Paheli (The riddle)

Dir: Amol Palekar 2005 Screenplay & dialogue Sandhya Gokhale
140 mins 35mm Colour Rated PG
Shah Rukh Khan, Rani Mukherjee, Anupam Kher
Hindi with English subtitles

India’s 2005 entry for the Oscars is an imaginative and engaging retelling of a famous Rajasthan folk tale. Paheli stars Hindi cinema’s reigning screen goddess, Rani Mukherjee, as Lachi, who must choose between the love of a ghost and a husband more interested in business and money than the marriage: both husband and ghost are played by the inimitable and very versatile Shah Rukh Khan. In this fantastic folkloric tale, director Amol Palekar pursues a theme that recurs in all his films, that of the plight of women in Indian society.

Mother India

Dir: Mehboob Khan 1957
168 mins 35mm 15 minute Intermission
Colour Rated R
Nargis, Sunil Dutt, Raj Kumar
Hindi with English subtitles

Mother India holds a unique place in the history of Hindi cinema. Regarded by many as the exemplary Indian film, it was the first to receive an Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Film. Its commanding storyline and spectacular visuals revolve around the central character, Rhada, played by Nargis, whose acting virtuosity provides one of the great performances in Indian cinema. Nargis, who made few films after Mother India, had dominated Hindi cinema throughout the fifties with a luminosity on screen to rival any screen goddess.

Devi

Dir: Satyajit Ray 1960
93 mins 16mm B&W Rated R
Sharmila Tagore, Chhabi Biswas
Bengali with English subtitles

Sharmila Tagore was seen by millions of women as the Bengal tigress, at once the sex symbol appearing in romantic musicals, and the serious actor working with realist directors such as Ray. Always a sophisticated icon, she accepted her first film role in Devi out of sheer curiosity. Exploring the destructive nature of fanaticism and superstition, Devi tells the story of a devout feudal landlord, in rural Bengal, who imagines that his 17 year old daughter-in–law is an incarnation of the goddess Kali.

Devi Collection NFVLS

Bandit queen

Dir: Shekar Kapur 1994
120 mins 35mm Colour Rated R (18 years & over only admitted)
Seema Biswas, Nirmal Pandey
Hindi with English subtitles

With a reputation for performing strong character roles, Assamese actor, Seema Biswas shot to stardom with the controversial role of fierce outlaw, Phoolan Devi. Set in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh in the 1970s, Bandit Queen is an extraordinary portrait of Devi, the Goddess of the Flowers, the Queen of the Ravines, who, for five years, headed an all male band of lawless outsiders. She was driven to banditry and revenge by years of brutal treatment and ritual misogyny, beginning in childhood with a forced marriage and culminating in the killing of her bandit lover. In 1983, when her surrender was negotiated, she had become a folk heroine.

Courtesy Channel 4 International

Devdas

Dir: Sanjay Leela Bhansali 2002
182 mins 35mm 15 minute Intermission
Colour Rated PG
Madhuri Dixit, Aishwarya Rai
Hindi with English subtitles

Bhansali’s lush and melodramatic retelling of Saratchandra Chaterjee’s oft-filmed novella was invited to Cannes Festival 2002 and is seen as one of the films that drew Western attention to the changing face of contemporary Bollywood. It stars two of Hindi cinema’s megastars, Aishwarya Rai (the face of Hindi cinema in the west) and Madhuri Dixit (the biggest female star of the 90s — although sadly this role, as Chandramukhi, was her last screen appearance to date). The ‘Dole re’ number with the two women is one of the great sequences in this lavish, exotic, almost grandiose extravaganza of saturated colour and drama. The self-destructive Devdas is played with extreme intensity and élan by Shah Rukh Khan.

The living goddess

Dir: Frank & Josette Heimans 1975
30 mins 16mm Colour Rated R

This rare documentary offers a glimpse into the life of Kumari Devi, a virgin girl-child, installed as a deity in Nepal, and wielding more power among her people than any other living person.

Helen: queen of the nautch girls

Dir: Anthony Kormer 1970
32 mins 16mm Colour Rated R
Merchant Ivory Productions

A portrait of the incredible Helen, the busiest goddess of Indian cinema in the 1960s and 70s. At the time of the production of this documentary she had made over 500 films since 1957 when she began dancing in Hindi musicals.

Ankur (The seedling)

Dir: Shyam Benegal 1973
131 mins 35mm Colour Rated R
Anant Nag, Shabana Azmi

Shabana Azmi’s first screen role playing Lakshmi, a downtrodden maidservant, won her the National Award for Best Actress and ensured a rapid rise to screen goddess status as the ‘First Lady’ of Hindi art cinema. Ankur, the directorial debut of Shyam Benegal, is considered the founding work of the 1970s Middle Cinema or New Indian Cinema movement – a cycle of modest, realist, low budget productions often depicting the lives of the downtrodden and oppressed. In this story examining the rigid caste system, the subjection of women and ruling-class privilege, a well-to-do young man is forced to give up his college education to oversee his father’s isolated rural property. Bored and frustrated, he becomes attracted to his maidservant, who is the wife of a farm labourer.

