Haré Rama Haré Krishna

Dev Anand (or Prashant) and Zeenat Aman ( Jasbir/Janice) are siblings brought up in single parent families. Jasbir (the sister) grows up in an affluent environment but this is not enough to lead her to reject her life and ultimately join a hippie movement that eventually leads her to drugs. Prashant (the brother) on the other hand grows up in a less affluent environment but grows up to be a matured gentleman. The story marks Prashant making efforts to save his little sister (who is perpetually in a trance) from a hostile hippie environment. This movie stands the test of time, commenting that cults and hippie groups are a place for those who give up on their lives when they should instead stand up and be counted in the face of adversity. Great music compositions in this movie that mean different things in different situations and to different people, and the director brings forth an eerie feeling to it.

This one grew on me. I love the R.D. Burman music and in spite of the cruder elements of the story I found much to be moved by as I kept re-watching the movie. The brother-sister plot line is powerful, I thought; there's also more probably obligatory stuff, like bar fights, a loony crime story, etc. that are just distracting. (Though not unfunny from a certain point of view.) Also the English translation is definitely by someone for whom it was a bit of a stretch, and as loony as it is I am grateful to him for doing it.

Like many of the Bollywood movies I've seen, this one is melodramatic and opera-like, including here notably a song sung first by a little boy to cheer up his abused and unhappy sister, and then the same song sung 12 or so years later by the man who has travelled to Kathmandu seeking to re-connect with this girl, grown up and troubled (she had been told her brother and mother were dead), numbing her pain with drugs.

A super thing about this 1971 movie is that it is about the hippie movement, which brought hordes of seekers to India, from an Indian point of view, that sees them as people driven to India by a spiritual hunger aroused by the failings of their own societies, but nonetheless, in India, living only for the pleasures of the moment. The hippie singing-dancing-drugging scenes are truly wonderful, and accurate in their tone (I'm old enough to remember), and I feel pretty sure that the masses of young white zoned-out kids are actual hippie extras, as I remember hearing about kids on the caravan to the East getting this kind of work in Bollywood.

(It is not about the actual Hare Krishna movement, though the movie hippies sing a Krishna/Rama chant, as do a group of actual Indian devotees, unrelated to the hippies, in the opening scene of the movie.)

~Virginia

Hare Rama Hare Krishna was the biggest hit movie of 1971. Filmed almost entirely in Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal, the movie depicts not only with the theme of a broken family, but also a relationship between a brother and a sister, as well as drugs and the hippie movement, which made many people think that it involved the ISKON - the movement for Krishna consciousness.

The movie begins with scenes of drugs and being informed that the woman dancing in front is the narrator's sister. Going back to the past the brother and sister are happily playing around the house only to hear their parents arguing. This soon leads to a split in the family. The brother goes with the mother and the sister with the father.

As years pass, the brother goes in search of his sister and is informed that she no longer lives with the father and that she has moved to Nepal. Here, Prashant, the brother not only finds love, but he also finds his sister, Janice. But he finds out that she is not only in the wrong company of friends but is also on drugs as she wants to block all memory of her past. With help of Shanti, his love, the brother tries to get his sister away from all this but has to overcome many obstacles, including people who stoop to all sorts of levels to stop him This is a multi cast movie and is led by the director and producer himself, Dev Anand and also stars Zeenat Aman (her first movie), Mumtaz, Rajendranath, Prem Chopra, Jnr Mehmood, A.K. Hangal and Achala Sachdev. The music is superbly provided by the late R.D. Burman, whose last score was "1942 - A Love Story." During the filming, Dev Anand asked Panchamda (R.D. Burman) to compose something special for this film. Days later Panchamda came back with the composition of "Dum Maro Dum." The song was an instant hit.

We do not come across movies on brother-sister relationship in Indian cinema, or any other language or medium. This relationship has several aspects which have not been exploited in movies or novels. Typically, a sister is depicted as a pile-on who can be used for ransom in the climax. This movie treats the subject in an entirely different light.

It is inspired by George Eliot's novel "The Mill on the Floss". The brother is very prosaic, all-good, the blue-eyed boy who is a conventionally good son and a favorite with his mother. The sister is romantic, wild and defiant of the unwritten rules of the society. In spite of this, the love of the brother-sister is the winner.

This movie is about the love of the two siblings who are separated in childhood and revival of the same feeling when they meet years later. It is also the quest of the subdued brother to reunite with his sister who has chosen to be wild to defy the world.

Although the movie and the novel are set about 3 centuries apart in two distant countries, yet the sentiments are the same and still hold true.

You see the way people in the early seventies blamed ISKON for their radical nature which eventually was the supposed conclusion of being turned into hippies is not at all true and that is why this film is so damn important.

I am surprised that Dev Anand actually thought that a guy in mid forties would look like a guy in mid twenties. Zeenat Aman was stupendous. Mumtaz was good but the real highlighter of this film is the music of the legendary Rahul Dev Burman.........I mean WOW!! Funny thing I read about other reviews is that no one mentioned the song "phoolon ka taaron ka sabka kehna hain" I understand "Dumm Maaro Dumm" was phenomenal, why was it still is even today but the other songs were very good too.

Acting was above average, certain aspects are too melodramatic but then again keeping in mind the 1970s of India it was good, great job by cinematographer and rest of the support staffs.

I give my ratings out of 10:

Acting - 6 Story - 8.5 Screenplay - 8.5 Direction - 8 Music Dept. - 10 (since 100 out of 10 was not possible) Other Aspects - 6

Overall - 7.83 out of 10 so I round it of to 8 out of 10