‘Raat Aur Din’, directed by
Satyen Bose, is a rare Hindi film from the black and white era that explores
the complex subject of a psychiatric disorder that leads to a split personality. Nargis
plays the highly convoluted lead character of woman affected by this malevolent
condition. Varuna, the only daughter of a well to do estate owner in the
outskirts of Shimla, falls in love and marries a city businessman Pratap (played
by Pradeep Kumar), which puts an end to the lonely life she leads in the hills.
In the city, however, she frequently turns into this other woman ‘Peggy’ who is
a complete anti-thesis of her real self. These periods of transformation are
marked by headaches and partial amnesia. How this affects their marital life,
and how her disorder is investigated and cured, is what the film is all about.
The story is as tangled as the
lead characters affliction. The screenplay though is slightly repetitive and
falls in the trappings of usual commercial fare of that time, which is quite
understandable. So there is lots of family drama, and there are a number of
songs. But even in these slightly ‘run-of-the-mill’ moments, there are some
exciting possibilities owing to the unique nature of the plot. For instance
when Varuna’s orthodox mother-in-law summons a ‘tantrik’ for curing her, it
results in an incredibly moving sequence. Similarly when Varuna in one of her ‘Peggy’
transformations lets herself go completely in the company of a young and
bumbling doctor, and then intermittently comes back to her own self when other
experienced doctors join them, is fantastically done. In fact there are
portions in the film that are so ahead of its time that they could pass of as
brilliant even today, i.e. fifty years after the movie was made. The last
twenty minutes or so, which trace the childhood of Varuna and its connection to
her disorder, are the best of the film. They tell the story of a repressed childhood,
of yearn for freedom, of need of expression, and the lasting effects of
misplaced guilt. And all this is remarkably performed by Nargis, who is in top
form. It is easy to see how the jury at the National Film Awards would have
been compelled to give her the best actress award.
Although it is slightly unfair to
unfair to question the technical aspects of a film from that time, especially
after having been exposed all the modern day wonders of film-craft, one thing
stands out glaringly in the film, and that is the frequently changing physical appearance
of the lead actress. It seems like the film was long time in the making, and
all the songs were shot at the end, by when Nargis had put on considerable weight
and was looking much older than the normal self in the film. But that quibble
aside, one has to appreciate how challenging it must have been to make this
sort of a film in that era of soft romances, family dramas, and social/historical
opuses. The songs in the film, by Shankar Jaikisan, though melodious, are too many in number (like
most films of that time). Two of them stand out:
Modern day films like Bhool
Bhulaiya and Aparichit might have taken slight notes on the treatment of a
split personality from this film. But then again, they might not have. But one
has to compliment ‘Raat Aur Din’ for choosing and competently examining a subject
fifty years ago, which till date has not turned mundane.