Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam (*ing Meena Kumari, Guru Dutt)

will post some great reviews soon,, love this movie..

I just watched this (finally) and wrote it up myself. It is indeed a very beautiful movie. Notable to me is that the Guru Dutt/Waheeda interaction is so charming and lovely, and yet the movie is so completely Meena Kumari's, her film and her character's story.

Here's what I said about that aspect of the film in my review:

Meena Kumari's rendering of the downward spiral of depression and alcohol addiction is certainly compelling and fearless. It is also almost unbearably sad. Of course it is sad to watch this character crumble like the plaster and brick columns of the once-grand haveli. But more than that, it is tragic that Chhote Bahu sees no value to her life, no use for her own existence if not to serve Chhote Sarkar and satisfy him with that service. For reasons that the film doesn't fully explore - Chhote Babu hints that her mother drove this value system deeply into her psyche - Chhote Babu exists in a despairing twilight, obsessed with capturing and retaining her husband's regard at any cost.

Even the other women of the Chaudhary household question this notion that Chhote Bahu holds, mildly berating her for wasting so much fretful energy on her husband's night wanderings instead of just enjoying the riches and the leisure to which being his wife entitles her. Thus the message of the film is not to glorify Chhote Bahu's erasure of self or advocate it as an ideal of womanhood. And in not carrying that message, the film magnifies and personalizes its tragedy. Sahib bibu aur ghulam is not a moral allegory, but a deeply intimate story about a deeply melancholy woman. Chhote Bahu is that much more sympathetic as a person rather than an archetype, and the sadness of her decline, even as it parallels the decline of Babu culture writ large, is that much more keenly felt.

Here's the rest.

I talked with a friend who said she was glad she saw the movie and understands that it's good but doesn't feel any need to ever see it again.  I know what she means - I have movies like that - but I think I will come back to this one again.

I liked the review as well. Chotte Bahu ultimately is a weak woman and I agree with Carla that "she sees no value in life and no use for her own existence" (great way to describe it) that is why she was so obssessed with getting her husband's love and attention. I don't see it as love, not really but a way to anchor on a fleeting space of her pysche. She starts to define herself with her husband's attentions and when they are lost to her, it is a greater tragedy for her than a woman with a stronger hold on life.