I do not see sad movies. Back in the 80s and 90s, when DoorDarshan was the sole TV station, there was no choice. We saw all movies, even the worst … slowest … saddest ones. Before Independence, Mayo's book Mother India, described by Gandhi as akin to a ‘report by the drain inspector’ shocked Western audiences. In independent India, directors like Satyajit ray made 'shocking movies about India' much to the disdain of fellow Indians because foreign movie critics and foreign film festivals could not get enough of them. Slow-moving giants like Elipattayam were created to cash in on this trend. The award films on Sunday afternoons, ironically after the special news programme for deaf/mutes, largely belonged to this category. Entertaining movies like Shankarabaranam started appearing much later. We did not discriminate. We saw all such waste of celluloid. However, I remember this movie very much. It began like the usual suspects but it became like a thriller and finished on a cliff hanger!
The sole earning member of a lower middle class family fails to return from work one day. The entire movie is about what happens that night. The family resides in a dilapidated colony built in the year of the Sepoy Mutiny. The family fears the worst and worries about the consequences. Neighbours assume that she must have eloped, as her family is unlikely to get her married. The police beckon her brother to visit to a hospital to identify a body.
One scene that remains etched in my memory is set in the mortuary. There are several others whose family members have gone missing. One of them is a guy who had a tiff with his sister. There is also an old lady and another guy, both missing a relative. A nurse asks the group to go and check the body. The camera's position shows the perspective of the dead body. In the audience, we have look up at the people who have come to identify the body. First, the lady comes. She looks at the body and thanks God it is not her relative. She moves away and then the other guy come. He shakes his head and moves away. Then, the two men who have a missing sister come. One of them stays shocked but the other moves off the frame. Fortunately, the one who moved is the brother from the colony. Then, the missing woman must be alive! (Tough luck for other family.) Man, I kicked myself that the director made me think the woman had died.
The movie takes half a day out of the lives of an ordinary middle class family and brilliantly exposes their trials and tribulations. The director is supposed to be a Communist (the Indian milquetoast variety) and I wonder why Jyoti Basu and Co. could not change the situation despite several decades in power.