Director: Govind Nihalani; Writer: Vasant Dev, Satyadev Dubey, Mahesh Elkunchwar, Anil Rakeshi, Vishnu Vaman Shirwadkar; Producer: Ravi Malik; Cinematographer: Govind Nihalani; Editor: Renu Saluja; Cast: Achyut Potdar, Akash Khurana, Amrish Puri, Athar Nawaz, Benjamin Gilani, Darius Irani, Deepa Sahi, Deven Khote, Dileep Kolhatkar, Gulan Kripalani, Ila Arun, Jayant Kripalani, K.K. Raina, Madan Jain, Manohar Singh, Mohan Bhandari, Mohan Sharma, Naseeruddin Shah, Nikhil Kapoor, Om Puri, Pearl Padamsee, Rafique Mukadam, Raju Barot, Rashmi Ginde, Ravi Jhankal, Rekha Sabnis, Rohini Hattangadi, Sanjay, Savita Prabhune, Shafi Inamdar, Shashi Sharma, Soni Razdan, Sreelekha, Vijaya Mehta, Vijay Kashyap
Duration: 01:52:02; Aspect Ratio: 1.333:1; Hue: 14.102; Saturation: 0.115; Lightness: 0.242; Volume: 0.107; Cuts per Minute: 9.639; Words per Minute: 52.084
Summary: Story: Mahesh Elkunchwar's Marathi play
An exemplary tale set in a middle-class artistic
milieu inaugurating Nihalani’s long-term
project of filmed theatre. Mrs Rane (Mehta)
hosts a party for the recipient of a literary prize
(Singh). The gathered ‘intelligentsia’ are
revealed to be shallow hypocrites compared
with the absent poet Amrit (Shah), who
abandoned his literary career to become an
activist among the tribals. The original Marathi
play was criticised for its superficial depiction
of the Bombay intelligentsia and the film does
not really improve matters. Nihalani
commented about the differences between the
play and the film: ‘There is a major difference
in the thrust. The play is concerned with the
question of art versus life. The film goes a bit
further and tries to see whether a person can
have two contrary sets of morality: one as an
artist and the other as a human being.’
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