Why is Guru Dutt hailed as one of the all time best directors in the world? See this film and you'll get an answer. Guru Dutt never got his due from the audience or the critics when he was alive. After he died, he was suddenly hailed as this best thing to have happened to Hindi film industry. And today, he is universally regarded as one of the best Hindi film directors. This film too is resplendent with that same irony, hypocrisy and tragedy. There are films and then there is this. 'Kaagaz Ke Phool' is Guru Dutt's extremely personal and almost poetic take on the trials and tribulations of a life of fame and glamor; and especially the aftermath of it. Guru Dutt plays a successful director Ajay Sinha who is looking for a new face to cast as the leading lady in his next film. In the midst of all this, he has a strained marriage wherein his wife leaves him to live with her parents along with their daughter. On a certain rainy day, he meets a girl (Waheeda Rehman). They meet again in the studio.
Immediately,Guru Dutt realizes that Waheeda's is THE face he had been looking for and promptly casts her in his next film. Eventually he falls in love ith her but she doesn't reciprocate. Meanwhile, he isn't allowed to eet his beloved daughter too through a court order. As a last straw, his next film is a colossal failure and he suddenly finds that the ones who pretended to be his well-wishers and friends now seem to hate and ignore him. Thus Waheeda, his discovery, goes on to become a successful star while he begins his downward spiral into the deep darkness of ignominy. Subsequently and ironically, after many years, he dies on the same director's chair It is not a perfect film by any means. The screenplay is sometimes indulgent and probably isn't as good as say Guru Dutt's 'Pyaasa' (his other classic). Plus, the whole track involving Johnny Walker is somewhat irrelevant to the film and hence could have been shortened. However, it was incidentally, India's first film to be shot in Cinemascope and hence makes good use of technique but essentially KPK remains a very humane film which moves us without being preachy or overtly sentimental. SD Burman's haunting music and Kaifi Azmi's poignant lyrics add to the mood of this film
Ironically, the film was a commercial disaster upon its release (eerily similar to the protagonist Sinha's last film). So, the claims of it being an Autobiographical film also started being made. But, I think it is a case of life imitating art than vice- versa. Having said that it is a fact that Guru Dutt died shortly after making this film and thus KKP remains his last masterpiece and I think its commercial failure can be attributed to one of those rare occasions when the AUDIENCE got it wrong as the film may have been ahead of its time and has since been widely considered to be one of the best and most important films made in India The obvious comparisons with Fellini's 8 ½ are to be expected but to my mind they are unwarranted. Both were different films made for very different audiences. This is a great film in its own right- one of the best Hindi films ever- a bona-fide masterpiece by the prodigiously talented albeit flawed genius called Guru Dutt
