Movie Review: Arth (The Meaning)

Arth (‘The Meaning’) – Mahesh Bhatt movie

For any serious Bollywood fan this is a must-watch movie and the primary reason being the stellar performances from two of the finest Hindi film actresses: Smita Patil (who unfortunately died very young, but not before leaving a sizeable body of critically acclaimed work) and Shabana Azmi who is very well known both in India and abroad. I should also mention the excellent performance of Kulbhushan Kharbanda who unfortunately has not really got his due over the years (both in terms of recognition and good roles).

Once you get past the rather tacky opening credits, the world of marital infidelity and its effects is revealed to the viewer. If I remember correctly, this is also partly based on Mahesh Bhatt’s real-life experiences. The storyline is fairly simple. A married couple (Shabana and Kulbhushan) whose life is ripped apart by the husbands infidelity with a sexy (obsessive, increasingly erratic and psycho) actress, Smita Patil. The story moves on through the lives of the protagonists, the emotional crisis of Shabana and her subsequent adjustment to life as a divorcee, the mania of Smita as she wanders through each day as the ‘other woman’ and how Kulbhushan meanders through the mess of life.

The drawbacks of the film are that that the script is weak and lacks punch and the background score (and not the songs, mind you) is nothing to write home about (which makes me wonder whether it was really Jagjit Singh who has worked on it or whether he has ‘outsourced’ it to someone else?). The script/situations may seem a tad overboard (emotionally) to westerners. You may find fault with the end which is not ‘filmy’ or not likely to leave the viewer with a sense of completion. Made on a low budget, you might tend to find technical faults with this film. Some minor characters such as Siddharth Kak (the husband of Shabana’s friend) may not have delivered very competent performances

But the compelling reasons to drop everything else and watch the film are:

(In the text below, I will refer to Kulbhushan Kharbanda as KK, Smita Patil as SP and Shabana Azmi as SA)

• Powerful emoting
• I guess great male/female actors just don’t hold themselves back. That is quite evident throughout when watching SA and SP. Especially in scenes that are disgusting, demeaning vis-à-vis the characters under consideration and how the 2 don’t hold themselves back in surrendering to the character and the demands of the role
• Sometimes just one shot/dialogue delivery/statement is enough to convince you that you are in the presence of a master (or is it mistress in this case?) of the craft. Right at the beginning, lookout for when KK gifts SA the house and then tells her that he has to leave for Goa that very day. Watch her say ‘Nahi, Aaj Nahi’ (No, not today). I could watch that frame 50 times and not get tired of it. SA takes us through a roller-coaster of emotions. Whether it’s her fuming mad at the hubby treating jobs lightly, or the sexy SA ‘rewarding’ K in bed for the surprise gift of the flat, the defiant SA rejecting KK when he breaks the ‘news’, the almost begging/groveling SA asking KK for explanations.
  
  Watch the scene where KK has just broken the news of his infidelity to SA, then suffers a fall and SA is bandaging his leg, how he so naturally reaches out to cry on her shoulder, see her anguished reaction
  
  The instant when SP slaps KK when he warns her that she is going mad. Watch every second of that shot and the changing expressions on SPs face. That’s class
  
  The chameleonlike quality of Smita and Shabana shine through a rollercoaster ride of emotions
• SP exudes raw and untamed sexuality throughout. She is not the classic ‘Indian beauty’ (if such a creature exists) but you wont be reminded of that when you watch her passionate emoting. Watch the classic confrontation scene at the end between SA and SP at the end. SP rules throughout that scene.
• Watch with breathless abandon the emotions which fleet across Shabana’s face. The evident sincerity shines through. The toothy grin that she tries her damnedest to hide makes her look cuter.
  
  I do find SA a bit raw in this film though (notwithstanding the fact that it was she who got the Filmfare award for the Best Actress and not Smita). I think at the point of the making of this film, SA was still not confident about her smile and it shows. It was Mahesh Bhatt himself who had mentored her on ridding her of her self-consciousness when smiling.
• Rohini Hattangadi (Gandhi’s wife from Richard Attenborough’s Gandhi) shines in a cameo as the maid servant of SA
• Hats off to the very restrained performance of KK especially in the presence of 2 of the best known female exponents of the art.
• Songs
• The 4 songs are eternal classics both for their lyrics (by Kaifi Azmi, father of Shabana), and Music/Playback (by Jagjit Singh, not a Hindi film industry regular but one of India’s famous ghazal singers)
• Tu nahi to zindagi mein aur kya reh jayega
  
• Koi ye kaise bataye woh tanha kyon hai (How is one to tell what she is yearning for)
• Tumk dekha to ye khayal aaya (The thought came to when I looked at you……..)
• Jhuki jhuki si nazar (The lowered gaze)

Since I watch many films on my laptop, I would sincerely appreciate it if some reader could point-out how to take good screen snapshots and how to paste the same in my blog. Apologies for my ignorance

Credits:

Screenplay: Mahesh Bhatt, Sujit Sen
Photography: Pravin Bhatt
Music: Chitra/Jagjit Singh
Producer: Kuljit Pal
Written/Directed: Mahesh Bhatt

Resources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arth_%28film%29