Madhumati is a reincarnation saga by the great Bimal Roy.Trust the masters to come up with theme which are left untouched and unexplored by mere mortals..I may be wrong but I think it was one of the first instances of reincarnation being shown on Indian film screen. The greatness of the movie lies in the atmosphere Bimal Roy has been able to create which is eerie, romantic, haunting, poignant all at once but the underlying air is always that of impending doom!!!
He is superbly aided in that by some first class cinematography and brilliant background score by Salil Chaudhary..of course the music of the film by Salil Chaudhary again, is sheer magic but we will come to that later..
The story is simple but its the narration which holds you spellbound from the time Dilip kumar who is on the way to the station to receive his wife and child, gets stuck in an old ’’Haveli’’ when his car plays truant. There he is able to recall many things which happened to him in his past life much to the scepticism of his friend who is a doctor.But an old ’’caretaker’’(yes..I know..u get the feeling that u have seen these things too many times but trust me they all derive their inspiration from this classic!!!) confirms his story and the flashback begins....
Many a years ago, a young Dilip Kumar comes to work as a manager of an estate at some distant hill station. The estate is owned by a cruel and lecherous raja sahib played with supreme relish by Pran..(God..did he enjoy such roles..:)..)He meets a beautiful tribal girl named Madhumati and falls in love with her.Madhumati is played by Vyjyantimala and she looks bewitchingly beautiful in this film.Vyjyantimala brings an amazing balance of innocence and sensuousness to this character and when Madhumati croons ’’Aaja re Pardesi’’ through the mist, the audience like Dilip Kumar are completely beguiled by her.Their love though meets a tragic end when Pran plays the typical villain and Madhumati gives up her life to protect her honour.
Dilip Kumar is heartbroken and though he knows that it was Pran who is responsible for Madhumati’s death..he can’t do much about it for lack of evidence.However one day he sees a girl who is a complete look-alike of Madhumati.Intrigues he follows her..finds it hard to believe that she is not Madhumati but Malti..tells Malti his tragic tale who in turn decides to help him in extracting revenge on Pran..They hatch a plan to scare Pran and make him confess his heinous crime..Malti is to dress up as Madhumati and terrorise Pran into confessing..everything goes to plan and Pran confesses his crime in front of ’’Madhumati’’ and when he is being led away by the Police..suddenly the real Malti appears and apologises for being late as her car had some engine problem.............
The plot of the film is simple but it reaches a sublime level due to Bimal Roy’s deft directorial touches.The pace of the film is deliberately kept slow..as u soak in the atmosphere the director has so beautifully created..Most of the scenes of the film are shot with heavy fog around to emphasise the spooky-eerie feeling.
The film has got some brilliant cameos by Johny Walker and Jayant who plays Madhumati’s stern father in the film.The music of the film by Salil Chaudahary is pure bliss..whether u hear it as a stand-alone album or as a film album it is stupendous.It boasts of such heavenly and till now popular tracks like ’’Suhana Safar’’, ’’Aaja re pardesi’’, ’’Dil tadap tadap’’ , ’’Ghadi ghadi mora dil’’.’’Tute huye khwabon ne’’ etc..The songs mostly based on ’’pahadi’’ tunes are sheer melody..
It was commercially Bimal Roy’s most successful film.It won a number of awards..around 10 filmfare awards..it had the maximum number of filmfare awards for a single film..its record was later broken by DDLJ..Go for it ppl..its an INDIAN CLASSIC...Happy viewing..
Cheers!!!:)