Sick Product of a Sick System

Excellent, Without a doubt!!

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

Hrishikesh Mukherjee's Anupama is a brilliant film about one young girl who is lost within her own world, and about relationships between people from different social classes. Sharmila Tagore plays Uma, whose mother died at her birth. As a result, Uma has lived all her life with her father's reproach and blame for having lost his beloved wife because of her. She grows to be a shy and reticent girl, who remains most of the time silent. The story follows Uma's coming of age as a person mostly because of her relationship with a poor poet named Ashok (Dharmendra).A poignant film portrayed beautifully and realistically, it is a subtle yet powerful episode evidently made with a lot of graciousness and sincerity. Mukherjee's direction is very good and is aided by fantastic cinematography, great editing, very pleasant music, and above all, very well-written dialogues and very well-defined characters. Although many may consider the film too slow and even boring, I didn't find the slow pacing problematic at all. On the contrary, I was engaged by a masterful film with a very interesting portrayal of relationships in different families and most importantly a fair and precise depiction of the social values, gaps and conditions of the times.The film has a great collaborative work by the ensemble cast. Sharmila Tagore delivers a very beautiful restrained performance. Dharmendra is fantastic as the sensitive poet Ashok. Shashikala is extremely likable and funny and makes her presence felt as the vivacious Anita. Ditto for Deven Verma who plays Arun. David provides great comic relief as Uma's father's friend and his stories throughout the film are hilarious. Tarun Bose is great as Uma's father Mohan, and the ever great Durga Khote as Ashok's mother, as well as actress Naina as his sister, provide great support. All in all, I highly recommend this classic to people who like artistic quality films.

Besides being a very watchable film, it is a must-have for all serious students of Hindi cinema. The film is dedicated to Bimal Roy (practically the entire crew is comprised of people who worked for Roy) and in this film, Hrishikesh Mukherji's narrative style is clearly reminiscent of Roy's style. Hemant Kumar's music from this film is practically legendary, as are Kaifi Azmi's lyrics. The film has a few flaws -- it starts and ends beautifully, but could have been tightened up around the middle. The lead duo, Sharmila and Dharmendra, are adequately good, but it's the support cast that really carries the film. The director spends time working on the relationships between the cast - Deven Varma and Shashikala, despite (or because of) the latter's slightly annoying excess, have surprisingly good chemistry, and David, doing his classic overgrown bachelor is dependably great. The film is stolen though by Tarun Bose, who plays the lead character's troubled father to perfection.The thing that strikes out about the film is how well it comes together as a whole -- the cinematography, screenplay, the music, the editing and the acting. To the credit of Mukherjee and Roy alike, the film epitomizes the Black & White class drama that so strongly influenced Indian popular cinema in the post-independence era. I cannot recommend the film enough.

Known for his more successful rollicking comic adventures, this gem is still one of Hrishikesh Mukherjee's best works.Anupama is the story of a shy and retreating girl who grows up with the stigma of guilt, and her father's reproach and blame for having lost her mother during childbirth. It's a poignant journey of how she overcomes her own guilt and steps out of her father's overbearing shadow.Tarun Bose - another unsung character actor from Hindi cinema - plays Sharma, an affluent businessman who has married late but deeply loves his wife. When she dies in childbirth, he blames the newborn daughter Uma for having separated him from his only joy in life. She grows up as a timid young girl who pines for her father's affection, feels the guilt of her mother's demise and is barely able to express herself as a result. Indeed her first words in the movie are almost an hour into it, in a lilting song amidst nature. Sharmila Tagore, performs exquisitely as the daughter Uma, and despite having very few words to say, truly embodies the repressed, melancholy character, especially with her eyes that express all her emotions. Of course it helps that she is so beautiful.The scenes between father and daughter are poignant, and are sensitively handled. Deep inside, Sharma does love his daughter, but it shows only when he is drunk, and not in his senses. Hindi cinema has produced many excellent actors who are grossly underrated, and none more so than Dharmendra, who is not really remembered today for some of his sensitive portrayals, and his flair for comedy. Here he plays Ashok, a writer by profession from a modest background whose keen mind is quick to notice Uma's angst. Which also attracts the two together.Helping the plot race along - despite the melancholy theme, there's never a dull moment in the screenplay - are Shashikala who plays Annie (or Anita) - an effervescent tomboy and a complete anti-thesis of Uma's character- and a young Deven Verma who plays Arun, her love interest and a childhood friend of Ashok.There's also David - a Hrishikesh Mukherjee regular - provides great comic relief as Sharma's cheerful friend Moses. He has the best line in the movie. Translated from Hindi, "Death is great fun. The dying person doesn't know when it will happen, and everybody else cries." This has to be one of David's finest performances - he jokes, dances with Shashikala, and generally brings the house down with his pearls of wisdom.An unspoken love develops between Ashok and Uma, that threatens to die unrequited. Ashok understands the father's grief, but resents his ignorance and neglect of his daughter. The song 'Ya dil ki suno..' sung by the peerless Hemant Kumar, who also scores the music, is heart-rending. This song alone is worth the price of the movie. Written by Kaifi Azmi, It poetically describes the insensitivity of the father: "what a flower has bloomed in nature, the gardener has no love for it".Can Uma really overcome her internal barriers and take the leap to be with Ashok? Does she really have the strength to break free from emotions of both love and terror for her father? Despite a predictable ending, the movie still surprises in the end.Modern day directors can learn a lot about how to balance emotional content with sparkling comedy. And aided by excellent performances all round, 'Anupama' makes for a memorable experience.

A heartbreaking tear-jerker that explores life and death through the eyes of a young woman who has lived as a burden to her estranged father. Both, Dharmendra and Sharmila Tagore establish their signature acting in this movie.