So I haven’t had much time to watch films lately, and when I have tried I have just been frustrated. Arggghhh. It’s hard to be a Hindi film fan. At the risk of sounding bitter and repetitive, let me just say (again) that I *hate* Indian dvd manufacturers.
Example 1: Jaal (1951) starring Dev Anand, Geeta Bali, Purnima, KN Singh. Directed by Guru Dutt. DVD from Nupur.
This may have once been a lovely film, but in the hands of Nupur it has been turned into barely-90-minutes’ worth of random unconnected vignettes. There is nothing coherent left of the story, to the point where it is virtually unwatchable. Scenes and songs end abruptly in the middle and we skip to a completely unrelated scene or song which is also cut short abruptly. Nupur kindly filled in the rest of the dvd space where the movie should have been with ads. At least they didn’t charge us any extra for that (or any less, either).
Example 2: Around the World (1967) starring Raj Kapoor, Rajshree, Ameeta, Mehmood, Pran, Prem Chopra. Directed by Pachhi. DVD from Shameroo.
I had no illusions that this would be a good film (I had already been warned!) but I took the plunge anyway since I love many of the songs—especially the lively “Yeh Munh Aur Masoor Ki Daal”.
Oh but hey guess what?! Shameroo cut the song OUT! And three other ones too! Not that they let us know that via any kind of disclaimer on the packaging or anything (or any kind of discount). All I was left with was a sucky movie with only six out of the original ten songs (and not the best ones, either).
Example 3: Pukar (1939) starring Chandramohan, Sohrab Modi, Naseem Banu. Directed by Sohrab Modi. VCD from fRIENDS.
On the left is the newly released vcd version (no subtitles) from fRIENDS (in case you somehow missed that). On the right is my copy (thanks again Muz!): a dvd made from a videotape that was taped from British television two decades ago (with subtitles). Just goes to show that you shouldn’t expect a better product—and in this case it’s even worse—from an Indian disc manufacturer than you already have from an old videotape. Pretty much the only “enhancement” you can count on is a huge ugly logo. At least I didn’t have to pay any money for this atrocity (thank you interwebs!).
Le sigh.
MemsaabStory 