'Mandi' to 'Arth': Shabana Azmi's pathbreaking parallel cinema films
Five-time National Film Award winner and a pioneering, trailblazing figure of the parallel cinema movement in India, veteran actor Shabana Azmi is celebrating her 73rd birthday on Monday. During her almost five-decade-long career, she starred in multiple classic art films, and her filmography is an actor's delight. On her special day, let's look at some of her most noteworthy parallel films.
'Mandi' (1983)
Mandi brings together multiple renowned names in Hindi cinema, including Om Puri, Naseeruddin Shah, Neena Gupta, Annu Kapoor, Satish Kaushik, and Smita Patil, among others. Azmi portrayed the role of a madame of a brothel—authoritative but not unkind, stern but not unrelenting. It's a refreshing sight to see a story largely driven by women in this film that's a meditation on womanhood and sexuality.
'Arth' (1982)
Arth was a semi-autobiographical film by Mahesh Bhatt and was painted with bold, somewhat unheard themes. Starring Azmi, Kulbhushan Kharbanda, Patil, and Rohini Hattangadi, it was reportedly based on Bhatt's extramarital affair with the late actor Parveen Babi. Arth was ahead of its time in that demonstrated Azmi's character Pooja living independently once her marriage fell apart. It won her a National Film Award.
'Sparsh' (1980)
When two artists extraordinaire collaborate, they concoct magic. In Sparsh, Azmi was paired with Shah—another important figure of the Indian parallel cinema wave—and their prowess in acting and the ability to soak in the script is reflected through each frame. While Shah played a visually disabled man, Azmi played a teacher in this immortal story of tenderness, resilience, and eternal love.
'Ek Doctor Ki Maut' (1990)
Based on Ramapada Chowdhury's story Abhimanyu, Ek Doctor Ki Maut is a character study of a system languishing under the weight of bureaucratic negligence that derails the life of a dexterous doctor. Pankaj Kapur starred as the titular character, Dr. Dipankar Roy, while Azmi played Seema, his wife and his rock to fall back on. The critically acclaimed film won three National Film Awards.
'Paar' (1984)
Goutam Ghose's Paar is a rumination about the exploitation and the destitute situation of poverty-stricken people in rural Bihar. Adapted from the Bengali story Paari authored by Samaresh Basu, it starred Shah as a laborer and Azmi as his wife. Nominated for the Golden Lion award at the Venice International Film Festival in 1984, it won multiple National Film Awards, including one for Azmi.
