Pyaasa

Saw Pyaasa, a black and white Hindi movie from 1957.  It was a swooning, sentimental kind of musical drama.  It followed a struggling poet who is sidelined by society and treated with cruelty.  The only folks who will stick by him are street walkers, peddlers, and of course other poets who recognize his genius, but alas whenever it comes to actually giving the poet money, suddenly everyone turns very cruel.

The film is sweet and sentimental.  There's songs about the sad artificiality of prostitution and of lost love.  There's a dream sequence (possibly within a dream sequence?) which is as swooning and ethereal as anything in An American in Paris.  The film is very touching and sweet, a romantic film at its heart.  It does dip into musical absurdity once in a while however.  I couldn't help but roll my eyes every so often when the poet suddenly breaks into song once more, to the amazement and raised eyebrows of the established poets, recognizing their fellow (once more.)

The film is ultimately a sort of bitter fairytale about this poet who is sooo deserving of recognition being cheated and ignored and sneered at at every turn.  The film is so sweet and the poet guy is so pathetic however that it easily avoids being just a wallow in sour grapes.  There's the standard machinery of a musical as well: love triangles, mistaken identities, scheming but loyal servant characters.  It's a very well made, familiar, sweet, sad film.  It's tender and nice and yes a little hokey but I, with my love for melodrama, completely forgave it.