence and loss of innocent lives.
Apu is a jobless ex-student dreaming vaguely of a future as a writer. An old college friend talks him into a visit up-country to a village wedding. This changes his life, for when the bridegroom turns out to be mad, Apu's friend asks him to become the husband! After initial revulsion at the idea, Apu agrees. Apu takes his exquisite bridge, Aparna, back to Calcutta. But Aparna dies in childbirth, Apu leaves Calcutta, crazy with grief, and his son Kajal is left abandoned with his wife's parents. Only after a long period of total indifference to worldly responsibilities, does Apu become capable of returning to the world. (IMDb)
Baazi, the first film by acclaimed director Guru Dutt, who made some of the most politically conscious films in India during the turbulent times of Nehru's leadership, follows a young man forced by circumstances into a life of crime. Faced with dire poverty, Madan (Dev Anand) has taken to gambling, and soon wins enough to open his own casino with the money he wins. When he meets sophisticated doctor Rajani (Kalpana Kartik), the two are instantly attracted to each other, but their different social classes and backgrounds make their union impossible. Instead, Madan takes up with Leena (Geeta Bali), a free-spirited girl who teaches him that, just as in gambling, to get what he really wants he must go all in. But when tragedy strikes and Madan is framed for murder, Inspector Ramesh (Krishan Dhawan)--the man Rajani's father wants her to marry--steps in. He understands that Madan is not the criminal that society wants to believe he is, and works to clear his name.
Based of the life of one of the greatest thinkers the Indian sub-continent has ever know, Adi Shankarcharya is a stunning achievement in the annals of world cinema. It is also the only film ever made in the classical Sanskrit language. By the 8th century, Hinduism had bacome a slave to Brahim cults rather than as the all - emracing philsophy of mankind that it was originally conceived as and wasthelogically challenged by other belief system including Buddhism. It wasinto this scenario that Shankaracharya was born. His father made him practice Brahmin rituals. Upon his father's death, the young Shankaracharya was led to reflect upon life and death, the body and soul through philosophical texts.
