The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh / Hyderabad News : It's a director's special

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Saturday, Feb 18, 2006

Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh - Hyderabad

It's a director's special

CASTING A SPELL: Anuj Sawhney and Sushmita Sen in Chingaari

Chingaari (Hindi)

Cast: Sushmita Sen, Mithun Chakraborty, Anuj Sawhney and Ila Arun

Director: Kalpana Lajmi

She has never been an express filmmaker - half a dozen films in nearly two decades is not the resume of a prolific being. Kalpana Lajmi - now for some reason Kallpana - has never really been in the limelight for the popularity of her craft. Her fleeting "Darmiyaan" moments offset by a "Kyon" or a "Daman". Now, finally, she casts the past aside, and comes up with a film that makes no compromise on artistic value. Kudos! And almost three cheers! And gives us a film that may be on the mantelpiece for a long time.

Cast shines through

Yes, "Chingaari", that tale of a prostitute in love with a postman, and sought after by a priest, is beautiful. Sushmita Sen is bewitching, Mithun Chakraborty packs in more than a punch, and Ila Arun - she is the matriarch of the vice den - shows the virtues of many seasons at fall. But Lajmi deserves greater credit - for taking on a patriarchal system where a woman who gratifies the high and mighty can have no aspirations of a nuptial bed. It is in her brutal exposure of the priest, godman by day, Satan by night, that she shows the spark that made many a head turn way back in "Ek Pal". Her panda here, a parambhakt of Kali Mata, seeks pleasure, nurtures a grouse. Amorous meets, furtive kisses, beastly assaults. He does it all. Then he comes back to the deity. Not to confess, but to keep the deity from the devotees.

If Mithun is stately in his physical appearance here, Lajmi gets an even better performance from Sushmita. She stumbles, she is given to foibles at the beginning. Then she banishes the public school educated girl and slips into the character of Basanti. Her body language changes, her attire complements. As the victim of the priest's passion, she brings both fear and helplessness to her craft Not a woman of tender charm, poise or grace, still in her dimples reside abiding joy for many a man.

That is until the Mother in her is roused. It takes a long time coming, and we do wonder if the film could be better edited.

It is not her fate to meet the mate - Anuj Sawhney as the postman, the weakest part of the film by some distance. Never mind. Lajmi would be smiling. She has delivered a film that is exhilarating, thrilling. All this despite a predictable storyline, and a hero who is little more than a sidekick!

Ziya Us Salam

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