This discussion is inspired purely by the discussion from an earlier thread about Criterion's involvement in the making of the R2 DVD of Ray's Apu Trilogy and although speculations about if Criterion would do any other Indian film on DVD have been put at rest. Let's indulge ourselves which this discussion. Perhaps if this thread proves to be successful, we should have it sent to Criterion to have them actually consider the possible opportunities.

What vital Indian films are there that aren't available on DVD OR haven't had a legit company produce it's DVD yet.

My choices are

1. Satyajit Ray's DEVI: I believe Satyajit Ray himself considered this to be his best film. There's no real available DVD for this film, I also hope it's not true that it's original negative has been lost, otherwise, this would be an excellent Criterion choice.

2. Satyajit Ray's GHARE-BAIRE: This film could have been Ray's second victory of the Palme d'Or. Another film lost on the face of DVD, which only makes another excellent Certerion consideration.

2. Mrinal Sen's BAISHEY SHRAVANA: This would be another excellent Criterion choice. It's the film that gave Sen his reputable name as a great filmmaker.

3. Mrinal Sen's KHANDHAR: Yet another possible consideration.

Ok Here I go on a big winding post (again !). Sorry for those who get irritated with my long post(s), the subject of Indian cinema is very near and dear to me and I love talking about it all the time.I know my post is going to deviate little bit from what DVD collector originally intended it to be, but I had to pour out my thoughts on this at a slightly bigger level, sorry about that.

There is probably nothing that is going to make me more happy than criterion selecting some of the gems from Indian cinema. India is very very unique in that we have more than one thriving film centers ( Bombay, Madras, Hydreabad, Bengal, Kerla etc..). I hope Criterion realizes this and include films from other languages also .

As I see it, Indian cinema follows three different paths to entertain and inform its audience.

1) Pure Bollywood ( and all its regional subsidiaries ) – If criterion makes a conscious decision to “look” at Indian cinema , then there is no way it can look over “traditional” bollywood. With more than 2 billion fans around the world – bollywood represents the epitomy of escapist cinema and there is nothing wrong in showcasing it in their collection ( esp. if they can justify Armageddon and Rock ). From what I can see they have will have to include

Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayange - I don’t see too many of these films , but I have to say when this film opened in India everyone across all caste/creed/religion wanted to join Sharuk and Kajol on their train journey across Europe. “Unity in diversity” was given a new name. If this is not the “power of cinema”, I don’t know what is.

Amar-Akbar-Anthony ( its been long time I saw this , but for some reason I had a very unique feeling when I saw this one )
Sholay
Mughal-e-Azam

<fill-in-other-such-popular-titles-including-other-languages>

Criterion Must not ignore this group, it is essential if they want to have a representative “Indian” collection

2) Socially conscious popular bollywood – This is a category where film makers make “personal” films. They paint on the canvas not “what” they see but “how” they see it. This is probably one of my favorite genre of Indian films. I could easily see

Pyaasa
Khakeez Ke Phool
Shaeb Bibi Au Ghulam
Bandini
Do Bigha Zameen
Madhumati
Sujata
Chandini Bar
Satya
Bombay
< - Include-other-such-titles - >

No surprises that I am a Guru Dutt/Bimal Roy fan ! . there is a quite a bit of rumor going around cyberspace that we will see a Guru Dutt Boxset from criterion ( I will post the source when I see it again)

Regional films ( sorry my knowledge stops at the boundaries of Tamil filmdom ) –

Arangetram
Avargal
Apoorva Ragangal
Thaneer Thaneer
16 Vayathinilye
Nayagan
Mouna Ragam
Veedu ( soon..)

<add-other-Language-films>


3) Parallel Cinema ( most often seen from either Bengal and Kerla) : This is THE Genre of films that I love the most. Unfortunately I have not seen many Indian art films. In-fact it hurts to see that I have seen more art films from other countries than from a country I was born in ! . I read about them all the time , but my efforts to see them have failed miserably . I know about most of the major players in this genre, but alas not their films. Not even Satyajit Ray’s DEVI ( sorry DVDcollector – I simply have not across a good viewable print yet ). That said, There has been rumor that we will be seeing more of Satyajit Ray form Artificial Eye (see coming soon) .

http://www.artificial-eye.com/dvd/ART230dvd/dir.html

There are just too many titles to list and the following link has a very good list that I would love to see/own.

http://www.chaosmag.net/indian_cinema_database.html

I would like to see more Satyajit Ray, Ritwik Ghatak ( Musafir please – it is believed that this was the first Indian parallel cinema , done at least a year before Pather Panchali and satyajit ray acknowledged this in an interview) , anything/everything from Mirnal Sen and Adoor Gopalakrishan.

