Mehboob Khan, India, 1957; 175m
Mother India, described by Salman Rushdie as "the all-conquering movie,"
is to Bollywood as Gone with the Wind, Singin’ in the Rain and The
Searchers put together are to Hollywood. The great Nargis plays Radha,
one of the cinema’s greatest heroines, who resists modernizations,
temptations, natural disasters and threats of all varieties in order to
raise her children on her own and hold on to her husband’s land. In the
end, she must choose between her own son and her beloved village.
Mehboob Khan’s grand drama of epic passions and colorful pageantry also
has some of the most glorious musical sequences ever shot. A cultural
milestone, Mother India provides a template — dramatic, stylistic,
political and mythic — for virtually all the great Bollywood cinema of
the decades to come. Nominated for an Oscar in 1958, Mehboob Khan’s
masterpiece is beautifully shot on Gevacolor and then transferred onto
Technicolor stock and the vivid colours shine through action, romance
and sorrow. We’re presenting this classic in a ravishing new print
courtesy of the British Film Institute.
Aug 23: 4:30; Aug 24: 1 & 8
Aug 25: 4:30; Aug 26: 1 & 8; Aug 27: 4:30
Aug 28: 1 & 8; Aug 29: 4:30
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