Bandini (film)

Bandini Hindi , Urdu , translation Imprisoned is a 1963 Hindi drama film directed and produced by Bimal Roy, the man who directed classics like Do Bigha Zameen and Devdas. Bandini stars Nutan giving one of the finest performances of her career, along with Ashok Kumar and Dharmendra as leads, and explores the human conflicts of love and hate intertwined in the mind of Kalyani Nutan.The lead female role was offered to one of Roys favourite actress Vyjayanthimala who earlier worked with Roy in Devdas and Madhumati. However due to her busy schedule she refused the role which later went to Nutan, who had worked with Roy in Sujata 1959. The movie tells the story of a woman prisoner serving life imprisonment for murder, Kalyani, the all suffering, selfless, sacrificing, and strong yet weak Indian woman. She must make a choice between two very different men, Devendra Dharmendra, the loving prison doctor, and Bikash Ashok Kumar, a man from her past.

A female centric movie, one of the rare ones in Indian movies, Bandini revolves around Kalyani or Bandini, literally meaning imprisoned. It is also the only film to have depicted the sacrifice made by ordinary rural women during the Indian independence struggle.This was Bimal Roys final feature as a director, and regarded by many as his crowning achievement. After casting her, in his previous womencentric film, Sujata 1959, now the key laid in persuading Nutan out of her postnuptial retirement to play the strictly raised, poetryloving village girl, Kalyani. Nutan is strongly supported by Ashok Kumar and Dharmendra, just beginning to make an impact in the film industry and directed by award winning director Bimal Roy, who ventures into the life of a convict and reveals hisher humanity and the circumstances that often force an ordinary person to commit a crime. This deep social concern is however conveyed subtly without being didactic, through the predicament of the main protagonist, Kalyani lodged in the prison through majority of the film and her longing for freedom. The film also highlights the spirit of sacrifice in the youth during the freedom struggle when a youth would even sacrifice his future wife, at his partys command. Despite having a dramatic turn of events throughout the film, the melodrama never overpowers the narrative, the pace remains engrossing yet easy, and cinematography highlights the stillness and vacuum of a prison life. Nutan remains understated through the film, and the director employs irony and symbolism throughout the film to make his statement instead. ........

Source: Wikipedia