The script and dialogues my Sampooran Singh Gulzar are just mind blowing. It is truly challenging to present the tensions in the family along with the innocence of the children Gulzar and Sekhar Kapoor (the director) delve deeply into the psychology of the adults and the children. Urmila excels as a child artist (she was barely 10 years old!), so did Anuradha and Jugal Hansraj.
The camera work in the movie is simple and artistic. Rahul Dev Burman's haunting score couldn't be any more apt. It is really striking, he used variations of a single tune as the background score for the entire movie! Wow! That is not the best part, you don't notice that! That's the best part.
Nasseruddin Shah and Shabana Azmi, who are known for their extreme potential and they have played their roles to perfection.
I would say this is Sekhar Kapoor's best. There are several scenes in the movie where the characters convey their feeling by a simple "act" which would otherwise need 1000 words and not-needed melodrama. That is clearly his directorial genius. When the characters actually "speak" they convey their feelings equally well...Thanks to the genius and maturity of Gulzar and Sekhar Kapoor.
The movie is funny, beautiful, tense, moving, complex..... However, I have one complaint with the script.
Warning: If you plan to watch the movie do not read beyond this point!
The open question remains as to what is really the punishment to a man who made a mistake as big as adultery. We know the man is good, loves his kids and wife and his work. He did make a mistake. The situation in which he made the mistake, no matter what, cannot be justified. He made a mistake. That's it.
The kid has no fault of his and he is lonely and helpless and feels deprived of everything. Does he have to suffer because the adult made a mistake? No. So, what is doing justice to this kid? Keeping him along with your kids? If that is the case, what is the punishment to the father? If you send him away as
punishment, the kids will all be fatherless and the wife will have the burden of taking care of them alone.
So, as shown in the film...the correct punishment is the one that makes him remorseful and the correct thing to do with the kid is to bring him up along with the others. OK, so far so good but this soln. has a problem too. What happens when the kids grow little older. They know their "brother" made no mistake, they will learn that their father...about who they were so proud..has let them down. This will certainly effect them for life! Even if we assume their family friends can forgive his mistake, the kids cannot. Not at least these kids.. may be some kids who are in a family that is used to adultery!
Well, one could argue that the father indeed made a mistake and the kids would have to simply face the truth..there is no other way out, so they rather stop worrying about it..and of course they don't to need to worry about punishing his father if the objective is to make him remorseful.
