This movie was a trendsetter in many ways. Born out of a meeting between then prime minister Lal Bahadur Shastri and Manoj Kumar at the screening of his immensely popular Shaheed in 1965,the story was written in a 24 hour period on the filmmaker's train journey back to Mumbai and released 2 years later after the prime minister's demise.
The issues tackled in the movie were extremely significant at the time,with India facing acute food shortages in addition to fighting multiple unprovoked wars in a short span of time. Some stay relevant even today. Though there is a trend currently to treat patriotic films with extreme viewpoints,many dismissive, this movie is far from being jingoistic.(I do admit I prefer realistically picturised movies over CGI generated visuals,even in the so called patriotic ones) .It might seem formulaic to some because movies that came after followed this formula. This is a movie of a more innocent and non jaded time and needs to be viewed as such. For example,a city girl wanting to stay in the village might be perceived today to be docile or all sacrificing but one really has nothing to do with the other ,even today. An example in real life is the husband -wife doctor duo of Prakash Amte and Mandakini Amte. And never in the movie is it indicated that she's giving up her career. In that she's actually a more 'modern' female character than many portrayals of her in contemporary movies as the gali spewing,drinking,cigarette smoking bindass girl,who's supposed to be a tomboy but looks like she's spent hours in a salon,who also in real life would probably never get a job,because oops!... in our efforts to look contrived modern, we forgot to get an education along the way! In contrast this movie handles a lot of topics with sensitivity and maturity, each character representing a differing viewpoint. No woman is falling at any man's feet to get his 'charno ki dhool' and the dialogues between the protagonist/doctor or doctor/brother with regards to courtship and marriage are surprisingly matter of fact. I especially like that it lacks the typical over the top mother- son melodrama of most Hindi movies. Here the mother is less emotional than the older brother about dividing the land ; there's also no overdrawn dialogue between the two when the older brother leaves town. There is also no unnecessary west vs east mischaracterization in absolutes(there is a perfectly good natured non Indian character and a number of unsavoury Indian ones). Most performances are good,the standout is Pran as Malang chacha, especially because he was playing against character. This movie, to its credit is a well written original,unapologetic tale about who we were then as a country,talking more about what it should mean to us, about recognizing it's needs and our duty as citizens towards fulfilling them and most importantly about what dreams are really worth chasing.
