The great Rishi Kapoor and Hema Malini star in this excellent movie. A must watch, brilliant performances and a great story. The highlights: Great performance by Rishi and Hema Great Story. Great Writer Great Direction. Punjabi Background. The end has a lot of message about women's rights. I watched it as it was written by Bedi and starred a great cast. A must watch. The story starts with the background of elder brother kulbhushan beating up Hema Malini all the time and the younger brother rishi trying to save her bhabhi. One day the elder brother gets killed and hell breaks loose. Rishi has to marry her bhabhi and sacrifice his own love Poonam. He does not accept her as his wife until the love and sacrifice of Hema convinces her one day and he conjugates his marriage.
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squr25 January 2005
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This is a Hindi language film starring Hema Malini and Rishi Kapoor. The film is rich in its storyline because it's based on Rajender Singh Bedi's novel of the same name.
The central character of the film is Hema Malini as Ranno who has to endure a lot of hardship in both married life and widowhood thereafter. The film also takes a look at how socio-cultural life was run in villages. With the village elders have a say and influence in maintaining social and economic stability within families in the villages.
The film is beautifully directed by Sukhwant Dadda and recreates a village milieu perfectly with both the cinematography and characterisation. Performances by all the stars are very realistic. Hema Malini holds the film together by both her beauty and her getting into the skin of the character. She holds the film together the way she holds the family together in the film.
Rishi Kapoor has played a few non glamorous roles and it's a good choice he's made here too. Being asked to marry his sister in law to stabilize the family when he's actually in love with someone else, he transcends the anger, frustration, confusion and thereafter acceptance stages very well in the film.
Poonam Dhillon looks heavenly and plays her role very well while lighting up the otherwise morose proceedings.
An excellent watch overall. -
jbz78795 October 2007-it is notoriously tough to adapt a great book into a fabulous script but for once this is fluidly established by a gifted script writer and embellished with a truly dignified performance by the female lead-Hema Malini who plays a widow who after her husband's gruesome murder is obliged to marry his younger brother according to the religious tradition.
the sensitive story is subtly executed with intelligence rather then melodrama and the supporting cast is just as good ,yet the soul of the movie lies in the pragmatic ,bereaving widow who has to take a tough decision and that is where the strength of the story lies as she is torn between the past and future but has to act to save her children's present ,a classic book made into a sensitive drama that will haunt you for a long time after it has ended ,the songs are kept to a minimal and there are no clichés as in mainstream Bollywood movies ,i am sure the Rajinder Singh Bedi will be very pleased with this marvellous adaptation which does full justice to his literary classic.this is a movie for people with a taste for the unusual and deserves a special distinction by all criterion .a culturally correct setting enhances it's authenticity as it portrays rural India with painstaking details and the art direction and cinematography capture the picturesque fields as fluidly as the subtle expressions on the faces of its ensemble cast .a must see for the connoisseurs .ultimately it is a tribute to the matriarchal spirit of the great Indian womanhood and a triumph for the female -oriented intelligent cinema ,Rishi Kapoor brings a passive frustration to the role of the younger man who has to accept the older woman as his wife ,but the transformation is subtle and the quiet acceptance by the children of their father's role by their uncle is very tasteful yet truly heart-rending at times ,but this is a movie which shows the ugly side of life which describes the truth of compromises and the facts are rather bitter ,which might explain the failure of this classic commercially in India . the controversial nature of the religious tradition might be blamed but the fact it is widely practised for the pragmatic side of the convenience to preserve the familial structure cannot be denied . Poonam Dhillon played the tragic girl who has to give up her first love as he is now bound to a woman she had adored secretly as a mother figure ,the complexities here are phenomenal but the director is gifted indeed and he is able to make great cinema out of great literature . it is sad that this movie missed out on tax exemption as well as national awards as no other work of art is more deserving of those rewards then this gem cultural representation which is almost revolutionary in concept and execution . -
Making a movie by adapting some novel or story or play is a delicate job with enormous responsibility attached to it because no filmmaker has a right to play with the spirit of the written work. That's why very few films have come in which the soul of the piece of literature which is its foundation, has been kept intact. Fortunately, Ek Chaadar Maili Si is one such movie.
