4 days ago
- Entertainment
- New Indian Express
The golden year half a century ago
K Balachander's Apoorva Raagangal (Rare Melodies) is a landmark Tamil film often cited for being the breakthrough lead role for Kamal Haasan, the debut vehicle for Rajinikanth and the bearer of one of the most melodic soundtracks of Indian cinema. What's more, it's a milestone in radically positing that love knows no barriers of age.
The film turned the idea of romance on its head with its focus on an unusual, complex relationship dynamic where a young man falls in love with an older woman, while her daughter gets attracted to his father. Its ambiguous open-endedness notwithstanding, Apoorva Raagangal feels liberal not just for its own times.
The film completes 50 years this August 15, the day that saw the release of one of the most commercially successful Indian films, Ramesh Sippy's Sholay. While this much mythologised film will expectedly be the cause of many celebrations this year, it would be appropriate to also acknowledge the other cinematic saplings born that year that have grown in relevance since.
While 1957 is often called the highpoint in Indian cinema's golden age, 1975 was noteworthy in its own way. If it signalled a turning point in Tamil cinema with the arrival of a new generation of accomplished male stars, to eventually take the baton from Sivaji Ganesan and M G Ramachandran, filmmakers like Balachander and later Bharathiraja made mainstream Tamil cinema soar to new heights in the following years.
In Telugu cinema, 1975 marked the continuation of the domination of N T Rama Rao. However, Dasari Narayan Rao's Balipeetam is a significant pick from the year's crop, exploring the still-relevant issue of tensions in an inter-caste marriage between a Dalit boy and a Brahmin girl.
In Malayalam cinema, the year was one of the most fecund for actor Prem Nazir, with more than a dozen releases. But more important was the arrival of G Aravindan as a force to reckon with in the parallel cinema movement. Though his debut feature Uttarayanam won the national and Kerala state film awards in 1974, its year of release is often attributed as 1975.
Aravindan dealt with the crucial issue of unemployment in the 1970s and how it was driven by conflicting ideologies—varied means geared towards the same end. With experiments with storytelling and form, Aravindan made a strong comment on political opportunism and the corruption seeping into the individual and the system.