Courtesy Blaze Productions

Crouching tiger, hidden dragon

Dir: Ang Lee 2000
120 mins 35mm Colour Rated M
Michelle Yeoh, Zhang Zi Yi
Mandarin with English subtitles

Director Ang Lee took the revenge plot of 1960s Chinese ‘wuxia pian’ (‘heroic swordplay’) films, added a feminist twist and created a timeless action classic. Featuring three generations of female stars: Cheng Pei Pei, a 1960s action heroine; Michelle Yeoh, the beauty queen turned 1980s action goddess; and 19 year old newcomer Zhang Zi Yi, smouldering with incredible presence and martial agility and calling herself ‘invincible mountain goddess.’ Crouching tiger is a combination of sweeping romantic epic and blistering kung-fu adventure. The story revolves around the theft of a magical sword from a legendary martial arts master by a masked female and the crime sets in motion a series of balletic, gravity-defying duals and events that test the bonds of family, love, duty and sisterhood.

Courtesy Sony Pictures

Notorious

Dir: Alfred Hitchcock 1946
102 mins 16mm B&W Rated M
Ingrid Bergman, Cary Grant

Of all the goddesses of Western cinema, Ingrid Bergman is one of the most incandescent. With her natural beauty and simple acting style, female audiences found her unforced and unspoiled. Her affair, in 1949, with Italian director, Roberto Rossellini, while on the set of Stromboli, sent American women into an uproar and demonstrated that even the most celebrated goddesses have woman’s problems, pains and passions. In 1946 Bergman anticipated her fall from grace when she played Alicia, a ‘notorious’ woman employed by the US government to uncover enemy operations in Brazil during World War 2. Her job becomes complicated when her contact agent, T.R. Devlin (Cary Grant), falls in love with her. In a very plausible portrayal of grown-up sexuality, Hitchcock circumvented the censors, who had strict guidelines regarding the depiction of intimacy, and created a love scene where Grant and Bergman nibble each other on the ears, nose and lips for three minutes while they whisper about whether or not to have chicken for dinner.

Collection NFVLS

Queen Christina

Dir: Rouben Mamoulian 1933
97 min 35mm B&W Rated PG
Greta Garbo, John Gilbert

Her private life remained forever private: Garbo did not talk about it. Hence she fuelled her own mystique which made her not just a star, but a goddess. Inevitably news and gossip leaked out. In Queen Christina her affair with co-actor John Gilbert could no longer be disguised when their on-screen kisses appeared to be more than filmic make-believe. In this haunting romance Garbo plays the powerful, 17th century Swedish queen who gave up the throne for love. Playing the role with a level of sexual ambiguity, the unforgettable final scene clinched the legend.

Courtesy Chapel Distribution

Gentlemen prefer blondes

Dir: Howard Hawks 1953
91 mins 16mm Colour Rated PG
Marilyn Monroe, Jane Russell

While Jane Russell was legendary for her tough talking attitude and pneumatic physique, Marilyn Monroe was the love goddess of the 1950s. Their sexual symbolism affected a whole generation of women, not only in imitation of their looks, but in attitude. The male parts in Howard Hawks’ 1953 musical are no more than foils to the sympathetic sparring of Lorelei/Monroe and Dorothy/Russell, who play a couple of cabaret artistes creating havoc on board a transatlantic liner en-route to an engagement in Paris.

Collection NFVLS

The postman always rings twice

Dir: Tay Garnett 1946
113 mins 35mm B&W Rated PG
Lana Turner, John Garfield

Playing Samarra, the high priestess of Astarte, goddess of the flesh in the 1950s Hollywood biblical epic, The Prodigal, Lana Turner says ‘I could never belong to only one man — I belong to all men.’ And in the 1940s and 1950s she was a supreme screen sex goddess. Her role of Cora Smith in Postman is one of the most memorable, powerful women’s roles in film noir. This tale of lust, betrayal and murder in a bleak Californian backwater has John Garfield hypnotised by Turner’s charms as they plot to kill her older husband. ‘Their Love was a Flame that Destroyed!’ screamed the 1946 publicity campaign.

Courtesy Chapel Distribution

High society

Dir: Charles Walters 1956
107 mins 35mm Colour Rated G
Bing Crosby, Grace Kelly, Louis Armstrong, Frank Sinatra

‘I’m a cold goddess,’ Grace Kelly intones in her final screen performance in this classic 1956 MGM musical. Her Hollywood career was short but spectacular and Kelly demonstrates here why she dazzled and captivated the world. No sooner was she recognised for her natural beauty by directors, producers and public alike, than her career was over and she was a real Princess. As the aloof, imperious, rich and spoiled, Tracy Lord, she discards men who don't live up to her perfectionist expectations, including composer ex-husband, C.K. Dexter-Haven (Bing Crosby). Now she’s about to embark upon a second marriage. In order to find fulfilment, Tracey has to step down from her pedestal. A stellar cast of admirers (Sinatra, Armstrong, Crosby) is only too willing to help.

Courtesy Chapel Distribution

Parineeta

Dir: Pradeep Sarkar 2005
129 mins 35mm Colour Rated PG
Saif Ali Khan, Sanjay Dutt, Vidya Balan

Based on Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay’s classic literary work set in Calcutta in the early ‘60s, this lush, exquisitely photographed film marked the debut of both director Sarkar, and Vidya Balan the striking heroine of the story. Balan’s sizzling presence on screen led to a spate of movies being offered to the actress and her rise to goddess status in Hindi cinema now seems assured. Like Chattopadhyay’s other oft filmed novel ‘Devdas’, Parineeta charts a love story complicated by family intrigues, class and the oppressions of society’s expectations. The film’s vibrant art direction creates an exciting portrait of Calcutta, a city often referred to as ‘The Paris of the East’ during the 1950s and ‘60s.

Courtesy MG Distribution