Ghar 1978 Hindi Movie 41
Nehueln Guarno
Vikas, the son of a successful lawyer, disagrees with his father over his choice for his life partner; and marries his girlfriend Aarti. They enjoy the bliss of marriage, breaking away from the custom of staying with his widower father. Returning home from a date, they encounter a traumatic incident that makes headline news. This incident changes their lives forever. The trauma keeps intruding into their day to day lives. When Aarti's mother leaves town to take up a new job, the pressure on Aarti and Vikas brings them into the abyss of despair. Can they crawl out of self-hate and emotional estrangement and rekindle their love?
Because of Vinod Mehra and Rekha's outstanding performances, the direction, the script, and the lavish atmosphere, Ghar is a really superb drama. Bollywood rarely depicts the trauma and effects of rape in relationships, but this film does it brilliantly.
endearing little movie that spends the first half with upper middle class couple problems, with sweet and soft romance supported by the timeless classic songs (aapki aankhon mein kuch is just so full of love). then turns to sexual violence i.e. rape in the second half, dealing with trauma, grief, society's eyes and its inability to offer justice. rekha's performance is the obvious standout containing both internal and external struggles she has to face after the tragedy; sequences where she just imagines the worst situations for her are particularly disheartening. but the resolution is more than hopeful about the beginning of their ghar, built after her healing.
This has got to be one of the best, if not the best, depictions of trauma post-sexual assault that I have ever seen in Indian cinema. I loved how the film didn't descend into a typical rape revenge drama, the kind that was endlessly proliferating in the 80s, but was rather a sensitive look at how sexual assault messes up the survivor's psyche and damages the relationships they have with loved ones.
The movie, which is rated 12 by the British Board of Film Classification, concerns Vikas (Vinod Mehra) and Arti (Rekha), whose lives are thrown into turmoil after they get hurt and Arti is sexually assaulted. Subsequently, the couple have to deal with shock, social taboo and their individual clumsiness for one another.
This film has dwelt long in my consciousness; I grew up listening to its songs, and I know most of the album by heart. But I finally managed to see the oeuvre itself today and I have... mixed opinions.
What was the point of the entire police/hotel arc? Why was the conflict brought into the plot so late that they didn't even show a proper rekindling of trust and recovery from trauma? I felt deeply dissatisfied with the nature of the ending, which felt very unresolved. There wasn't even a challenge to the genuinely awful social interactions the two face after the first half of the film. In this regard, this has certainly not aged well. But the music is truly the film's saving grace, and Rekha.