Najma is a pure delight, from the beginning to the end. And unlike with the last 1943 classic that I reviewed (Kismet), I didn’t have to keep telling myself that this film could be excused for plot twists that were cliches because it must have been the first one, etc., etc. It is actually based on a very common theme, the love affair that is ruined by an arranged marriage, but if you don’t mind my adding a SPOILER in the next two sentences… Imagine a film in which that happens where the lovers don’t end up killing themselves, but where they learn to live with it and move on with their new lives (albeit after some pretty big difficulties at first)… I’m not usually one who demands happy endings, since I like deep tragedy. But sometimes I get tired of the tragic ending when I’ve already seen it done to death (so to speak), and Najma ends up steering far away from that conclusion (albeit with a bit of a crash toward the end – but I won’t give that part away now).
I also found the characters in Najma and the actors who played them to be very refreshing. Ashok Kumar, as Yusuf, does another fine job here. He’s not as adorable all the way through as he is in Kismet (though he can be sometimes); in fact, sometimes he’ll piss you off. But, as I have said before, he is a very human kind of actor, once again playing a very human character, and he’s very good. Yakub is a lot of fun here, too. He is one of my favorite character actors in Hindi movies, and he does well here playing Yusuf’s really nice but irritating friend. (He is irritating because, for one thing, he is a bit too much of a practical joker – which is a perfect role for Yakub).
Meanwhile, Veena is magnificent. It’s hard to believe that she’s only 16 or 17 here. (Although I have found myself saying the same thing about a few young actresses in these old films…) In addition to being beautiful (a fact that was apparently much talked about at the time), she exhibits a great amount of grace and maturity in her role as Najma.
(By the way, this video was posted by Ajay Yuvraj. All subsequent videos are from Tommydan333 and are taken from the version of the movie that Tom posted at Tommydan55.)
The character Najma, herself, displays a lot sophistication in the way she handles the changes in her life. Although she mourns her loss of a love affair, she also finds ways to make life better in her relationship with her new husband, Mukarram (played by M. Kumar). One thing that she manages to do is get Mukarram to change his habits and come home to her instead of staying out with his friends all night. And he is a Nawab, so, especially in the world of Hindi/Urdu films, that is very impressive!
(By the way, aren’t the dancers in this scene sweet? There is nice dancing in this film, though there should have been more by the woman who will be mentioned in a minute.)
Meanwhile, Yusuf continues to make his own new wife miserable. And that is a shame, because Razia is quite a woman, played by none other than the great Sitara Devi.
As always, Sitara is very dynamic here, as well as unique. Unfortunately, she doesn’t dance all that much in this movie, but she sings well, and she’s a good actress, too. She is quite believable in her role as the illiterate cousin from the village, a character who is obviously not intellectual or sophisticated but who is highly talented and awfully clever. And she is great when it comes time for Razia to sweetly annoy Yusuf after he has ignored her and insulted her for a while. (The scenes between the two are probably the funniest in the whole movie.)
Razia seems to be a bit of a victim at first, but she is driven to the point where she does some very not-nice things in her attempt to prevent any further interactions between Yusuf and Najma (that is, after she finds out that Yusuf has been visiting Najma’s house to help cure her of a likely psychosomatic illness). Eventually, Razia visits Najma directly and starts making unkind accusations that are overheard by Mukarram to nearly disastrous results. And then the last part of the film turns out to be a lot of fun. (I have seen some of this stuff before, but not done quite the same way…)
And now that I have given a fairly extensive plot summary of the part near the end, I would like to make a brief comment about the beginning… That is the part where we get to see some of the explicit social/political commentary that we can often find in films that were made by the director/producer who had a hammer-and-sickle emblem. It’s here where we hear people overtly advocating for a society to treat everyone equally, and where we get to hear a nice prayer that is not at all flattering to the upper class.
But, interestingly, the rest of the film revolves around very affluent Muslim families and dwells on the social mores of that class. (One review that I read cited Najma as the film that created a “blueprint” for the genre known as the “Muslim Social – although there were Muslim Socials that came out earlier, such as Khandan (1942).) It is clear that Yusuf’s family has had a mixed class history (Razia is actually his cousin – and that is the reason that he is forced to marry her). But Yusuf’s father is a very successful doctor and Najma comes from older wealth, and the film takes place almost entirely within the houses of the rich. Reflecting upon this contrast, I, myself, felt that there was a slight disconnection between some of that material in the beginning and the rest of the movie. (Maybe it would have been better if the poor orphans in the beginning had been brought back a little later? Just for a little bit – I am not saying that this should have been turned into an early version of Boot Polish!) On the other hand, though, because he was focusing so much on rich people’s houses, that gave Mehboob an excuse to work with some beautifully designed sets, which complement all the other very nice elements in this highly enjoyable film.
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P.S. I should not post this review without mentioning that the music also provides a lot of pleasure throughout. And I’d like to add an interesting point of trivia, that the composer of that music, Rafiq Ghaznavi, is the man whose voice we hear behind the Mehboob emblem at the beginning of the opening credits. (Thank you for that information, Memsaab!)
