Awaara
Directed by Raj Kapoor
Written by Khwaja Ahmad Abbas; story by V.P. Sathe
1951/India
All India Film Corporation/R.K. Films Ltd.
First viewing/Netflix rental
[box] Our people are gracious and kind. They go to all the trouble to go to a cinema, stand in long queues and procure a ticket. They go through the hustle and bustle, through the blazing sun and the thrashing rain, to see your film, and; as I have always said – if you do not cheat the audience, they are very kind to you. Don’t make a fool of them. Do not take them for granted. They may not be as intelligent or as critical as other audiences, but why they have come there, they know: they want to be entertained. — Raj Kapoor[/box]
This early Bollywood musical is three hours of pure entertainment.
Justice Raghunath believes there is no room for emotion in the law. As the film opens, we are at the trial of Raj (Raj Kapoor) for attacking him. Raj is unrepresented but, at the last minute, the lovely Rita (Nargis), an attorney, comes into represent the young thief. She is also the Justice’s ward. We then segue into flashback as Rita brings out the reasons for Raj’s crime.
The bandit Jagga kidnaps the Justice’s beloved wife Leela as revenge for the Judge’s wrongful conviction of him as a young man. Jagga’s father and grandfather were bandits and that was enough to make him a bandit as far as the judge was concerned. When Jagga discovers that Leela is pregnant, he decides to prove to the judge that parentage makes no difference. He sends Leela home unmolested after four days. When Leela announces her pregnancy the judge does not believe that he is the father and casts her out into the street. Their son Raj is born in a gutter.
Leela and Raj live in a Bombay slum and mother works her fingers to the bone so that her son can go to school. She keeps his parentage from him. At school, Raj and Rita fall into puppy love. Then Raj is expelled from school for some reason and Rita moves away. Jagga makes his move and turns the talented Raj into a thief like himself.
Rita’s father dies and the judge becomes her guardian. Twelve years later Raj and Rita are reunited while Raj is trying to rob the judge’s house in the guise of a piano tuner. The rest of the story follows their star-crossed romance.
This movie is full of good songs, dancing, comedy, action and romance. Kapoor is enormously appealing. Some of the numbers must be seen to be believed. The dream sequence in the middle of the film is positively surreal, and I mean that in a good way. I was kind of dreading a three-hour Indian movie and the hours flew by. If you are looking for something that will leave you with a smile on your face, this could be the movie for you.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6w65CUQAL0
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