Page 45 - Seniorstoday January 2024 Issue
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More Films
Top 10 films,
50 years on…
Deepa Gahlot picks the best Hindi and English-language films of 1974
The year 1974 was a particularly good film and started her on a track of awards
one for cinema, studded with hit films. and acclaim unmatched in Indian cinema.
However, 50 years later, the films that The story of feudal oppression told in a
remain in memory are not the ones that straightforward manner, through the illicit
were successful at the box-office, but those affair between a village landlord Surya
that had something to remember them (Anant Nag), and a Dalit woman Laxmi
by. 1974 was the year of Godfather ll, The (Azmi), that causes some turbulence in
Great Gatsby, a spate of disaster movies their lives and in the village. The last shot
in Hollywood, while in Bollywood, stars of a child throwing a stone at Surya’s
like Dharmendra, Hema Malini, Rajesh house is a striking symbol of rebellion
Khanna, Zeenat Aman were still ruling, against upper class brutality.
the man who would be king—Amitabh
Bachchan—was still to be coronated. Tough Aap Ki Kasam:
to pick just 10, but these are among the Mainstream cinema,
unforgettables half a century later: believing in the happily-
Ankur: ever-after, seldom
Shyam Benegal’s debut considered a broken
film, a work of passion marriage. This J Om
and power that was Prakash film (a remake
among the films that of the 1970 Malayalam
heralded the New Wave movie Vaazhve Mayam)
or parallel cinema had a dramatic story of a couple torn
movement. It was apart due to the husband’s suspicious
Shabana Azmi’s first nature. Kamal (Rajesh Khanna) accuses
SENIORS TODAY | ISSUE #55 | JANUARY 2024 45
