Khoon Bhari Maang

Aarti, a rich widow left alone with two children, marries Sanjay, a man close to the family. He is after the inheritance. Shortly after the wedding he pushes her into a lake full of crocodiles. She survives, has her ruined face rebuilt in surgery and returns unrecognisable, as a model. The film is not interested in revenge. It is interested in visibility: when they tried to kill her nobody took Aarti seriously; when she comes back it is her new face alone that gives her a voice. The film does not criticise this, but it shows it. The form is eighties Indian melodrama: showy costumes, catwalk scenes, songs and large emotional detonations. Rakesh Roshan directed. The source is the 1983 Australian mini-series Return to Eden. The film was Rekha's comeback; it succeeded with critics and at the box office, took seven nominations at the 34th Filmfare Awards and won her a second Best Actress prize. Kabir Bedi plays Sanjay and Shatrughan Sinha the photographer. Who it is for: viewers who like Indian melodrama and revenge stories. Who it is not for: anyone after realism. The plot is overblown from beginning to end and the crocodile scene is unintentionally funny now.