Review of the Hindi Film: Madhumati

Directed by Bimal Roy in 1958, Madhumati is a classic black and white Hindi film.  The film is a romantic tragedy, starring cosmopolitan Anand, played by Dilip Kumar, who becomes enamored by the angelic Madhumati, starring Vyjayantimala, soon after taking up the management of a rural estate owned by the unscrupulous Raja Ugra Narayan, acted by Pran. To quench his uncontrollable lust over Madhumati, Raja, through chicanery and uncontested authority, foists Madhumati and Anand’s forest rendezvous and engineers a deceptive plan that lures Madhumati unwittingly into his bedroom, offering him an unabated chance to rape her, but Madhumati, in a fit of extreme defiance, commits suicide before Raj could despoil her of honor.



Anand and Madhumati Forest Rendezvous

When Anand learns of Madhumati’s fate, he physically confronts Raj, but only succeeds in barely escaping death at the hands of Raj loyalists. His convalescence produces healed physical wounds, but a demented mind and ruptured soul. Heartbroken and forlorn, he succumbs to psychotic lapses, haunted by apparitions of Madhumati. Anand vows to avenge Madhumati’s death, but struggles to bring Raj to justice. When he encounters Madhavi, a Madhumati-look-alike, he conjures a plan to spook Raj into confessing his role in Madhumati’s death.

Unexpectedly, the ghost of Madhumati appears at the final moment to salvage Anand’s disrupted plan, providing compelling evidence that entraps Raj into justifying his arrest. Through Madhumati’s and Anand’s relationship, the film offers a marriage between the traditional and the modern, attending to the varied harmonies, attractions, and incongruities that are inherent within this union. Also, thematic discourses that reify some of the poignant national issues of the time load these contesting narratives.

Madhumati's Father, Chief Pahan

Perhaps the most obvious example is the framing of the civilized Indian, as embodied in varied ways through the characterization of Anand, Raj, the inspector, and Madhavi’s brother and his friends. Their attire, conduct, and status conflate to stamp superiority and authority, thus registering eurocentrism as desirable, while relegating the traditional Indian culture to a subaltern status. The indigence and isolation of Chief Pahan, who embodies Indian tradition, epitomizes this theme. Supporting this ideologue is a refrain that defines the Indian peasant as dishonest, lazy, and self-destructive, perhaps most personified in the character of Charan.



Recruiting Madhavi: Madhumati's Look-alike



There are more complex narratives at work too: the film, by interlocking Madhumati’s beauty and innocence with her close connection with nature and tradition, presents a counter narrative  that traditional India is valuable, precious and pristine and its citizens should protect it  from the wiles of modernity and the new nationalistic ethos. It also uses Madhumati to symbolically represent the spirituality of traditional culture. “These are the graves of my ancestors,” Madhumati tells Anand. Her call to him to “let’s seek the blessings of the Gods,” seems to resonate also as a political and ideological cry to the Indian nation.

Madhumati

In elevating eurocentric values, the film does not necessarily negate tradition. In fact it celebrates indigenous culture and beliefs. For instance, the plot unfolds through the validation of reincarnation as an acceptable spiritual belief. From the beginning of the film, when Anand  seeks refuge at a desolate Inn, the epiphany of the afterlife overwhelms him. He looks at the photo of Urgnarian, registers the afterlife and tacitly cautions us that the upcoming story unfolds in his previous life.

There is also the legislative, geographic, and cultural boundaries that divide Raj's estate from Madhumati’s village, highlighting the realities of Indian life following the partitioning of the country in 1947 by British colonizers. The tragedy and associative sufferings that unfold from Anand’s breach of these rules carry a quiet consistency with the dominant political ideology of the time: crossing the border of the partition is disastrous and ominous. 



Anand and his Sinister Boss, Raj



Perhaps the most bothersome aspect of the film is its one-dimensional portrayal of Indian women. The film presents the Indian woman as a bridal or romantic prize through traditional amorous relationships. So there’s Madhumati and Madhavi, but no mother figure, nor any other significant female references: professional, domestic, or filial. The film also portrays relations within the traditional framework of the man as the haunter and the woman as the haunted. It constructs this theme mainly through the romantic chase.

  

Throughout the film, Anand is continually running through the woods in a flirtatious chase of Madhumati. This typifies the traditional Hindi film’s formulaic depiction of romance, which highlights the conservative and disembodied portrayal of love and sexual encounter. Unlike Hollywood movies, the film supplants tactile cues of intimacy with song and poetry to register romantic passion. Anand’s and Madhumati’s touches are often asexual if not childlike or accidental.

Anand and Madhumati in Woods

Conclusively, this was the first Hindi film that I had seen in its entirety. The production values and aesthetics pleasantly surprised me, but I remained unaccustomed to the heavy reliance of song as a trope within the plot. I was impressed by the seamless and effective ways in which the director weaved important national issues into the story line. For me, this viewing experience was as much educational as it was entertaining.