If they could do one film then I want it to be Jalsaghar (a must ! ) - Columbia Tri-Star owns all rights of Satyajit ray films in North America and their relationship with criterion is “confusing”. Look at how tough it is to get the Bottle Rocket Criterion DVD yet criterion licenses their Holy Grail Commentary track to them. It is essential for criterion to get these rights from Columbia if we ever want to see DEVI on a stellar DVD

I own the Region 2 release of Jalsaghar, it is “watch-able” but I wish I could get more .
http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film/Reviews/jalsaghar.htm

As you can see Indian films could easily fill up the criterion collection and I would love to see that happen.

Forgot to include Adi Shankaracharya ( http://dvdunlimitedonline.com/shop/prod ... cts_id=670 ) - its in Sanskrit ( only sanskrit film ever ?)

This is a wonderful movie ( lets just say I am spiritually inquisitive ) and I enjoyed it completely. The movie is as “slow, mature, deep, confusing, surreal and rich” as Hinduism.

Thumps up for the movie, Thumbs down for the DVD.

I would like to see a state of art, remastered criterion edition with remastered sound of PAKEEZAH!

The quality they could bring...

http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film/DVDReview ... _river.htm

Ali

Looking forward to seeing the river ( its on order, should be getting it soon ). Renoir is one of my fav old-school french directors. did you know he "mentored" Satyajit ray on Pather Panchali - great stuff

http://www.bfi.org.uk/showing/nft/inter ... enoir.html

ali yaar, I know it does not look like a good remaster, like NBNW or CASA BLANCA but still will be better than current SHEMAROO or CLASSIC EDITION WITH VINTAGE LOOK by YRF or CRAPPY SHIT by EROS!

dvdisoil,

If you are interested in parallel cimena, you could check out Vanaprastham. It was screened at Cannes, and is available as an R1 DVD.

http://www.chaosmag.net/shaji.html


What I'd really like would have been Shaji's first film, Piravi (Birth), Adoor's Mathilukal (Walls) (for which Mammootty won his first National Award in '89), and the great writer MT Vasudevan Nair's two films - Nirmalyam and Oru Cheru Punchiri (A Little Smile).

Here's more info on Piravi:
http://www.upperstall.com/films/piravi.html

Its important to remember that many Malayalam films of the 80's and early 90's came very close to achieving a perfect blend of artistic and commercial values. Movies like Oru Vadakkan Veeragatha (A Northen Ballad), Kireedam (The Crown), Vaishali, Perunthachan, Panchagni (The Five Fires) etc. were commercial blockbusters the same time they were collecting awards at the national and international levels. Unfortunately, none of these are avaialable in DVD format.

Regards, Chaver.

Thanks, I already own the R1 release and I completely enjoyed it. In fact it was my first introduction to Mohan Lal (Wonderful subtle actor). Emotionally the film is so much like a Bresson film - stripped of everything cinematic and just portray the bare minimum. Add to that the breath-taking cinematography. Kerla, its people and its culture were beautifully portrayed.

Thumps up for the film

Is Piravi avalable on DVD ?

For those intersted here is Mirnal Sen's offical homepage
http://mrinalsen.org/

who has the catalog for 2005 from kino Video, There is unconfirmed info that Kino will be releasing Satyajit Ray's Chess Player in Winter 2005 .

Can anyone confirm this ?


http://www.criterionforum.org/forum/vie ... r&start=25

I hope its not PAL sourced. Knowing Kino it probably will be.

Guru Dutt, Bimal Roy, Raj Kapoor films....

some new releases guys…

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B00005JLEJ/ref=ase_imdb-adbox/103-0980776-8069447?v=glance&s=dvd

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B0007989YS/ref=ase_imdb-adbox/103-0980776-8069447?v=glance&s=dvd

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B0006Z2NE0/ref=ase_imdb-adbox/103-0980776-8069447?v=glance&s=dvd


though I am glad they are continuing to add to their kurosawa collection, ‘kagemusha’ is one I particularly did not like

though at least we got ‘sword of doom’.. nakadai is always great!!

and I haven’t seen ‘night and the city’, nor am I fan of widmark, but if it is anything like dassin’s ‘rififi’ (though I doubt it) then it should be worth checking out

as for my wish list…

I would love to see park’s ‘oldboy’ and kurosawa’s ‘drunken angel’ get the criterion treatment

as for hindi films, I would want…

benegal's ‘kalyug’ & ‘junoon’

and gulzar’s ‘mausam’

Old Boy has what looks likes like a pretty good SE DVD:

http://www.discountanimedvd.com/detail.asp?dvdno=15112
http://www.discountanimedvd.com/detail.asp?dvdno=15110

Super Expensive Limited Ultimate Edition

ya the first one is what I got, but I am thinking maybe I should have just waited for the Ultimate Edition…

‘100% Handmade Copper case’

not only does it have some great extras, but it can also be used as a weapon

but I just hope that ‘oldboy’ and ‘drunken angel’ get their north american releases before the remakes come out.. just like infernal affairs

maybe criterion could wait until ‘lady vengeance’ comes out and then release the whole vengeance trilogy together in a box set.. like the samurai trilogy or samurai classics box sets

though the ‘sympathy…’ dvd that is out is not bad either