This is a rare moment in my life. I felt a similar urge to write around this time last year, albeit for different reasons. The point is, the push that I am feeling at the moment from within, is similar.
I just watched Khamoshi (1969), directed by Asit Sen. (It is the remake of the Bengali film, Deep Jwele Jai (1959) by the same director. ) If you haven't watched it, please do before reading further. If you're still interested to read what I have to say about the film, do go ahead.
What an experience Khamoshi was! What really is a film? It is a combined art form, where different pieces of art can be coalesced to form a collage. That's all it is. A collage. It depends on the team making the collage, how it appeals to the viewer.
A film is an audio-visual medium of communication ( the cinematography of this film, my God!). So it is imperative for the communicator to use the medium to its best possible capabilities so that maximum information can be transferred. If you ever watch the film, do note the scene immediately after the "woh sham kuch ajeeb thi" song ends. The song, itself a damn brilliant melody, has been used masterfully, but in combination with the scene immediately after. The way the director chooses to end it abruptly with the visual of an industry and a steamer, and the sound of the steamer's horn in the backdrop, is simply classic! It is when beauty is crudely destroyed does the explosion of every single constituent of beauty takes place. It is only then that we truly open our eyes to what is striking about beauty. (This is so clearly stated in the film-making, in the nuanced used of the exceptional music and the haunting silence. Gulzar is Gulzar. Hemanta is Hemanta.)
Let us grapple with the plot for sometime. Here is a nurse, who has cured a mental patient suffering from 'acute mania', which according to the movie is about the male child's longing for unconditional love. (Let me mention here that the movie is based on the story, "Nurse Mitra" by Ashutosh Mukherjee.) The brilliance of story telling lies exactly here! We are told that this is a movie, a story, a fiction. But is it really? Decide for yourself.
So we have a woman (Radha, Waheeda Rehman), who cures a patient (Dev, Dharmendra), falls in love with him while taking care of him. And the guy, once cured, has decided to marry the girl for whom he had landed up at the hospital in the first place! This breaks Radha so deep inside that the disease slowly eats her up. She knows that her heart is struggling but right then appears another patient (Arun, Rajesh Khanna). We have a 'great' doctor, who thinks patients suffering from this disorder do not need to be subjected to shock therapy, but if a woman "acts" in a manner that she is taking care of him like his mother (albeit in an Oedipus manner), then he can be completely cured. So for our doctor, patients are still subjects of research. Since Radha has succesfully cured Dev, he promptly asks her to help in the case of Arun, too. She quickly declines. Our doctor (Nasser Hussain) then keeps trying to manipulate her emotionally so that eventually she gives in and tries to cure Arun as well.
This is where the film effectively becomes a masterpiece to me. The film has been named "Khamoshi (Silence)". There are two aspects to this that I want to write about. First, Radha never mentions to anyone that she was in love with Dev, explicitly. So here is what the film asks : Should a woman have to embarrass herself beyond all her limits so that society can hear her? The doctor even cooks up a story about how a nurse whom he once knew in the past, held service much above her own emotions. (Why do I say cooked up? I will come back to it later.) He literally tells her that he thinks God gave women the power to absorb pain since God, 'Himself' is not able to walk on Earth and do it! Oh yes! My dear society, haven't you always manipulated women by deitifying them? I feel great that I live in a time when women say "fuck you" to men, without even giving a fuck.
But the film states the perils of its time subtly, in silence. It speaks through Radha's actions and thoughts. It flows in its own rhythm all the while placing items in-front of the audience, objectively. This is the second aspect.
It so happens, the doctor is right. As Radha treats Arun, he responds to her and, of course, starts falling in love with her. This is again when the film takes its silent route to portray the complexity of human relations. Arun is a writer and a singer. He is basically an artist. He is emotional. In contrast, we are allowed to know 'subtly' that Dev 'takes care of business.' So Dev and Arun are different.
As Arun falls more in love with Radha, she gets closer to him externally, while falling even deeper into herself, in her love for Dev. And one can see clearly that as the film goes on, she becomes more and more, the patient.
As we approach the end, we kind of know what's about to happen. Arun gets cured. Radha asks the doctor to excuse her from seeing Arun in the last few days of his stay at the asylum. The doctor agrees to her wish, while saying to himself "God help her!"
Yes. That's what he can say : "God help her", because he can't, none of the other doctors can. There is only one Radha. So there is no one to help her in return! This seems natural to the doctor because he has judged the situation wrong from the very beginning. The treatment, by itself, is not at all a great discovery! What is great about the asylum, is Radha herself!
Love isn't great. Love is just another tool, like every other one. It is the person who handles love, like it should be, is great. Compassion is what Radha has for others. She has empathy for the 'patients'. If you are reading this, please talk to a person who acts in bipolar manner, with compassion, with empathy. Please try to understand the root cause behind his/her behaviour. If you cannot at least try your best to help a person who depends on you, then shame on you.
Near the end, the doctor tells Arun that Radha does not want to meet him anymore and now that he is cured, he no longer needs Radha. He should know that Radha enacted the role of a lover to him, only to cure him. Arun refuses to accept the doctor's words. He rushes to talk to Radha but all he finds is a closed door. He calls out to her helplessly. He is convinced that Radha is in love with him. But Radha does not open the door and the asylum staff carry him away.
At the end, we see that Radha has now become a patient, herself. Here we get a visual, where the film lets go of its silent stand. We see all the doctors and staff standing by the conference table, while right in front of the screen, we only get to see the 'boss'- doctor's hands taking care of tobacco and fitting it into his pipe. We get to hear his voice-over in the meantime, where he laments that he failed to understand Radha's emotions! (This convinces me that he cooked up the story. It doesn't matter in the scope of the plot, if he didn't, either. But it's a character analysis from my side.)
Again, this is nothing shocking. This is how we treat the weak. Until and unless, they speak up, we keep playing innocent and keep manipulating them. We drive them either to insanity or to some other terrible end, and yet we manage to get away! We are Evil. All of us.
In the final shot, we see Radha crying helplessly at the doctor's feet and saying that she never acted, that she cannot act! But who cares for an insane woman's words, anyway? It is then, strikingly, we see Arun run upto her and say, that he will wait for her forever. The asylum staff and one of the doctors simply carry him away. From her.
