Mother India

Radha comes to the village as a bride. The money borrowed for the wedding is entered in the moneylender's book and the debt never ends. Her husband loses both arms in an accident and leaves. Radha is left alone in the fields with two sons, the flood, the famine and the moneylender's ledger. The years pass. One of the sons, Birju, turns his anger on the village as he grows and takes to the hills. He sets out to close the account with the moneylender in his own way. When the honour of the village is at stake, Radha has a rifle in her hands and her own son in front of her. Mehboob Khan directs. Nargis plays Radha, Sunil Dutt plays Birju and Rajendra Kumar the other son. It is an Indian production. The film was nominated for the Oscar for best foreign language film, India's first nomination, and lost in the final round by a single vote. During a fire scene on 1 March 1957 the wind changed and the flames got out of control; Nargis was caught inside and Sunil Dutt went in with a blanket and pulled her out. The two of them married within a year. The matter it treats is debt; all the pain in the story comes out of a figure in a ledger. The film builds the woman as the figure of the nation, and that reading is plain from the title onward. The narrative shows village life and agricultural labour in detail. Shot in colour with wide fields and crowded scenes, it was a large production for its time. The ending forces a mother to make a choice against her own son. Its limit is length; the narrative is very long, the melodrama thick, and the songs frequent. Who it is for: viewers who like classic Indian cinema and epic family drama. Who it is not for: it is long, melodramatic, and the ending bitter.