Veena + Ashok Kumar + a Muslim social? (Okay, Yaqub not so much, but still). And Sitara. This sounds like a film totally up my street. Thanks so much for that review, Richard. I’d not heard much about Najma before you started referring to it on FB, so I’ve been looking forward with keen interest to your review of it. I must watch this. :-)
Thanks Richard. You’ve made me sit up. As a great fan of muslim socials I’d exhausted the numbers available. Now I find (thanks to you) there are older versions (or at least this ‘one’).
I’ll definitely watch it. :-)
Your reviewing style is interesting too.
After Afsana, I think I can watch anything that has Ashok Kumar in it. I had never heard of this movie. I think it spawned a few ‘copies’, but it is nice to see the original :)
Hi Richard,
Total non-sequitur but thought of you watching the song/dance Nenu Autovanni from the 1995 Tamil film Basha. Worker solidarity :-)
Wish there were more B/W wonders on Netflix but some compensation in finding unlikely films. Non-sequitur again but current favorite Kamal Hassan who is a lovely dancer and has a wonderful number as a drunken heartsick dance genius/critic/teacher on the edge of everything but in this instance of a well.
All Best,
Ann
Madhu, Reeba (letting everyone’s Net names fall by the wayside now), and Ava, too… None of you knew about this film, and now you are inspired to watch it because of my review? Then this time around, at least, the hours that I put into a blog post have proven to be more than worthwhile! :)
I first got curious about this film a few years ago when I saw the the song sequences involving Ashok Kumar and Sitara Devi. (In August 2010, I posted one those songs to this blog after I’d found it on the Dailymotion channel called “Squarecut Video Guy.” I think I know who that is…) So, I have been looking for a watchable version since. And thanks to Tom, of course, there is one now, with good English subtitles, too. (And Reeba, maybe the next time that happens with a film that I then write about, I’ll be thanking you also. ;) )
Madhu, regarding your comment about those actors being in the Muslim social :) … Well, Veena was Muslim, but Ashok Kumar is another matter, of course.
You know, I started thinking about a scene in the chapter from Saadat Hasan Manto’s Stars From Another Sky, where Ashok is driving a car and he decides to take a shortcut through a Muslim neighborhood during the time of partition, when the communal violence is at its peak, and Manto, who is sitting in the passenger seat, becomes terrified. But then a group of Muslims who recognize Ashok Kumar start shouting his name and calling him “bhai,” and come up to give him advice about a better way to travel. Manto was completely taken aback by this. But who knows, maybe these were people who had seen Ashok Kumar in Najma. :)
Ava, yes… Out of the male acting superstars of 1940s and ’50s (the super heroes?), I think Ashok Kumar is my favorite.
Ann, it’s good to hear from you. Yes, I guess these are non sequiturs, though… You’re talking about films made several decades later and you’ve gone to the other end of the country, too. :) But maybe there is a connection, since you must have picked up on some of my political sympathies once again, in this review.
I don’t recognize the ’90s Tamil film that you named. (Maybe I knew it several years ago, when I was watching more ’90s Tamil films. By the way, a Facebook thread caused me to resurrect my old review of Thalapathi, and it started getting lots of hits again.)
But, actually, I remember the Kamal Haasan dance on the well well. :) About five years ago, there was some discussion of that film over here, after I posted the kitchen dancing scene:
https://roughinhere.wordpress.com/2008/12/08/kamal-haasans-kitchen-kuchipudi-in-sagara-sangamam-telugu-1983/#comments.
Richard, I realise now that I should’ve worded my comment differently. Decoded, what my comment meant was: I love Veena. I love Ashok Kumar. I love Muslim socials. Yaqub I don’t like much, but I do like Sitara Devi. So the chances of me liking Najma are pretty high. :-)
Though that wee bit of miscommunication did make me realise that Ashok Kumar acted in his fair share of Muslim socials – Pakeezah, Benazir, Mere Mehboob, Naqli Nawab etc (besides being the nawab in Dharmputra. And Veena, besides Pakeezah, was also there in Taj Mahal which could, at a stretch, be a sort of Muslim social…
Sorry, Madhu. I guess I was confused regarding the reason for your question marks and plus sign, my mind wandered, and I wanted to tell that story anyway. So Ann is not the only one posting non sequiturs here!
By the way, re. Pakeezah, would unhappy courtesan films really be considered Muslim socials? Or do they belong to a category all their own? Speaking of Ashok Kumar, then, what, exactly, is Kalpana (1960)? It’s an unhappy courtesan film that starts out in Kashmir and sometimes it’s so Muslim, but then sometimes it’s so Hindu, right?
Hmm. That’s an interesting question, about whether or not Pakeezah is a Muslim social. I think it is, with the ‘unhappy courtesan’ motif being an angle (rather like Benazir, where again Meena Kumari played a dancer who was unhappy). I think the Muslim milieu, and all that defines it – the language, the tehzeeb, the costumes, etc – are what constitute a ‘Muslim social’. That’s just my opinion, of course.
In the case of Kalpana, while the unhappy courtesan angle is there, it never did strike me as having ‘Muslim’ tones.
And how come I missed this review the first time around? :) I’m glad you added the link in Madhu’s blog, Richard. This sounds very interesting indeed, since I love Muslim socials too. And no, I haven’t watched it either.
Anu, I am glad that you finally did get to see this review and you like it also!
I do hope that you get to watch this film soon. Or maybe you have already in the time since you wrote your comment, since I neglected to answer you for five days. :) In any event, I look forward to hearing your thoughts about it whenever you do.