Waqt

A film set in India. Lala Kedarnath is a merchant. Rich, satisfied, and confident about the future. He has three sons. Small. A fortune teller tells him something. He laughs and does not listen. One night there is an earthquake. The house comes down. The town comes down. The family scatters. From there the film jumps years. The three brothers have grown and do not know each other. Raja is a thief. Polite, elegant and capable; he steals jewels. Ravi was raised by a family. Educated, and he will be a lawyer. Vijay is the youngest. He works at a garage and looks after their mother. The father is in prison. He was caught up in something after the earthquake. The mother is ill. The narrative runs these three lines separately. Each has a love story. Raja and Meena. Ravi and Renu. Vijay and a girl. Then there is a murder. Raja is accused. From there the film becomes a courtroom story. The defence lawyer is Ravi. Two brothers face each other and neither knows it. What the narrative is interested in is not family but time: the title says so and every event is tied back to a fortune teller's word. The narrative uses fate as an explanation and does not question it. At the end all three are in the same room. This film set a shape in India: the scattered family, coming together years later, and a trial. That shape was used many times in the decades after. The cast was very large for the period and that was a first too; the multi-star film spread from here. The music is by Ravi and the songs proved long-lived. Yash Chopra made this early in his career. Balraj Sahni, Sunil Dutt, Raaj Kumar, Shashi Kapoor, Sadhana and Sharmila Tagore are in the cast. Who it is for: anyone who likes classic Indian cinema and multi-character melodrama. Who it is not for: anyone looking for realism; the plot rests entirely on coincidence and the running time is long.