Massey Sahib

Last updated

Massey Sahib
Massey Sahib DVD cover.jpg
Directed by Pradip Krishen
Written byPradip Krishen
Based on Mister Johnson
by Joyce Cary
Produced by NFDC
Starring Raghubir Yadav
Barry John
Arundhati Roy
Virendra Saxena
CinematographyR. K. Bose
Music by Vanraj Bhatia
Release date
  • 1985 (1985)
Running time
124 minutes
CountryIndia
Language Hindi

Massey Sahib is a 1985 Hindi drama film directed by Pradip Krishen, starring Raghubir Yadav in the title role. It was Krishen's first film, and was an adaptation of Joyce Cary's 1939 novel Mister Johnson . It won Yadav two international acting awards. [1] The film also stars Arundhati Roy, who was yet to write her first novel and win the Man Booker Prize, along with Barry John and Virendra Saxena.

Contents

Synopsis

The film is set in 1929, in a small town in Central India. Francis Massey (Raghubir Yadav) is a clerk in the District Collector's office in the colonial administration of British India. He aspires to be like the colonial rulers, and thinks of himself as different from his Indian compatriots. He falls in love with a tribal girl Saila (Arundhati Roy), and browbeats her family into agreeing to their marriage. They have a church wedding, with Saila's brother Pasa (Virendra Saxena) as the bemused witness. In his wish to help the rulers – in particular, his immediate superior, District Collector Charles Adam (Barry John) – Massey adopts methods that are irregular. Adam's dream project of building a road through the forest is stuck for lack of funds. Massey manages to get it completed using a mixture of manipulation, persuasion and threats. To his surprise, he is accused of corruption by the very boss whom he had meant to help, and who had condoned his earlier transgressions. His wife too is forcefully taken back by her family. He turns for help to his friend Banaji (Madan Lal) to get his wife back. Banaji refuses to help him. In an act of frustrated rage, Massey kills Banaji. He is arrested for murder, and Adam advises him to plead guilty to accidental manslaughter. However, Massey refuses, secure in the belief that his Adam Sahib will help him out, leading to the tragic denouement.

Cast

Raghuvir Yadav Raghuvir Yadav.jpg
Raghuvir Yadav

Crew

Production

Finance

In 1980, Pradip Krishen won the first prize in a script-writing competition organised by the National Film Development Corporation (NFDC). This encouraged him to make the film, which would be produced by NFDC. The budget for the film which was approved by NFDC was Rs 9.2 lakh, which was meagre for a period film. [2] Nevertheless, Krishen went ahead with the project.

Casting

Originally, Siddhartha Basu was supposed to play the lead, and a sample scene was shot with him. Then Basu went abroad and Krishen chose Raghubir Yadav, at that time an unknown young theatre actor. NFDC urged Krishen to get "known names" for the cast, but Krishen stuck to his choices, using theatre actors from Delhi, as well as debutante Arundhati Roy. [2] The choice of Yadav for the lead turned to be doubly beneficial. Not only would Yadav's performance win him accolades, but his knowledge of Hindi and its dialects came in handy in evolving the dialogue for the film.

Shooting

The film was shot on location in and around Pachmarhi in Madhya Pradesh, during the winter of 1982–83. In an interview, Raghubir Yadav said that he was very nervous about facing the camera for the first time, but was reassured by Barry John, with whom had worked on the stage. He added, "Till we reached Pachmarhi for the shoot, I was not clear how I would play this complex character. One week before the shooting I saw an old man on the road in an outfit similar to what Massey was expected to wear. He seemed to belong to that era. I followed his mannerisms." [3]

Reception

Although the film met with no commercial success, it did receive widespread critical acclaim. Apart from the two international awards won by Yadav, Krishen was honoured by the Indian Directors' Association with the Best Director Award. Subsequently, the film has achieved a kind of cult status. [4] Looking back on it, one critic wrote:"Raghuvir Yadav set the screen afire with his persuasively intense performance as a clerk who is ambitious but not clever enough to manoeuvre exotic rules and regulations that land him into trouble." [5]

Among younger filmmakers, Dibakar Banerjee says he has been strongly influenced by the film. [4] [6]

Awards

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Arundhati Roy</span> Indian author and activist (born 1961)

Suzanna Arundhati Roy is an Indian author best known for her novel The God of Small Things (1997), which won the Booker Prize for Fiction in 1997 and became the best-selling book by a non-expatriate Indian author. She is also a political activist involved in human rights and environmental causes. She was awarded the 2024 PEN Pinter Prize.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pachmarhi</span> Hill station in Madhya Pradesh, India

Pachmarhi is a hill station in the Hoshangabad district of Madhya Pradesh state of central India. It has been the location of a cantonment since the British Raj. The municipality is located in a valley of the Satpura Range and is widely known as Satpura ki Rani.

