The only way to find a movie like this is to travel into the past and search in the old grimy chest for many obvious reasons: society's form has changed so dramatically that it would be difficult to find this kind of behavior in this specific format in the current era and even if such pockets exist, there is no movie-maker of skill that would have any interest in narrating a story like this in a manner like this.
The movie starts with a young raconteur narrating to a small group of friends who come together for dark rainy Allahabad evenings filled with brooding stories told with a lot of social commentary. Stories that pause for comments and brief discussions and chai. The young man (played brilliantly by Rajit Kapur) suggests that the end of most love stories is obvious and has to be told within the context of the social environment and the class struggles.
He narrates a series of love stories associated with three women: Jamuna, Lily and Satti; women that were associated with him in his younger years. The movie is a bit like a Mobius strip. As you move onto another day and another story and begin to believe it is a new story, you reach a point encountered previously in an earlier story.
Books deal brilliantly with simultaneous events; an area where movies tend to suffer. Shyam Benegal ably stitches the stories together so that the seams don't show. The 50s touch of cojone-less-lily-livered-hero surviving-heroine is very evident in this story as well.
The movie throws up a number of utterly believable flawed characters from the complexed Tanna to his womanizer father, Maheswar Dalal, and from the very complex Jamuna to the interesting nameless narrator-friend and, finally, the protagonist himself, Manek.
The movie makes the viewer think at many different levels: We saw what happened before. We saw the result. What really happened in-between? Why did the character do that? How much of what Manek was narrating fact versus fiction?
Thankfully, Benegal doesn't leave the viewer thinking too much about 'what happened' but provides a lot of food for thought about character motivations and fact versus embellishment, and therein lies the beauty of this movie.
Also, what's with the name? Suraj ka Saatvan Ghoda?
The Sun God's chariot is pulled by seven white horses (days of the week, one presumes) and the seventh one represents the future and hope. Another interpretation is that the seventh is also the youngest, and likely the slowest. A group moves only as fast as the slowest member of the group.
What is your interpretation of the title? And of the movie itself? I'd love to hear.
The movie starts with a young raconteur narrating to a small group of friends who come together for dark rainy Allahabad evenings filled with brooding stories told with a lot of social commentary. Stories that pause for comments and brief discussions and chai. The young man (played brilliantly by Rajit Kapur) suggests that the end of most love stories is obvious and has to be told within the context of the social environment and the class struggles.
He narrates a series of love stories associated with three women: Jamuna, Lily and Satti; women that were associated with him in his younger years. The movie is a bit like a Mobius strip. As you move onto another day and another story and begin to believe it is a new story, you reach a point encountered previously in an earlier story.
Books deal brilliantly with simultaneous events; an area where movies tend to suffer. Shyam Benegal ably stitches the stories together so that the seams don't show. The 50s touch of cojone-less-lily-livered-hero surviving-heroine is very evident in this story as well.
The movie throws up a number of utterly believable flawed characters from the complexed Tanna to his womanizer father, Maheswar Dalal, and from the very complex Jamuna to the interesting nameless narrator-friend and, finally, the protagonist himself, Manek.
The movie makes the viewer think at many different levels: We saw what happened before. We saw the result. What really happened in-between? Why did the character do that? How much of what Manek was narrating fact versus fiction?
Thankfully, Benegal doesn't leave the viewer thinking too much about 'what happened' but provides a lot of food for thought about character motivations and fact versus embellishment, and therein lies the beauty of this movie.
Also, what's with the name? Suraj ka Saatvan Ghoda?
The Sun God's chariot is pulled by seven white horses (days of the week, one presumes) and the seventh one represents the future and hope. Another interpretation is that the seventh is also the youngest, and likely the slowest. A group moves only as fast as the slowest member of the group.
What is your interpretation of the title? And of the movie itself? I'd love to hear.
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