Hanste Zakhm : Movie Review
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Some films in past have had all the potential to become a classic in true sense but failed somewhere due to certain loop holes or improper treatment to the script . Hanste Zakhm is one such film in my opinion which could have well been made into a real “timeless” classic film but the director Chetan Anand failed to do so. He had a really nice story that could have been well made into a good film with great performances . The story which was by Gulshan Nanda might largely look like a typical hindi masala film of those days but still it had something different from the other such films . The film has all the typical elements of a masala film like a willian (Jeevan in this case) , a wamp (achala sachdeva), a rich dad and a dad with principles , two friends cum sisters who get separated because of fate and a poor girl who is a victim of circumstances who eventually falls in love with the rich son of the rich dad . So the question arises that what is different .
Well , the answer to that question lies in the primary love angle that exists in the film . There is nothing new about a love story between a prostitute and a rich guy but in this film what impressed me was the certain level of honesty with which the whole love story was treated . One does empathise for the girl who suffers from a terrible turn of events and becomes a prostitute . She has no memory of her parents but she still has a faint memory of her loving dad who always cried out of joy whenever he met her . This character of hers was written in a real honest and fine way but what lacked was the acting performance by Priya Rajvansh . She acted really terribly and was good only in very few parts . She had some really fine lines that would have become legendary if someone like Meena Kumari would have delivered them . She just didn’t have the talent to perform such a tough role and even her diction was bad which is of primary importance when you are delivering philosophical shayaris as dialogues .
Some dialogues of hers were really good and even certain scenes from the film are just great . The scene where she gets instructed by the Police Man (Balraj Sahni ; who is also her Father that she doesn’t recognise) to live an ordinary life and leave the world of prostitution . She replies to him that how can she live an ordinary life and who would marry her or accept her as daughter . She delivers this fine Shayari that I really liked and it made me write this entire post just so that I could quote it . It goes something like this :
“Dikhate Hai Sab door se Raasta ,
Koi do kadam saath chalta nahi,
Jalaati hai duniya to jalte hai dil ,
Koi apni marzi se jalta nahi … ”
It really goes well at that moment when her own estranged dad suggests her to leave prostitution . Priya Rajvansh just didn’t do justice to this and many such lines that she delivers . She acted the whole part in a very below average manner and in certain parts she almost looked like a zombie who has no idea what she is doing . But still , even though she acted really badly I still loved the whole love stroy between her and Navin Nishchol who didn’t act as bad as her and did a fair bit of job himself .
Apart from the fine lines, what worked for me were the haunting melodies of Madan Mohan in the film’s music . The best song from the film is no doubt “Tum Jo Mil Gaye Ho , to yeh lagta hai , ke jahaan mil gaya ..” . The song has nice symphonic melody in it which is one of Madan Mohan’s best for sure . I’ve not heard a lot of him but I can still say that this was and is for sure one of his all-time best . This song is a really different kinda track and sometimes such tracks give an eerie feeling as if they have something in themselves . It is haunting and is great . This track has also been sung beautifully by the great Md. Rafi himself who does a great job as usual . The reason I wrote almost a paragraph about the song itself is beacause it is that important to the film . It is during this song that one can really feel the passion with which the main characters love each other . This song has also been shot in really different way . Not only the song has a psychological angle to it but even the way it has been shot gives a strange feeling . It is shot in heavy rains and it shows Mumbai by night . A little strange but a beautiful track that leaves a lasting impression both visually and even music-wise .
There are also several other beautiful tracks like “Betaab Dil Ki Yeh Tamanna..” which is another classic from the film . Then there is also the famous qawwali , “Yeh Maana meri jaan, mohabbat saja hai, maza is mein itna magar kisliye hai..” . All these hit tracks have been written by Kaifi Azmi who had done a brilliant job . The music is also legendary by the legend himself , Madan Mohan .
Amongst the acting performances , the only acting performance that I really liked was that of Balraj Sahni’s who is the father and a police inspector who gets caught between emotions and his duty . His was a very real and mature performance . Apart from him all other acters acted typical of their time and nothing impresses that much .
Warning ; a spoiler is ahead regarding the end . Skip this para if you don’t want to know it .
It is also one of the few films where the leading lady in the film dies in the end . Her death sequence has also been done in a good way and the predicament of Balraj’s character who loses her own daughter for the sake of his duty is really heart wrenching . A very brave but also a bit obvious ending to the film .
In all , it is a not exactly a typical masala film of those days but still has majority of elements of that type of cinema in it . Still , I would recommend the film because of the following three main reasons :
* The love story part and the honesty in it .
* The great and almost legendary music of Madan Mohan and lyrics of Kaifi Azmi .
* The acting performance of Balraj Sahni .
It could well have been made into a classic film if the director would have avoided certain cliche sequences and had casted some good actors in it .But I would still appreciate the way Chetan treated it in a still different way than what most films were in those days . It is a film from 1973 so one needs to watch the film keeping films of those times in perspective . I would love to re-make this one keeping the original music (a modern day version of it with some changes) and I guess a lot many like me would have thought of it already … 
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
The story was adapted in the 1989 film Mitti Aur Sona starring Chunky Pandey, Sonam etc.
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@CAD: didn’t watch that one .. hows was it??
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