Runtime: 136 minutes
Genre: Drama
Film Language: Hindustani
Director: Franz Osten
Screenplay Writer: Niranjan Pal, J. S. Casshyap
Cinematography: Josef Wirsching
Editor: D.N. Pai
Achhut Kanya, a dated blockbuster from infant days of Indian cinema that succeeds in everything but doing justice to its name.
Indian cinema has no dearth of history. But it did not really come into its own until the 1930s. One of the first blockbusters to hit the Indian screens was ‘Achhut Kanya’ which is the product of a unique and successful collaboration between the studio pioneer of India, Himanshu Rai and Frank Osten, a German director who made more than a decade worth of cinema in India.
Achhut Kanya is the story of a girl born into an untouchable family who falls in love with a brahmin boy. The one-line synopsis might only touch onto the film’s surface theme though because untouchability does not play as big of a role in the film as it is made out to be in the title. Kasturi, the girl in question doesn’t quite have it hard for her. Her father named ‘Dukhiya’ saved Mohanlal Brahmin’s life within the first five minutes of the runtime and assured his entry to that particular brahmin’s circle for life. The son of Mohanlal eventually falls in love with her.
The tensions surrounding the actual conditions of untouchables do not seem to be touched upon. How anyone in the village was buying groceries from a Brahmin who frequented an untouchable’s home is anybody’s guess because society as rigid as the one that the director is trying to portray would have been quicker to ostracize such a character and much more unforgiving than it actually is in the film. The untouchability seems to lose its significance a little after the interval and the girl could just as well have been any other caste and the plot would have panned out the same.
The issue does not eclipse the good things about the film however, it only becomes a lump in the throat and reminds the viewer that it is, indeed, a dated film. Cinema of the 30s in India was, for the most part, was thematically amateur, compared to other art forms. The film was released in 1936, also the year Munshi Premchand died and Dr Ambedkar published ‘Annihilation of Caste’. Perhaps the filmmaker did not completely understand the nuances of caste relations in the country. His Dalits live on the outskirts of the village, but not because of historical marginalisation but their jobs.
The film is technically competent for the most part. The screenplay is economical and exposition comes naturally for the most part. The cinematography is crisp and camera movements follow the language of the camera. Wide shots are used sparingly. The first shows up at the beginning, the next is seen near the end of act one and rest only appear in the third act. Their use to take the plot further is worth studying on its own. The film almost serves as a peek in time to the 30s as it amazingly sets up a rustic tone of rural India with extended sequences filled with authentic music, tunes still heard in nukkad nataks across the country. A sequence with women preparing spices together and singing is particularly impressive.
The German director has blocked and shot the film extremely well and the editing shines through whenever lost footage allows it(there are quite a few disturbances, perhaps for reel changes where the footage was lost).
The filmmakers have used quite a few traditional techniques of Indian storytelling to make the story seem like an epic. The story of the Acchut Kanya is a ‘katha’ in the film, narrated by an ascetic who appears out of thin air, to a couple who just needed to hear it, at just the exact time. The film promptly introduces us to the titular character like a goddess..what seems like a small temple stands near a railway crossing with a bust in her impression. The writing on her bust says ‘she laid her lives to save others’ in the most convoluted and non-poetic Hindi possible.
I wondered if google translate existed in the 30s because the tone-deafness of certain dialogues is eerily disturbing, and so is the tone-deafness of certain moments. The lead actress Devika Rani is the biggest culprit in the first few scenes, to the point that she talks to the brahmin boy she loves and his father in the same way. The supporting cast is more impressive in their acting. Manorama is particularly nuanced in her portrayal.
The songs retain their value as compositions and serve the film well, with great lyricism and rustic, earthy metaphors to boot. Enough themes are explored to leave the theatre hall thinking about the film. It is a film made with heart and it shows, despite its glaring flaws. The story of the lovers is anything but that, and it takes many more aspects of the lovers’ lives in the purview, for the better of the film. It is at its best in the middle where the villager’s turn on Mohanlal, the brahmin when he brings Dukhiya to his home. His arch-enemy Babulal leads the charge as what follows is the lowest of the lows for all characters involved. Babulal is the only antagonist the film has and he is little more than a caricature, apart from his tagline about a generational profession that sticks around with quite some relevance. One could argue that he was gotten rid of a little too soon and a little too easily.
The law and order of time are perhaps shown as the most functional part of society. Part censoring part white man’s mission could be responsible.
What the film says is enough to warrant discussion but what frames its groundwork is perhaps more relevant. The Dalit voices in the film do not spell rebellion. They are happy to be exceptions and clearly believe it to be their luck to be treated well by Brahmins. Dukhiya apologises to Mohanlal for touching him right after saving his life while Kasturi silently takes abuse for cooking food for a brahmin. Even the question of marriage is not much thought about and dowry and polygamy are treated with acceptance. The whole plot revolving the protagonist willingly trying to extract dowry to use it to pay his friend’s daughter’s dowry is amusing.
More important, however, is the apotheosis of the Achhut Kanya who ‘laid down her lives to save others’. The film was made in a time when apotheosis was possible in Indian society. Sai Baba was barely 40 years older a phenomenon then. Perhaps turning a woman like Kasturi into a goddess, within what seems like a couple of years of her death silence her voice, a deified untouchable can no longer be claimed by a caste, she is no longer any caste. A perspective could call it silencing, another would call it revolutionary. Or maybe it is just a relic of the past.