Junoon

Director: Shyam Benegal
Cast: Shashi Kapoor, Jennifer Kapoor, Naseeruddin Shah, Shabana Azmi, Nafisa Ali….All Jabardast logan.
Genre: Refer to Director!

It was one of those days that you get really lucky. Otherwise who even notices CCC channel. This is a spectacular movie to make a debut in the ‘Watched’ of my silly little ‘Watchedandread’.

Junoon is the story of the women of a British Family in North India, set in the time of the 1857 War of Independence. Miriam (Jennifer Kapoor) is the wife of Tom Alter (who else?) and they have a beautiful daughter Ruth (Nafisa Ali) and there is also Miriam’s mother in the picture. During an attack on a church Tom Alter is killed, leaving the women helpless and nowhere to go as all Firangi homes and establishments have been destroyed. Lalaji (Kulbhushan Kharbanda) a friend of Tom Alter’s hides them in his house for a while. Javed Khan (Shashi Kapoor) is a pathan married to Begum( really I don’t think there was another name …Shabana Azmi) and is friends with Anwar (Naseeruddin Shah) who was a soldier in the British Army but turns into a revolutionary having been witness to several atrocities by the rulers.

The freedom fighters then discover that the women are hiding in Lala’s house and Javed takes them to his house because he has been in an obsessive sort of love with Ruth for a long time. He says he wants to marry her and for obvious reasons Miriam is against it. They make a deal that if the Indians take over Delhi then he may marry Ruth….well I think history can give you the end.

The movie has the most beautiful performances I have seen. Shabana Azmi as the hurt wife, Naseeruddin Shah with his impatience at Javed falling in love at such an inopportune time and his soul stirring speeches , Nafisa Ali also does well…all she has to do is look gorgeous and how! All fantastic.

The stars however are Shashi and Jennifer Kapoor. I even saw 36, Chowringee lane by accident-channel-surfing and I cried. She was remarkable as the aging, lonely convent school teacher. Here she is outstanding as the protective mother and as a vulnerable woman. The only person better looking than Nafisa Ali was possibly Shashi Kapoor and he is fabulous as the proud pathan, helplessly in love. You hate him when he is insensitive with his wife, you are proud of him when he goes into battle after losing a dear one, you are in awe of him when he does not exploit the women when he has every chance to.

The movie is so interesting because it raises such a conflict in your mind, one the one hand you are angry with them for exploiting us for centuries, and on the other you want to protect the women . As a character says in the movie, which ever side you are on in a war, it is hell for women.

The houses, the furniture, the clothes, the language are dripping with elegance. It is a movie that has Sharafat at its center. The lighting gets a little too real; the night sequences are really practically blacked out.

Once the movie was over I couldn’t help but miss the long intense discussions that Subs and Koms would have about love, romance, heroism…. while I drift into thoughts of wondering where they got the jewelery and clothes from and if I could ever own furniture like that.