Once upon a time...
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The films of Hrishikesh Mukherjee at the festival demonstrated his nuanced storytelling where gentle laughter and profound sorrow vie for space, with neither stealing the show from the other
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A STAR IS BORN Abhimaan is rated as one of the best Amitabh - Jaya productions ever made
While tributes to a cinematic great may come in many forms, few pay as much respect as the act of simply letting the work speak for itself. Last weekend's tribute to celebrated director Hrishikesh Mukherjee by LACE films and Suchitra Film Society in association with the National Film Archives, therefore, could not have been more on the mark, with screenings of Anari, Anupama and Abhimaan.
Although the reasons for choosing these three films was supposedly related primarily to the availability of prints, the choices presented an interesting showcase of the kind of artistic growth Mukherjee achieved over the years.
Anari, which follows the fortunes of a well intentioned but somewhat naοve everyman played by Raj Kapoor, was the master director's first hit.
The film is a an excellent display of Mukherjee's ability to take the best from other directors, particularly his mentor Bimal Roy, and weave it into his own intents and purposes.
Anupama (1966) came a little under a decade later by which time Mukherjee had evolved a unique style and vocabulary of his own. And Abhimaan was one of the peaks of his career, a time when he managed to distill style and substance to perfection.
For someone of the younger generation born years after his prolific period ended, revisiting Mukherjee is always a sublime pleasure. After all, Mukherjee is one of the finest representations of what is possible in commercial Hindi cinema. Indeed, for many, Mukherjee represented the bridge between big-budget commercial ventures and the so-called parallel cinema.
Perhaps one of his greatest achievements was the manner in which he dealt with the song and dance sequences, one of the biggest sore points for viewers raised in the neo-realist tradition of English cinema. Mukherjee's films will always be remembered for delivering to audiences some of the greatest musical numbers of his era. But he will be also be remembered for the way he used songs not to escape from the storyline, but to further it. "Tere Mere Milan Ki Ye Raina", for instance, is one of the crucial plot points of Abhimaan, establishing the relationship Amitabh and Jaya share at the start of the film and then re-establishing that this has not changed despite everything that occurs between them at the end of the film.
The other great surprise that Mukherjee unfailingly delivered to his audience was the incredible quality of performance he garnered from "star actors" on every project.
Watching Dharmendra in Anupama, for instance, one marvels at the quiet restraint that is so many leagues ahead of his stereotyped "Kutte Kamine... " roles. And Abhimaan is rightly considered one of the best Amitabh-Jaya productions ever made. And all three films display Mukherjee's ability to give his heroines an aura of great beauty without rendering them flashy or gaudy. But perhaps the finest pleasure of a Hrishikesh Mukherjee film is the soft gentility.
As the films demonstrate, his nuanced storytelling style lends seemingly straightforward stories great depth, as gentle laughter and profound sorrow vie with each other for space, but neither steals the show from the other.
It is this pleasantly undulating journey of ups and downs that makes Mukherjee such a pleasure to watch, as he vividly captures the kind of life that we would all want — bittersweet, but with a largely happy ending.
RAKESH MEHAR
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