<i>In Which Annie Gives It Those Ones</i> 1989 Indian film directed by Pradip Krishen

In Which Annie Gives it Those Ones is a 1989 Indian English-language TV film written by Arundhati Roy and directed by Pradip Krishen. It stars Arjun Raina as the title character, with Roshan Seth and Arundhati Roy in key roles. The film also features Shahrukh Khan and Manoj Bajpayee, both then struggling actors in the Delhi theatre circuit, in small but significant roles. Set in the 1970s, in the National Institute of Architecture, New Delhi, the plot revolves around Anand Grover, known as Annie, a misguided visionary who gets into trouble for making fun of the principal, Y.D. Billimoria known as Yamdoot.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Raghubir Yadav</span> Indian actor (born 1957)

Raghubir Yadav is an Indian actor, music composer, singer and set designer who works in Hindi films. He made his film debut with Massey Sahib (1985), in which he played the title role. He has won two International Awards as Best Actor for Massey Sahib, FIPRESCI Critic's Award, Venice Film Festival, 1986 and the IFFI Best Actor Award (Male): Silver Peacock Award at the 11th International Film Festival of India, 1987. The film also featured writer and social activist in National School of Drama, New Delhi until 1977.

Pradip Krishen is an Indian filmmaker, naturalist and environmentalist. He has directed three films, Massey Sahib in 1985, In Which Annie Gives It Those Ones in 1989 and Electric Moon for Channel 4, UK in 1991. His films have won significant Indian and international awards, and In Which Annie Gives It Those Ones acquired cult status in the years after it was made. He is married to Arundhati Roy who also acted in his films but they currently live separately from each other. He subsequently gave up filmmaking, and since 1995, has worked as a naturalist and environmentalist.

<i>Suraj Ka Satvan Ghoda</i> 1992 Indian film

Suraj Ka Satvan Ghoda is a 1992 Indian Hindi film directed by Shyam Benegal and based on the novel The Sun's Seventh Horse by Dharmavir Bharati. It won the 1993 National Film Award for Best Feature Film in Hindi. The self-reflexive film is also known for its subversive take on the "Devdas" syndrome. The film was produced by the National Film Development Corporation of India (NFDC). It stars Rajit Kapur, Rajeshwari Sachdev, Pallavi Joshi, Neena Gupta and Amrish Puri, among others.

<i>Dharavi</i> (film) 1992 Indian film

Dharavi is a 1992 Hindi film, directed and written by Sudhir Mishra.

Mister Johnson (1939) is a novel by Joyce Cary. It is the story of a young Nigerian who falls afoul of the British colonial authorities. Although the novel has a comic tone, the story itself is tragic. Joyce Cary has been quoted as saying that Mister Johnson was his favorite book that he had written. Mister Johnson is often read in schools and has had a wide audience. It has been adapted as a play by Norman Rosten and a 1990 film by Bruce Beresford. Chinua Achebe has said that Mister Johnson struck him as superficial and helped form his determination to write his own novels about Nigeria. Other critics have found Cary's portrayal of his main character patronizing and Johnson himself childish.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Raja Sen</span> Television & film director

Raja Sen is an Indian film and television director and the winner of three National Film Awards from Kolkata, West Bengal, India. He is the father of Subhasree Sen and Sreyoshri Sen.

Electric Moon is a 1992 Indian film directed by Pradip Krishen and written by Arundhati Roy. The film was produced by Grapevine Media for Channel 4 Television and Bobby Bedi's Kaleidoscope Entertainment and was reviewed at the International Film Festival of India (IFFI) and the 36th London Film Festival (1992).

<i>Shotru</i> 2011 Indian film

Shotru(Bengali: শত্রু ; English: Enemy) is a 2011 Indian Bengali-language action thriller film directed by Raj Chakraborty. The film was produced by Ashok Dhanuka under the banner of Eskay Movies. Partially inspired from the Rajib Das murder case in Barasat (2011) and human trafficking cases taken places in West Bengal in 2011, it stars Jeet, Supriyo Dutta and Nusrat Jahan in lead roles, while Kharaj Mukherjee, Dipankar De, Biswajit Chakraborty, Saayoni Ghosh, Raja Dutta, Biplab Chatterjee, Rabi Ranjan Moitra and Padmanabha Dasgupta in supporting roles. It marks the cinematic debut of model Nusrat Jahan. The soundtrack and background score was composed by Indraadip Dasgupta, with screenplay and dialogues written by Padmanabha Dasgupta and Abhimanyu Mukherjee. It revolves around Dibakar Singha, the OC of Hridaypur Police Station, getting transferred to Howrah, where he looks into the gangraping and kidnapping cases done by the real estate agent Arjun Sarkar.

