My Favourite Movies

What are your top ten favorite movies?

Well, I don’t know what should be the yardstick to select the top ten movies for this list. Favourite can be defined as the ones which are considered must watch. Now must watch can also have varied parameters. For example

1. Narration

2. Performance

3. Entertainment

4. Repeat Value

5. Classic

6. Emotion Quotient

7. Comic Timing

8. Thought provoking

9. Visual Impact

10. Star Craze

11. Romanticism

My picks may not be based on all the above. However, the strength of the movie will definitely emphasize the story element:

1. Teesri Manzil (The Third Floor)

I am a murder mystery fan. Mostly, thrillers do not have repeat value. But I have watched this movie n number of times knowing fully well what the end is. Yet the suspense quotient has not lessened for me. I give full credit to the Director.

Rocky, a pop singer performs in a hotel. A girl commits suicide from the third floor of the same hotel.

Things take a dramatic turn when the dead girl’s sister lands up at the hotel in search of the man who compelled her sister to take her life – Rocky ! As fated she falls in love with him not knowing who he is.

2. Kaghaz Ke Phool (The Paper Flowers)

An ace film director bumps into a beautiful girl one rainy night. To save her from cold he offers her his coat (or was it blazer?). Later when she comes to return the coat in his studio her face is caught in the camera. On the spur of the moment he decides to cast her in his upcoming movie. She is a novice. He mentors her. She is young. He is much older to her. She is new and alone in the city. He has a daughter out of an unhappy marriage. Both develop a unique bond. When the movie is released she becomes a star overnight. With the passage of time the girl becomes more and more famous and unattainable whereas her mentor gets lost in the realms of obscurity.

The film underscores the harsh realities of a glamour ridden world. How fickle fame is! lt is also rumoured to be based on the real life love story of the heroine cast in the movie and it’s director who later committed suicide.

3. Christie Movies

For me all Christie movies, especially with Sir David Suchet as Hercule Poirot, can be watched again and again. As in case of her books, I go back to these movies /TV dramatizations quite often. The adaptations are way different from the novels. But never mind, they are thousand times watchable.

4. Pather Panchali ( The Pathway Prose)

Ray’s masterpiece shall always remain an epitome of the utmost impactful visual narration of rural Bengal. It is criticised for selling poverty to the West but the film also brings forth the little joys and revelries of two young children amidst acute deprivation and destitution. Nature is never depicted so cinematically before. The nuanced direction is path breaking. So is the heartrending tale of loss and pain of a rustic homestead which succeeds in leaving indelible imprint on viewer’s mindscape.

5. Meghe Dhaka Tara (The Clouded Star)

In this genre, another unforgettable tale which tells the story of the uprooted refugees of East Bengal, now Bangladesh, their struggle for survival, their strife to rebuild roots in an alien land (West Bengal) with limited resources. Of course, they survive on the bedrock of un-chronicled sacrifices of near and dear ones – the stars shrouded by dark clouds, their twinkles black holed, their luminescence shrouded !

6. Aradhana (Worship)

There are some movies which leave you spellbound by their emotional narratives. This is a story of an unmarried mother who suffers life time imprisonment to save her love child and give him an honourable life. The USP of the movie is the son’s unique equation with her mother. Years later they meet. She is a stranger to him. But he is irresistibly drawn towards her whenever they come across!

7. Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron (Let It Go Friends)

A satirical comedy wherein two inexperienced friends accidentally stick their fingers in a messy pie of corruption, thievery and murder. Who can forget Satish Shah as the corpse and Pankaj Kapoor as the villainous builder! Not to forget Naseeruddin Shah and Vivek Vaswani as two quintessential novices playing detectives.

8. Jab We Met (When We Met)

A rich, disillusioned guy takes a train to nowhere. A girl with an infectious love of life derails his aimless journey. The boy returns home – a changed man who rebuilds his empire. But when the two meet again the laughter is gone from the girl’s eyes.

9. Pakeezah (The Sacred One)

A scion of a Nawab family jumps into the wrong compartment in order not to miss the departing train. It’s late into the night. It’s the ladies’ compartment. He feels guilty. But it’s too late now. The train has caught speed. The compartment is empty but for a sleeping girl. He cannot see the face but just her delicate feet encased in anklets which tinkles with the rhythm of the train’s movement.

In the morning the girl wakes up to find an anonymous handwritten note at her feet wherein she is implored not to put her beautiful feet down on the floor lest they get dirty. The love note becomes her emotional anchor as she knows she will never ever be able to get true love in life as she is a prostitute.

The making of this film took years. It’s opening coincided with the heroine’s tragic end! The film’s success is history.

10. Deep Jele Jai (Lighting The Candles)

A schizophrenic patient is being treated by a nurse. It’s an experimental treatment carried out by the Doctor who has tasted success in a similar case earlier. The nurse is a pro as she had assisted him in the earlier case too. She has to play act as the patient’s lover who has ditched him in real life.

However, everything about this new case reminds her of the earlier one wherein she had not been able to maintain professional detachment and actually fallen in love with her patient. She still pines for him but he does not remember her anymore. Remade in Hindi later, this Bangla movie epitomizes wistful romanticism in its quintessential best.

Barring one, all the shortlisted movies are old ones, seen during an impressionable age when one’s tender heart is affected the most. That is why they are etched forever in memory.