Bandini

Women in the Jail 

Before there was Orange is the New Black there was Bandini (1963), a graceful film about a rural woman's experience of captivity under the Raj. The film works on multiple levels- Kalyani (a radiant Nutan) is imprisoned by her guilt, by her beauty, by the Raj and the walls of her physical jail, by the men who seek to trap her with obligation and sexual blackmail, and by the cruelty of gossips of both genders who judge and reject her. In Bandini, everyone is in prison of one sort or another, thickening the irony of the guard yelling "sub thiek hai" (everything is fine) - and making  Kalyani's choices, which echo the self-sacrifice of the freedom fighters- all the more powerful.

Although women were key to various anti-British and independence movements throughout South Asia, Bandini was the first film to show the contributions and experiences of rural women specifically. The medium fits the message: director Bhimal Roy's Bandini is a beautiful example of neorealism in film, a global conversation in style and substance which found particular resonance after WWII. Although there are a lot of definitions of neorealist films, visually they generally favor on-location shooting and natural light like a newsreel or documentary; and thematically favor stories of the lowest segments of society, have a progressive message, and withhold moral judgments. The most famous example of neorealism in film is Bicycle Thieves (1948) directed by Vittorio De Sica.

Bandini uses the repetition of patterns and scenes to great effect. The vertical strips of Kalyani's sari mirror the prison bars which define nearly every scene in the jail. Not only the prisoners are framed with these bars- the gossips, the warden, the woman watching her son be hanged- everyone's lives are defined by visual reminders of divisions and limitations. The prison doctor Devendra, played by a very young Dharmendra, fails to acknowledge the prisons surrounding Kalyani; in contrast, freedom fighter Bikash Ghosh (Ashok Kumar) himself spends most of the film in prison for his political activities. Devendra loves Kalyani in spite of her past- but her first love Bikash is uniquely suited to appreciate where Kalyani is coming from. 

Repetition of Prison Bars

This makes the songs of the women in jail all the more poignant, and the scenes at the end, in which Kalyani is free to make her own choices, all the more powerful. "O Re Maaji Mere Saaj", sung by S.D. Burman, is a haunting song which shows Kalyani's struggle against her various obligations and her ultimate decision between two men, two futures, and the uncertain cause of independence and a quiet domestic life. *Song contains spoilers.*

For further viewing, Bicycle Thieves famously influenced filmmakers as diverse as Satyajit Ray (1921-1992), Anurag Kashyap, and Aziz Ansari, whose homage in Master of None introduced a new generation to the classic. For viewers interested in another variation of the theme, Gerhard Klein's Berlin – Ecke Schönhauser… (1957) is a fascinating East German neorealist classic filmed in Berlin before the construction of the Wall. Bandini can be viewed in its entirety on the Shemaroo youtube channel.

Film: Bandini (1963)
Director: Bimal Roy
Writers: Nabendu Ghosh and Paul Mahendra
Run time: 157 minutes
Country: India
Language: Hindi
Based on the story “Tamasi” by Charu Chandra Chakrabarti