Mard Review (1985)

Manmohan Desai’s 1985 film, starring Amitabh Bachchan, Amrita Singh etc in the lead role, is a masala film. The reason I explicitly mention this is because it is tough to define as to what the story is exactly. Not that there is no story as such, its that, the screenplay is more akin to the emotions experienced by a person.

After a particular point, though, we do get some semblance of the story and get back on track.

To give a vague description, AB is a lower-class rickshaw driver and Amrita Singh is a rich girl, in pre–Partition India, though this movie is more like, Django Unchained, as in, that it’s a Revisionist Look at the Independence era. To be frank, Django Unchained is the one that’s more like Mard rather than the other way. But of course, we don’t look at it that way.

I’d like to tell that I’m not fully aware of the style and aesthetics of the films that came during this

period. Having said that, Manmohan Desai if a brilliant director. Even though he is handling a screenplay which is essentially another “Masala Film”, the way he shoots these is quite different. Like the fact that a lot of fights and drama sequences are captured in a handheld camera.

A particular portion of a song is captured in handheld, which, I can’t remember to have seen in any film apart from Touching Touching in Japan.

He uses different style of shots, for ex. A POV shot of a character’s intro who is looking from up the horse at the labourer who is below him. This is captured in simple single high angle camera that perfectly conveys all the 13 words that I just used to describe it.

The film’s opening prologue is a terrifically shot sequence which shows about a patriotic Raja, Azad Singh (look at the name), played by an absolutely brilliant Dara Singh, who fights against the British.

Now, don’t imagine him being a “வாள் மற்றும் கேடையம் அணிந்த வீரன்”. He is just a normal man, who uses guns and horses, while the British have gunS and carS. The film by itself is quite modern and beautiful looking. It has a Breathless pacing. At one point, we realise there’s been a jump in time, only when AB is introduced and we see another woman, who had been introduced earlier.

An interesting thing about the film is that, it is only at 1hr 40mins or some time before that, that we actually follow a plot thread continuously till the end. Till then all we see are variations of the Family sentiment mixed with Indian being humiliated by British, lovers, close relationship to the people surrounding the main character i.e. relying on the masala film structure to extend its run time. Thus, a problem arises; it becomes difficult to maintain interest in it after a particular point, because we do expect for something of a story being followed.

But what it compensates with is a phenomenal sense of style. The film has the terrific punch lines, it has quite a brilliant camerawork which brings in a different way of recording, compared to normal films.

The acting performances all around are definitely brilliant which help also tide over the flaws.

A brilliant sequence in the film is a silent sequence carried for some 5 mins, which involves a mirror and a drunken man. The overall sequence in which that sequence takes place also seems to somehow mirror back to another sequence before in the film, that previously involved someone being forcibly given alcohol like in this scene, but this sequence is treated like a comedy whereas that one is more emotional.

Though, Mard has the expected pitfalls that Masala films have which is the lack of a tonal consistency. We get 1 scene of sadness and in some time, we get a scene of joy laughter and while majoritarily they are handled well, there are some parts that are quite not fully well done.

However, Manmohan Desai balances the genre shortcomings by a very stylistic direction, brilliant dialogues, beautiful music, acting and the other crafts of the cinema.