I needed a respite from a spate of bad/mediocre Hindi movies, so I dragged out some favorites to watch again. Jugnu is one of them. Dharmendra and Hema Malini are dreamy together, and Pran takes a break from villainy. It contains 100% of the Recommended Daily Masala Allowance: it’s almost three hours long and jam-packed with excitement and entertainment. It’s also one of my sister’s favorite films, and there’s no higher recommendation than that!
This movie is so dreadful that I normally would throw it in the “I’ll never watch this one again on purpose” bin and not give it another thought. But it’s interesting in that it has three actors I really like generally (Dharmendra, Rehman and Nutan) and I’m sort of amazed that they would DO this film. And, it’s a perfect example of what I find hard to tolerate sometimes on my journey to watch every Hindi movie ever made (at least the ones on DVD). People often ask me what I don’t like about Hindi movies; here’s your answer.
This should have been my first clue that I would hate it, except I didn’t realize yet that by “Man” they really meant “men” and had forgotten to add “women don’t count” at the end.
Set in a jungle estate, this is a fun movie mystery with bountiful clues and plenty of suspects to go around. What really makes it work though is the stellar cast: Dharmendra and Asha Parekh star along with Sanjeev Kumar—he won the Filmfare Best Supporting Actor award for it. They are also supported by Johnny Walker, Manmohan and Rehman—and my favorite girl Helen who gets two dances and a substantial role in the film! The songs by Shankar-Jaikishan are wonderful, and the dancing superb.
These scenes are all from one movie. What movie is it?
The prize (which is nothing more than the satisfaction of being the winner!) goes to Nina for knowing that this movie is Guddi (1971) *ing Jaya Bhaduri, Dharmendra (playing himself) and a host of guest actors. A truly wonderful movie from Hrishikesh Mukherjee!
This is a refreshingly mature film about life, love, disappointment, responsibility and all those things that make us happy and sad. And, unlike most attempts at this before it, the movie manages to juggle a large cast of characters AND give them dimension and substance so that you actually care about what happens to them (see Salaam-E-Ishq for contrast).
Konkona Sen Sharma and Irfan Khan showed their comedy chops, and their story unfolded with a lot of sweetness and humor. A great scene had Irrfan teaching the buttoned-up Konkona some primal scream therapy. I would love to see them paired up again. Sharman Joshi was a revelation to me; I had never seen him before* and found myself rooting for his geeky entrepreneurial character. I would bet that he becomes a very versatile actor. In fact, I found myself rooting for almost everyone in this movie — the notable exception being Kay Kay Menon’s cheating, hypocritical husband (which only means that Kay Kay’s acting was v.v. good). Shilpa Shetty was very good as his long-suffering wife**. I hope she continues to get good roles like this and Phir Milenge. I imagine that not many people could NOT find at least one of these characters to relate to.
It was also a joy to see Dharmendra and the gorgeous Nafisa Ali, in a sweet twilight-years love story. Dharmendra’s entrance was like seeing an old familiar friend in an unexpected place. His presence added more warmth to an already heart-warming film.
The other great character in this movie was Mumbai itself during the monsoons. Beautifully photographed and atmospheric, perfectly suited to the tone of the movie: I wished I were there standing on a terrace overlooking the city drenched in rain. The musical interludes jarred me a little as they appeared out of nowhere suddenly and felt like an interruption, although the soundtrack is very nice listening on its own.
I would show this movie even to my most stubbornly “anti-Bollywood” friends.
*Well, actually, I discover that I have, in “Rang De Basanti” which maybe validates my next sentence, because I don’t remember him in it
**Although long-suffering self-sacrificing Indian wives have long gotten on my last good nerve
MemsaabStory 