Ek Chaadar Maili Si (a seemingly grimy sheathing) is the story of a poor Punjabi family in rural Punjab. The breadwinner of the family is Trilok (Kulbhushan Kharbanda) who earns on day-to-day basis by carrying passengers in his horse-cart. His parents are very old. While the ailing father (A.K. Hangal) is sober, the mother (Deena Paathak) is foul-mouthed and ill-mannered especially towards her daughter-in-law Raano (Hema Maalini). Trilok himself is a drunkard and ill-fated but internally very strong Raano has to suffer from domestic violence regularly in addition to the curses of her mother-in-law. She has two children. The son is a small child whereas the daughter Guddi (Neena Cheema) is growing up fast.
Amidst her non-stop sufferings and tears, Raano is able to steal moments of joy by interacting with neighbouring women and attending functions in the families of acquaintances. Her brother-in-law, i.e., Trilok's younger brother - Mangal (Rishi Kapoor) is another source of solace and smile in her sorry state of affairs. Mangal has a good nature and share a very jovial relationship with his Bhaabhi (sister-in-law), i.e., Raano. He is in love with a nomadic girl Raaji (Poonam Dhillon) but has not got matured enough to shoulder any responsibility. Now comes the adversity which falls on this already poor household like lightning.
Trilok gets murdered in the hands of a youth whose sister was raped by two licentious persons whom Trilok used to keep an association with. The youth who is from a well-off family is sentenced to imprisonment but Trilok's family is totally destroyed. Raano's mother-in-law's taunts and ill-treatment to her increase whereas Mangal now realizes his responsibility and starts running the horse-cart. However when he also has to face the lock-up due to a spat, life becomes just unbearable for Raano in the home with no money to make both ends meet.
When Mangal returns home, things start getting normal again but now the members of the village council (known as Punch) pressurize the family that Raano is married to Mangal so that the family remains united and intact and Raano may not have to endure widowhood for a lifetime. However these outside people are not able to understand that it's not possible for Raano and Mangal to look upon each other as man and wife. Anyway the decision is forced on them and Mangal loses the love of Raaji in turn.
It takes long for Mangal and Raano to accept each other as husband and wife. Similarly it takes long for Guddi, the grown-up daughter of Raano and Trilok to accept this relationship of her mother and her uncle. After a log of suffering for these characters, especially Raano, the movie finally ends on a happy note when the matrimonial alliance of Guddi is fixed.
Script-writers Phani Majoomdaar and Maakhan Singh have written the screenplay with utmost sincerity and director Sukhwant Dhaddha has done his job with even higher proficiency. Since I saw the movie first and read the novel later, I can safely say that the movie did complete justice to the literary work of Rajinder Singh Bedi. The soul of the novel speaks from every shot of the movie.
Hema Maalini despite her advancing years looks much more beautiful than the other female actresses many years junior to her. However this is a showcase of the dream-girl's acting talent. Every inch she appears the author's Raano and nothing else. The movie starts with her and ends with her only. She is the backbone of the whole story and her stellar performance is something to be cherished forever. All others including the charming Rishi Kapoor have also done very well.
The movie is an ocean of emotion and feelings. A highly sensitive movie in which every scene, every character and every dialog appear to be real. All the characters except those of Raaji and the killer of Trilok are real flesh and blood human-beings which we can see (or could see in that period of the sixties) in the real life.
The movie shakes the viewer deep within. The trauma of Raano is heart-piercing and her inner strength to sustain everything and still do her duty is exemplary. The complete milieu is realistic. Nothing appears to be unreal throughout the duration of the movie. The rural Punjab has come alive on the screen courtesy the locations chosen and the brilliant job done by the cinematographer. Anu Mali's music also brings Punjabi flavour with it.
However the climax is unconvincing and appears to be forced to make a happy ending to the sorrow-filled profound movie. Besides, the character of Mangal's sweetheart Raaji appears to have been given too much footage to insert song, dance and romance in the narrative because it's in undertone in the novel. It has nothing to do with the main track running with the family members also.
But then who is perfect ? The director deserves a big applause for making this movie which is nothing short of a masterpiece. It did not get its due though the novel had won the Saahitya Academy Award in 1965. It flopped on the box office and the critics also ignored it.
This movie is not meant for everybody also. Regular entertainment-seekers may find it heavy for their heart. This classic movie is mainly for those who like sensitive and meaningful cinema.