''Maya Darpan'' () is a 1972

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

Hindi Modern Standard Hindi (, ), commonly referred to as Hindi, is the Standard language, standardised variety of the Hindustani language written in the Devanagari script. It is an official language of India, official language of the Government ...

-language film directed by

Kumar Shahani Kumar Shahani (7 December 1940 – 24 February 2024) was an Indian film director and screenwriter, best known for his parallel cinema films '' Maya Darpan'' (1972), '' Tarang'' (1984), '' Khayal Gatha'' (1989) and '' Kasba'' (1990). His films w ...

. It is a significant work of the Indian

Parallel Cinema Parallel cinema, or New Indian Cinema, is a film movement in Cinema of India, Indian cinema that originated in the state of West Bengal in the 1950s as an alternative to the mainstream commercial Indian cinema. Inspired by Italian Neorealism, ...

movement which started during the 1950s with filmmakers

Satyajit Ray Satyajit Ray (; 2 May 1921 – 23 April 1992) was an Indian film director, screenwriter, author, lyricist, magazine editor, illustrator, calligraphy, calligrapher, and composer. He is widely considered to be one of the greatest and most influ ...

Mrinal Sen Mrinal Sen ( ; 14 May 1923 – 30 December 2018) was a Bengali film director and screenwriter known for his work primarily in Cinema of West Bengal, Bengali, and a few Hindi cinema, Hindi and Telugu cinema, Telugu language films. Regarded as on ...

and

Ritwik Ghatak Ritwik Kumar Ghatak (; 4 November 19256 February 1976) was an Indian film director, screenwriter, actor and playwright. Widely considered as one of the greatest film makers of all time, his works remained largely underrated and ignored during hi ...

. The film was forgotten soon after its release, but was rediscovered and is today considered a landmark work of Indian cinema. The film stars Aditi and Anil Pandya.

Synopsis

The film is set in a provincial town in Northern India, at a time following the nation's independence in 1947 when India was yet to be completely integrated as a political entity and when Nehruvian socialism was about to take on the existing feudal hierarchy. Taran (Aditi) is the daughter of a wealthy landlord (Iqbalnath Kaul) and lives with her father and her widowed aunt (Kanta Vyas) in their ancestral mansion (which goes on to represent the whole of upper class in the film). The town is witnessing protests by newly formed labour unions which are partly being politically educated by the local railroad engineer (Anil Pandya), who seems to have an unspoken romantic relationship with Taran. Taran's unseen brother, who had, to the chagrin of their father, renounced his class privileges and gone off to an Assamese tea estate, asks Taran to join him. Stuck in a stifling patriarchal order, with pressure to marry an upper-class groom mounting, Taran decides to talk to her father about her plans.

Cast

* Aditi * Anil Pandya * Kanta Vyas * Iqbalnath Kaul

Soundtrack

#"Aaja Ri Nindiya" -

Vani Jairam Vani Jairam (born Kalaivani; 30 November 1945 – 4 February 2023) was an Indian playback singer in Indian cinema. She is fondly referred to as the "'' Meera of modern India''" Vani's career started in 1971 and has spanned over five decades. ...

Rediscovery and Appreciation

After its original release in 1972, ''Maya Darpan'' won the

Filmfare Award The Filmfare Awards are annual awards that honour artistic and technical excellence in the Indian cinema.Al The Filmfare ceremony is one of the most famous film events in India. The awards were introduced by Filmfare magazine of The Time ...

for Critic's Choice Best Film, but was quickly forgotten soon after. In an interview with Shahani, Rafique Bhagdadi and Rajiv Rao reveal the initial reaction to the film: "Despite the lavish praise it received abroad, Maya Darpan (1972) met with hostile reception in India. Critics panned it for its excessively languid pace. Others found the film to be too European in its sensibility. Those who expected poverty of metaphysics were disappointed." The film was rediscovered through independent film enthusiasts in India dedicated to bringing Indian

to the forefront of serious critical artistic discussion. The movie found a revival amongst film enthusiasts. A film blog, ''The Seventh Art'', stated that "We are now at a point where even the original negatives of the film face the risk of extinction. One can only hope that institutions like the World Cinema Foundation will do something about it. Kumar Shahani's ''Maya Darpan'' is a seminal work in Indian Parallel Cinema not just because it canvasses critical social issues (a facet that, more or less, in hindsight, has become a characteristic of the movement) but also because it attempts to seek out a new aesthetic, which does not try to straddle mainstream cinema and art cinema, to do that."

References

External links

*
Maya Darpan review
{{FilmfareCriticsAwardBestMovie 1972 films 1970s Hindi-language films 1970s Indian films 1972 drama films Films whose cinematographer won the Best Cinematography National Film Award Best Hindi Feature Film National Film Award winners