Test for Indian Censors

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32524, 6 February 1971, Page 12

Test for Indian Censors

(By

TUI THOMAS)

India’s first film with topless scenes in it is now being made in Bombay. But will the censors pass it?

“If they do not, I will Say the people on the board are very backward,” the producer of “Hulchul” (“Commotion”) said in Delhi recently. “My new film shows the facts of life.” Mr Patkash Ralhan, the producer, director and scriptwriter of the film, is optimistic. He sincerely believes that the part-nude scenes in his film are valid, not merely put there out of context for box office appeal. He was referring in particular to a scene in which a girl takes a bubble bath. “Now, I ask you, would a girl in real life have a bath in a bikini? No, of course not,” he said, answering his own question emphatically.

Stills from the film indicate that the girl’s “lower half’ is well covered.

A ruggedly handsome man, who also acts seriocomic roles in some of his films, Mr Ralhan does not wish to be the pioneer of sexual permissiveness on the Indian screen. You get the impression, when talking to him, that he disapproves any kind of indelicacy in the theatre. He would have nothing to do with homosexuality in a film. What little semi-nudity he shows in “Hulchul” is necessary to give the film an impact of reality, he feels. “No dirt” “I do not like dirt in a film,” he said. “A film must give you something to think about I believe ‘Hulchul’ does. But filthy things like ‘Oh, Calcutta’ and ‘Hair’ leave you with nothing to remember.” Briefly, “Hulchul” is about a man who is overheard promising to kill his wife to marry his girlfriend. The eavesdropper hears the man’s surname, looks it up in a telephone directory, finds three subscribers of the same name and rings three wives to warn of impending danger to one of them. Each family gets into a terrified state of “hulchul.” To hear the- playwright tell the story, ranting one moment and whispering tenderly the next, it comes out a deeply moving drama. But up to that time the film censors had not permitted as much as a peck on the screen.

“Only a suggestion of kissing without the lips touching has been allowed so far,” Ralhan explained.

. Nor would he want to see kissing and what it leads to become a common factor in Indian films. Audiences in western countries will soon get bored with the current overemphasis on sex in films and on the stage, he prophesied. Looking down from the balcony where we sat on an early winter morning, he pointed to several overseas guests strolling in the ground wearing the new midi-length dresses. There was not a micro-mini in sight (It was too early in the day for poolside sunbathing). New attitude “You see? Those longer skirts are the beginning of a new attitude,” he said. But, he added laughing, as the West became disenchanted with sexy films, Indian audiences would probably want to see more of them. In the meantime, most Indians—particularly the uneducated masses—are shy about watching people kiss and becoming intimate on the screen, he said. They feel that sex is sacred to husband and wife. The erotic sculpture anyone can see on some of India’s most famous Hindu temples is regarded as art; ancient and static art that is part of a divine heritage. India is the second largest producer of films, second only to Japan, Mr Ralhan said. “There is no other entertainment for the masses,” he added. “But we still do not have enough cinema houses in the small towns and we are still trying to penetrate into the villages.” The film is a powerful medium for the illiterate. Documentaries on family planning, for instance, can be very effective in getting

a message across to those who cannot read, he said. Mr Ralhan is not a maker of films with a message. Rather, he concentrates on purposeful entertainment. He likes a subtle blend of comedy and romance. “I must see and feel something in any film I produce. It must be mine. That is why I like to direct my own scripts, then I get exactly what I want”

He makes only one film a year and spends all his waking hours thinking about it —and often dreams about it. Like any true artist he is painstaking over the smallest details, and needs time. One of his films, “Flower and Stone,” won the Indian award in a recent Russian film festival and became a big hit.

His films are made in Hindi or other Indian languages and given appropriate captions, usually English, for overseas distribution. He does not make television films, though many producers are now turning to

this medium to show India to other countries. He believes television is on the wane in the West and that people are returning to films and the live theatre, if only to get away from the “goggle box” at home. Ralhan is confident that the 8.8. C., which . was expelled from India recently, will be invited back in time. “But I do think that since the Indo-Pakistani war, the 8.8. C. has been giving the wrong impression of India on television,” he said.

The film magnate from Bombay travels extensively throughout India and overseas. When I met him in New Delhi he was there to film the visit of two American “moonwalkers” (Armstrong and Conrad) and two Soviet cosmonauts (Volinov and Khruonouv) who received special awards at the Federation Aeronautique Internationale’s world conference.

For an expert who has closely observed the film industry when in Britain,

many parts of Europe, Russia and the United States, Ralhan will say little about foreign productions. He has to be drawn out. On "Dr Zhivago” his comment was: “Technically excellent. It made you feel to the last drop of blood.” On the American cinema in general: “Too much massproduction. The studios seem to think it is necessary to have something dirty in their films to make them sell.” On Czechoslovakian films: “Ah, now. The Czechs hav.e done something that the United States and other countries cannot seem to achieve. They have taken the best from the live theatre and the cinema and put it into really good entertainment.” On the Cannes Festival? The telephone rang for him again. It was his secretary to remind him of the time. The big, dynamic man, followed by , a retinue of photographers and others, was on his way and in a hurry.