Bollywood Favorite- Mother India

If you want to know about the Indian culture, the ideal relations between mother and a son, and the typical Indian village society, you must watch the Hindi epic movie Mother India. This movie can explain you the greatness of the Indian society by showing the highest limit a mother can go to protect the girl of her village from her own son. The movie was nominated for the academy award for the best foreign language film in the year 1957. All the aspects of this great movie like acting, music, dialogues, story, photography, and the direction are simply the best. You will have to see this film to judge it yourself and I am sure your judgment shall be above all the words of this article.

Film Mother India was released in the year 1957, the first ever Hindi film made in Technicolor. The film was produced and directed by great Mehboob Khan. Great Naushad Ali composed its music, and Ali Raza wrote the dialogues. The film was a super dooper hit in Hindi cinema. The film makes a history even today on box office whenever it is shown in theaters.

The film begins with the opening ceremony of a water canal in a village, performed by Radha (Nargis) as the mother of the whole village. She remembers her past while doing this and the film goes back into the flashback to the day of marriage between Radha and Shamu (Rajkumar). Shamu's mother had to borrow money from the moneylender of the village, Sukhilala (Kanaiyalal) for this marriage. This event leads the family to extreme poverty as the family is forced to pay a very high interest in terms of the crops produced in their farm to Sukhilala due to the forged and manipulated contract. While trying to make some additional barren land suitable for farming, Shamu loses his one of the arm in an accident. He feels highly depressed and is humiliated by others in the village, mainly by Sukhilala. Thinking that he has now become totally useless and a burden to the family, he lives the house and never returns. Soon after that, Radha's mother in law dies, leaving her all alone with her three sons in the extreme poverty. The heavy flood comes in the village, and one of her son dies in that. Sukhilala tries to pressurize her to marry him to get rid of their poverty. Radha refuses to this and works hard to bring up her both sons. The days change and the family again comes up. Both Radha's sons grow up. The elder son Ramu (Rajendra Kumar) is quiet and simple while the younger son Birju (Sunil Dutt) is very aggressive, angry young man, and turns into a vagabond, harassing the village girls, mainly the daughter of Sukhilala, who had harassed her mother throughout the life. She threatens to kidnap her from her marriage as revenge towards cunning Sukhilala. He steals a rifle and forms his own crew of dacoits. On other side, Radha promises the villagers to protect Sukhilala's daughter at any cost from her own son. Birju strikes during the marriage, kills Sukhilala and kidnaps his daughter. The climax scenes are simply marvelous showing how Radha protects the village girl from her own son.

The film is moving at a very rapid rate all throughout and all the songs, total 11 in number, are extremely melodious and heart moving. You cannot afford to miss even a single line of these great songs. The acting of Nargis as Radha is simply divine and is considered the best female performance ever in Hindi cinema. Raj Kumar leaves a very strong impression even in his small role. Kanaiyalal as the villain of the film is superb. Sunil Dutt is also the greatest in his role as a dacoit. Rajendra Kumar, as Ramu, leaves role of a simple, and quiet man effectively. You cannot rate anyone's performance as inferior to anybody, as all the lead actors have done their best. Sunil Dutt and Nargis started loving each other after this film, though in the film they were mother and a son. This love finally resulted into their marriage later. Nargis won the film fare award for the best actress for this film. She is so impressive in the film that you can visualize her before your eyes even after many years of seeing the film as her acting and the make up as an old lady are superb.

The film is really a gem of a film and I have no hesitation at all in declaring it as the best film ever made in the Hindi cinema. I urge all of you to see it immediately to get a few most pleasant moments in your life.