Joined: Wed Sep 04, 2002 1:01 am
Posts: 234
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Just received the DVD of 'Anupama' this evening from IW. Great Cover, by the way. I own only one Baba DVD ("Abhimaan") so I kind of knew what I was getting into, but I was pleasantly surprised to find that this picture was a black and white movie. Kind of strange, considering that this came much after 'Kashmir ki Kali', a full color film, which was Sharmila's first movie in Hindi.
In any case, here is a short review :
ANUPAMA (Dharmendra, Sharmila Tagore)
Released By Baba Digital, New York, USA
Video :
In what can only be called typical Baba, the transfer is an obvious VHS to DVD conversion, complete with tracking marks, lines, and blurry imagery here and there. Bit rate is very low, ranging from 2.5 to 4.5. The sound is in mono, including the songs. Subtitles are hard to read, in a never before seen font style, they are not present on songs. Even 'Abhimaan' by Baba had more positives. However, even though the idea of a VHS to DVD transfer is pathetic to begin with, there is some degree of sharpness throughout, and the movie is just so good that pretty soon you stop worrying about the print. It helps that this is a black and white movie by the way, because there are no problems with color! The songs are encoded with a higher bitrate as well. There were no skipping problems. I am glad that there is some version of this Hrishikesh classic available. I have seen this film so many times throughout my life and it gets better with each viewing.
Audio:
The sound is in mono, but this is not as bad as it sounds. The songs all sounded great, though there was a slight sound drop-off at the beginning of the song 'Kuch dil ne kaha'.
Special Features:
Subtitles are the only real feature related to the movie. There is also a 30 minute segment featuring clips from all of Baba's new releases, and this was actually quite interesting. They covered about 40-50 movies here with clips from all of them.
Final Impressions:
This movie has been much awaited on DVD, and is one of Hrishikesh Mukherjee's finest. I personally rank it as his best film ever. With such a serious recommendation behind it, I would easily suggest this as a purchase for your DVD collection. This DVD could have been so much better in the hands of DEI for instance, but Baba has done a reasonably acceptable job. The main point of relief is that the 'Baba' Logo does not appear anywhere on the movie while it plays! I must stress that the quality of video, even though from VHS, is easily better than any of the Raj Kapoor collection DVDs such as 'Aah' and 'Awara'.
Film rating : 10/10.
DVD Rating : 7/10
Edited By Kabir on 1040174908
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