DEEWAR (1975) : MEMORABLE MOVIE BY YASH CHOPRA

Dear Friends & Readers
From: niraj_chartered

Film DEEWAR was made in the year 1975 starring Amitabh Bachchan, Shashi Kapoor & Nirupa Roy. Screenplay & Dialogues written by : Salim Javed, and it was directed by none other than Mr. YASH CHOPRA.

This film was super hit when it was released, and even today, whenever we watch this movie, it seems interesting every time. Friends, being a great fan of this movie, I started to write on this movie, and here I am submitting the same.

About the story, we know very much about it, but the way it is being presented, directed, imotional scenes, I think its fantastic and superb. The story reveals around three characters, Amitabh, Shashi Kapoor and Nirupa Roy. And performance wise they were at the top.

Synopsis

Vijay (Amitabh Bachchan) and Ravi (Shashi Kapoor) are two brothers who were raised amidst much hardship by their strong-hearted mother (Nirupa Roy) after their father abandons them. Vijay is very different from his brother as he has a more hot-headed temperament while Ravi is soft spoken and polite. Ravi struggles to find a job even though he is a graduate. Ravi meets his girlfriend’s (Neetu Singh) father who is a police commissioner and after meeting him he decides to join the police force and leaves for training.

On the other hand, Vijay works in a shipping dock where he comes into contact with the underworld and is driven into the world of crime. Vijay’s primary reason to go into the underworld is because he has seen his mother suffer so much in life and wants to provide her with all the luxuries of life. Then Ravi returns from his training having become a full-fledged policeman. The two brothers are separated by their duties as one protects the law while the other breaks it. Finally Ravi shoots down Vijay who dies in his mother’s arms

The Film

Deewaar is probably one of the most memorable Hindi films of all time. The film is a perfect amalgamation of two older classics - Ganga Jamuma (1961) that looks at the good brother v/s the bad brother and Mother India (1957) in which the mother undergoes all sorts of hardships to bring up her sons on her own. The film contains all the stock-in-trade elements of the Indian melodrama - The good and bad brother, the long suffering mother as the central moral force, divine intervention and religious symbols but what sets it apart is the taut script (perhaps the best ever Salim-Javed Script), the powerful dialogues and above all a powerhouse performance by Amitabh Bachchan as the son driven to crime - perhaps his best ever! The film is one of a series in which he plays the ’angry young man’- the lone rebel, the man seeking personal vengeance and social justice, operating outside and more efficiently than the law.
 
His character was said to have been based on the famous smuggler Haji Mastan Mirza and it is to Bachchan’s credit that he succeeds in humanizing the gangster and has the audience rooting for him rather than his law abiding younger brother

The film also exploits popular religious sentiment. Bachchan is an atheist but he has blind faith in the miraculous power of the number 786, the number of his badge as a dockworker. (The number is as sacred to Muslims as Om is to Hindus) As long as he carries it on person, he remains invincible. While fleeing from the police his badge falls and slips out of reach and a bullet fired by his brother hits him. However he reaches his mother in the temple and collapses in her arms symbolizing his return to innocence


Deewaar is a prime example of the importance of the mother syndrome in Indian Cinema. The mother had grown from a minor character in early Indian Cinema to occupy centre stage as epitomised in mother India.

About the Best Scenes of the Film:

1) When Shashi Kapoor insists Amitabh to sign on Surrender Papers, this scene of near about 10 minutes has great intensity. Three characters, a Cop Brother was right by law, Criminal Brother was also right by his thinking, and at the end Mother who loves her Criminal Son very much still decides to live with her cop Son.

I must here write some dialogues from that scene,

AMITABH: JAO PAHALE US AADMI KA SIGN LEKAR AAO JISNE MERE BAAP SE SIGN LIYA THA?.

SHASHI KAPOOR: DUSRO KE PAAP GINANE SE TUMHARE APNE PAAP KAM NAHI HONGE BHAI?.

NIRUPA ROY: JISNE TERE BAAP SE SIGN LIYA THA VIJYA, VO TERA KAUN THA, KOI NAHI, JISNE TERE HAATH PAR LIKH DIYA KI TERA BAAP CHOR HAI, VO TERA KAUN THA, KOI NAHI, JISNE TERE MAA KO DHAKKE NIKAL KAR NAUKARI SE NIKAL DIYA VO TERA KAUN THA, KOI NAHI, PHIR TUNE TO MERA APNA BETA THA VIJAY, PHIR TUNE APNE MAA KE MAATHE PAR KAISE LIKH DIYA KI USKA APNA BETA CHOR HAI.

2) The highlight of the film is an exchange between the two estranged brothers who live separately. Bachchan tells Sashi Kapoor that what has Kapoor got in life being an honest cop - a job, a uniform a Government quarter and look at him (Bachchan). He has amassed much wealth, property. He has everything. What does Kapoor have? Kapoor retorts he has their mother! Bachchan has no answer to this?

Till today the mother figure is an extremely crucial factor to mainstream Indian Cinema. She is still deified and what is most interesting is that she always has an obsessive relationship with her son(s) but hardly ever with her daughter(s)! Nirupa Roy lives her role as the long-suffering mother, which established her as the leading screen mother of Hindi Cinema of the 1970s and 1980s.

The other characters mainly work as foils to these two main ones and are competently handled. Mention however must be made of Parveen Babi who scores as Bachchan’s girlfriend - with Heart of gold

The film has several impressive moments and is layered with irony and symbolism. Here are some scenes which are memorable.

1) When the mother and her two sons are forced to live on the streets in the background on the soundtrack we hear Sare Jahaan Se Achcha!

2) When Shashi Kapoor finds out his father is dead he just stops Nirupa Roy putting on her vermilion (sindoor) without saying a word rather than a standard scene where he would have to melodramatically announce his father’s death.

3) The father who abandoned the family is shown shuttling inside moving trains all the time showing he has no fixed destination in life and when a train pulls up at Bombay at the end of its journey he is found dead inside signifying the end of his journey in life as well.

On the flip side there is no real scope for music and though R.D. Burman does come up with a couple of hummable numbers they don’t really add much to the film overall. Also the techniques of the 70s with excessive use of the zoom actually make the film look dated. But the life of the film is its script and Bachchan and that comes through powerfully making Deewaar the film it is.

Watch this film even if you have seen it, today also you will enjoy it.

Plot Revealed In The Review:	Revealed in detail
Best to watch with:	Family
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