The 43rd annual Venice International Film Festival was held on 30 August to 10 September, 1986. It was the last edition directed by Gian Luigi Rondi.

<i>Herogiri</i> 2015 Indian film

Herogiri is a 2015 Bengali language action comedy film directed by Rabi Kinagi assistant director Pathikrit Basu and produced by Nispal Singh under the banner of Surinder Films. It features actors Mithun Chakrabarty, Dev, Koel Mallick and Sayantika Banerjee in lead roles. It is a remake of the 2013 Telugu movie Balupu.

<i>Rui Ka Bojh</i> 1997 Indian film

Rui Ka Bojh is a 1997 Hindi drama film directed by Subhash Agarwal, based on Chandra Kishore Jaiswal's novel Gawah Ghair Hazir with Pankaj Kapoor, Reema Lagoo and Raghubir Yadav in lead roles.

<i>Mantostaan</i> Indian film of the Urdu writer Saadat Hasan Manto

Mantostaan is a 2017 Indian film directed by Rahhat Shah Kazmi. The film is based on the four short stories of the Urdu writer Saadat Hasan Manto - "Thanda Gosht", "Khol Do", "Assignment", and "Akhiri Salute".

<i>Bhouri</i> 2016 Indian social drama film by Jasbir Bhaati

Bhouri is a 2016 Indian social drama film. It is a glimpse of the life conditions of women in rural North India, set against the background of social conflict surrounding women in rural India. It was released on 17 June 2016. Masha Paur, Raghubir Yadav, Kunika, Shakti Kapoor, Aditya Pancholi played pivotal roles in the film.

<i>Sandeep Aur Pinky Faraar</i> Film directed by Dibakar Banerjee

Sandeep Aur Pinky Faraar is a 2021 Indian Hindi-language black comedy drama film directed and produced by Dibakar Banerjee with distribution by Yash Raj Films. Parineeti Chopra and Arjun Kapoor star in lead title roles, respectively. The filming began on 7 November 2017 in Mahipalpur. Initially scheduled for theatrical release on 20 March 2020, the film was postponed due to COVID-19 pandemic in India. After being delayed for a year, it was finally released theatrically on 19 March 2021 and later on Amazon Prime.

The 11th International Film Festival of India was held from 10-24 January 1987 in New Delhi. The festival gave a breakthrough for commercial cinema, through the introduction of "Indian Mainstream section". India's official entry for the Best Foreign Language Film for the Academy Awards in 1986 - "Swati Mutyam" was screened in the mainstream section.

Blackboard vs Whiteboard is a 2019 Indian Hindi-language film, which is directed by Tarun s Bisht and produced by Nupur Shrivastava, Gireesh Tiwary and Ashutosh Singh Ratan. The film stars Raghuvir Yadav, Ashok Samarth, Dharmendra Singh, Alismita Goswami, Akhilendra Mishra and Pankaj Jha in lead roles. The story of this film is based the education system. It is set to release on 12 April 2019.

<i>Ghost Stories</i> (2020 film) 2020 Indian anthology film

Ghost Stories is a 2020 Indian Hindi-language anthology horror film, consisting of four short film segments directed by Karan Johar, Dibakar Banerjee, Zoya Akhtar, and Anurag Kashyap. It is co-produced by Ronnie Screwvala and Ashi Dua under their production banner RSVP Movies and Flying Unicorn Entertainment respectively. The film features an ensemble cast, including Mrunal Thakur, Avinash Tiwary, Janhvi Kapoor, Raghuvir Yadav, Sobhita Dhulipala, Vijay Varma, and Pavail Gulati. It was released on Netflix on January 1, 2020.

References

  1. ↑ "Ciemas of India, Videos, Festival Participation & Awards, ..." Retrieved 19 February 2013.
  2. 1 2 Gupta, Trisha (1 February 2014). "Two Roads Diverged: Pradip Krishen's journey from film to forest". The Caravan . Retrieved 16 December 2017.
  3. ↑ "My first break – Raghuvir Yadav". The Hindu . 16 October 2009. Archived from the original on 18 March 2013. Retrieved 22 March 2013.
  4. 1 2 Banerjee, Dibakar (7 June 2015). "What makes a cult film, anyway?". Hindustan Times. Retrieved 8 February 2018.
  5. ↑ Dhawan, M. L. (23 June 2002). "ON THE SANDS OF TIME – 1986: The year of thought-provoking films". The Tribune. Retrieved 1 January 2018.
  6. ↑ Singh, Harneet. "Dibakar Banerjee: I wish our cinema had more anger in it". The Indian Express. No. 3 May 2013. Retrieved 8 February 2018.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.