The Tale of Three Films

PART ONE*

In my present blog, I'd like to examine three films - Swami (1977; Basu Chatterjee), Woh Saat Din (1983; Bapu) and Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam (1999; Sanjay Leela Bhansali). I'm curious about these films because it seems as if the basic plot elements of all three are very similar. And so are the issues that they deal with. The most common element is the act of marriage which is the focal point of the entire film. Apart from this one major event, nothing really happens in these films, and without it the films would be pointless. I would like to compare all three films on the basis of their similarities, and if this exercise leads me to identify any differences, then I would like to examine those as well.

I mainly want to concentrate on what these films are saying about love, marriage, relationships, and most important, the role of "choice" (especially the woman's) in marriage. At the outset, I would like to say one thing though: my reading of all three films tells me that, what at the surface appears to be a love triangle, it is in fact not one. It is basically the conflict between the nature of love before and after marriage that drives all three films.

THE GIRL
One major reason why I refrain from using the term "love triangle" in these three films is that the three characters are not really shown as three equivalent forces. The heroine is actually the only character capable of registering change. One can draw out a character graph in each film for the heroine, and even though the trajectory would be more sharp than gradual, the heroines do change during each film. As compared to this, the heroes are not wholesome characters, but represent "qualities" or "essences" in the films - a point that I will cover later when I discuss this aspect.

Before marriage, the girls are shown as intelligent, independent women. All three state, sometime in the initial stage of the films, that they would only marry a boy of their choice and not someone that the family has chosen.

Mini in Swami (played by Shabana Azmi) is fond of reading and laps up Western Literature mostly suggested to her by her progressive and open-minded uncle. She engages in intellectual debates with him and her lover, Naren on the question of the freewill. During this debate she does mention that some situations prevent us from exercising our freewill. As an example she says that a woman does not have the right to fall in love with another man after marriage as it is a "bandhan" (bond/ bondage). This tells us that she is not only perceptive, but also practical. She seems to be consistent with her own argument at the end of the film, when she chooses to remain with her husband, but this decision is a little ambiguous as her reasons for doing so are not entirely clear.

In WSD, our heroine, Maya (Padmini Kolhapure) is probably the one most in control of her life before marriage. She is definitely older than the other two, as she works. Also the way in which she "pursues" her lover Prem (Anil Kapoor) is different from the other two heroines. She is neither coy nor reticent. She in fact quite bold, and in one hilarious scene, almost blackmails Prem into kissing her. Her financial independence seems to give her a louder voice as well, as she is quite vocal about what she wants in the film.

Out of all three protagonists, Nandini's character (played by Aishwarya Rai) in Hum Dil... has the least amount of agency at the start of the film. We know nothing of her education or her current occupation. Though she too is spunky and out-spoken, the structure of her extended family tells us that she is definitely not the dominant voice in the film. So her journey after marriage is also a journey of growing up and knowing what she wants. Maya is already a grown up and Mini, by the end of the film, loses all her stubborn-ness and is reduced to a despairing heap.

Like I mentioned earlier, the heroine is the only character in the three films with an identifiable character graph, though it switches rather abruptly from naughty to nice (forgive the cliche). And we also do not really see any outward evidence of the change. After marriage, a series of episodes later (none of which are causally linked) we seem to end up with a new and improved (again, forgive the cliche) version of our heroine.

*This blog will be written in parts as there is just too much to cover and I may also end up editing some bits. For now this is it....wait for Part 2.