Jis Desh Men Ganga Behti Hai (1960) :
Brief Review -
An incredible film on Incredible India and its purifying nature. A Masterpiece ahead of contemporary bollywood cinema. A famous cinematographer of 40s and 50s Radhu Karmarkar directed only one film in his career and that's enough to remember his name forever. Jis Desh Men Ganga Behti Hai is story of modern Indian culture and Nature where even Impure things will also get chance of purification. A naive singer Raju arrives in dacoits tribe and learns about thier sins. Then he tries to transform them into good human beings but is it really that easy? How he had to struggle a lot for this and how it sends a long-living message to Society about Incredible India and its bright future is what you get to see in the film. The film has a long runtime about 174 which is filled with awesome conflicts and every conflict is filled with rich content. Usually it takes me a plenty of time to realise that the film is going to be a Classic, sometimes it takes till the climax to see it but in first 30 minutes of Jis Desh Me Ganga Behti Hai i was damn sure that this film is going to be a Masterpiece by the end. It kept me interested throughout and keep giving pleasant pushes after every 15 minutes. The screenplay deserves a praise here, because it includes so many things such as human nature being extremely Naive, extremely spoiled, balanced sometimes, love, socialism, lower cast issues, Indian legal system and what not. I don't remember any film of the same period talking about so many things together in one narrative hence making Jis Desh Me Ganga Rehti Hai far ahead of it's contemporaries. If i had seen this film in 1961 then the message would have stayed with me for 4 decades for sure, after that Indian culture changed massively 21st century. Raj Kapoor plays the naive guy with extreme innocence and kindness. He talks so purely, he walks so naively and he convinces to believe that yes someone like this guy could exist in real life. Padmini looks beautiful, dances nice and makes a solid pair with Raj Kapoor. Pran brings the cruelty and brutality in his villainous role with conviction and Lalita Pawar does her role perfectly. Musically, the film is blessed with couple of Chartbusters and Soulful numbers. The title song is pure gem. Both Lyrically and musically it works every time it comes on screen and fills soul in that particular scene with. Rest of the songs are enjoyable for the sake of situations. Cinematography and Dialogues are very good. Radhu Karmarkar direction is top class. There were no films made on so many issues together but he didn't scatter under pressure, instead he gave everything he had and turned the film into Masterpiece. Jis Desh Me Ganga Behti Hai is a MUST WATCH for so many reasons, i just can't tell all of them. One of the Finest film in Legend Raj Kapoor's Filmography. Enough said. If you are fan of his earlier work 'Jagtey Raho' which defined Art cinema into mainstream Bollywood films then Jis Desh Me Ganga Behti is very much similar to that and as an additional bonus it has commercial factors too. A MASTERPIECE !
RATING - 9/10*
By - #samthebestest
