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Do Ankhen Barah Haath (1957) - (Movies To See Before You Die - Drama) |
6 convicts are demanded by an officer for an experiment in which he wishes to transform them into good & well mannered citizens in a given period of time. This is the theme of V. Shantaram’s self featured classic which also won the National Award for the Best Feature Film in 1958. Interestingly in 1954, Akira Kurosawa made his cult movie “Seven Samurai” with a similar theme and though Shantaram's classic is supposedly based on a real life incident as mentioned in its titles too, it still has a lot of similarities in the theme used by Kurosawa in his film based on 7 characters.
However, if we look at both the classics closely then the Hindi Masterpiece is quite different from Kurosawa’s famous work, since here there is no evil force for the convicts to fight with and the only motive is to just transform the 6 people into good citizens and well behaving farmers and thats it. In fact, Hollywood also came out with a similar classic in 1967 with the title “The Dirty Dozen". But here again the convicts are being trained into becoming military men for a specific reason as per its storyplot.
Moreover moving on a different path, “Do Ankhen Barah Haath” is more of an emotional flick with very soft and touchy sequences and no violence at all. The use of innovative lighting, cinematography, dialogues and even the songs woven into the storyline is simply superb and its really a treat to watch V. Shantaram as a cool, easy going and sober actor, even in the most difficult scenes of dealing with the convicts. No doubt his outstanding treatment of the offbeat subject makes "Do Aankhen Barah Haath" one of the most praised movie of the Hindi Film Industry till date.
Taking much useful inspiration from this Shantaram Classic, famous Indian directors, Ramesh Sippy & Subhash Ghai later reused the concept for their own hit movies “SHOLAY" & "KARMA” respectively, featuring many new twists and turns, wherein SHOLAY had 2 & KARMA had 3 convicts instead of 6 as seen in the original.
In short, students of media world and film-making should ideally watch all these films together to understand how a director can use his own personal vision to come up with a completely different and entertaining movie on an otherwise similar and inspired theme having the same basic framework.
Directed By V. Shantaram
Starring : V. Shantaram, Sandhya & More.
Music By Vasant Desai
Click here for more on how V. Shantaram may have inspired Hollywood.
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10 Feb 2008 /
Comments (
11 )
jitendra
This is the most likely movie i have seen in my life and i realy got inspired by this movie and after this experience i have seen other movies of the same director like Navrang and Jhanak Jhanak Payal Baaje.
Bobby Sing
Thanks Jeetendra for your comment. Keep Visiting....Cheers!
jitu
This is the best movie for inspiration for the life by bollywood it is the milistone movie.
ankit anand
I have heard of this film two years before i watched it and when i first watched it in program v.shantaram film festival, i was completely mesmerised at the theme,story,acting and presentation along with remarkable music and songs.i have a little knowledge about v.shantaram before watching this film but after i had watched the film i searched every possible piece of information about the legendery filmmaker who was the great v.shantaram.i considered him as one of the best genius filmmakers india has ever produced.
Bobby Sing
Yes Ankit Anand, he is indeed one of the greatest film-makers ever.
Sanjit Narwekar
A few problems with your facts.
(1) The film was inspired by a true incident which had happened in the Princely State of Aundh (on the outskirts of Pune) which was written up by G.D.Madgulkar. (2) There are only six convicts and not 12 as you say. hence the Barah Haath (12 Hands -- two per convict). The Do Ankhen belong to the Jailor. (3) The film won the Golden Bear at Berlin -- only Indian film to do so. As they say in Sanskrit: na bhuta na bhava. Never has this been equalled so far. All the best!!
Bobby Sing
Dear Sanjit Narwekar,
Sanjit Narwekar
(1) The fact that the film is based on a real life story is mentioned in the first two title cards of the film in English and Hindi. V Shantaram also refers to it in his autobiography Shantarama (available in both Marathi and Hindi). The Marathi version has the story of the film\'s genesis on pages 455-459. The story was never written down separately as a story. It was an original script.
Bobby Sing
Dear Sanjit Ji,
Shrikant Shinde
Sir, I would like to know if this 1957 movie "Do Ankhe Bara Haath" was shot in Spicer Memorial College, Aundh, Pune?
Bobby Sing
Hi Shrikant, |
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