Mera Naam Joker

Raju the clown tells his life in three parts. As a boy he falls in love with his teacher, as a young man with a Russian circus performer, and in middle age with a woman who wants to be an actress. In all three the woman leaves, and he goes on laughing on stage. Raj Kapoor directed, produced and starred. It took six years to make. It runs over four hours with two intervals, and a film with two intervals is almost unheard of in Indian cinema. Kapoor's son Rishi Kapoor entered films with this, playing the young Raju, and won a National Film Award for it. Real Soviet circus performers worked on the circus sections and the Russian actress Kseniya Ryabinkina was in the cast. It was a total commercial disaster. Kapoor had put his entire fortune into it and came close to ruin, and had to make a far more commercial film immediately afterwards to save his studio. The judgment reversed over the years. It is now regarded as his most personal work and one of the most ambitious productions in Indian cinema, and its audience grew once shortened versions circulated. Who it is for: viewers who like classical Indian cinema, circus stories and melodrama at scale. Who it is not for: it really is very long, it repeats itself, and the emotional register sits at maximum throughout.