''Tarang'' (Hindi: तरंग "waves") English title ''Wages and Profits'', is a 1984 Indian Hindi-language
drama film
In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. Drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular super ...
written and directed by
Kumar Shahani. The film is Shahani's second feature film after his most famous work, ''
Maya Darpan
''Maya Darpan'' () is a 1972 Indian Hindi-language film directed by Kumar Shahani. It is a significant work of the Indian Parallel Cinema movement which started during the 1950s with filmmakers Satyajit Ray ,Mrinal Sen and Ritwik Ghatak. The fil ...
'', and took him more than 12 years to raise funding for. The movie is considered, along with Shahani's other features, to be a seminal work of India's
Parallel Cinema
Parallel cinema, or New Indian Cinema, is a film movement in Indian cinema that originated in the state of West Bengal in the 1950s as an alternative to the mainstream commercial Indian cinema.
Inspired by Italian Neorealism, Parallel Cinema ...
movement. The movie stars several big actors who were prominent in the Indian art cinema scene of the early 80's, including
Amol Palekar
Amol Palekar (born 24 November 1944) is an Indian actor, director and producer of Hindi and Marathi cinema.
Career
Palekar studied fine arts at the Sir JJ School of Arts, Mumbai, and commenced his artistic career as a painter. As a painter, he ...
,
Smita Patil,
Girish Karnad
Girish Karnad (19 May 1938 – 10 June 2019) was an Indian actor, film director, Kannada writer, playwright and a Jnanpith awardee, who predominantly worked in South Indian cinema and Bollywood. His rise as a playwright in the 1960s marked the ...
,
Om Puri, and
Shreeram Lagoo
Dr.Shriram Lagoo (16 November 1927 – 17 December 2019) was an Indian film and theatre actor, in Hindi and Marathi, in addition to being an ENT Surgeon. He was known for his character roles in films. He acted in over 250 films including Hind ...
.
Synopsis
Sethji (Shreeram Lagoo) is a widowed businessman who lives a comfortable life with his only daughter, Hansa, his son-in-law, Rahul (Amol Palekar), and a grandson, Munna. Rahul is Sethji's right-hand man, and his nephew Dinesh (Girish Karnad) is his assistant. Over time, petty rivalries and jealousies have grown in the family, and Sethji and Rahul feel that Dinesh is trying to undermine the business. They make a plan to get rid of him without attracting any attention to themselves and succeed, but the after-effects are not kind towards Sethji's health, which grows worse eventually leading to his untimely death. Shortly thereafter, Hansa also dies, leaving her husband Rahul to look after the business on his own. Things start to turn controversial once Rahul begins an affair with the maidservant Janki (Smita Patil), and it is soon revealed that Hansa's death may not have been a suicide, but was a cover-up. As the mysteries start to unfold, they leave a scarring emotional impact on Rahul, and test his relationship with his late wife's family and his new lover.
Music
Music is composed by
Vanraj Bhatia
Vanraj Bhatia (Hindi: वनराज भाटिया ; 31 May 1927 – 7 May 2021) was an Indian composer best known for his work in Indian New Wave cinema. He was also one of the leading composers of Western classical music in India.
Bha ...
with lyrics by Raghuveer Sahay.
*"Barse Ghan Saari Raat" -
Lata Mangeshkar
Lata Mangeshkar () (born as Hema Mangeshkar; 28 September 1929 – 06 February 2022) was an Indian playback singer and occasional music composer. She is widely considered to have been the greatest and most influential singers in India. Her con ...
*"Tarang Tarang" -
Asha Bhosle
Asha Bhosle (; Mangeshkar; born 8 September 1933) is an Indian playback singer, entrepreneur
and occasional actress and television personality who predominantly works in Indian Cinema. Known for her versatility, she has been described in th ...
Analysis and Criticism
Unlike ''Maya Darpan'', ''Tarang'' is considered to be uncharacteristically traditional and conventional for a Kumar Shahani film. Its storyline follows a typical arch, and the film also features several song sequences, considered normal for mainstream
Bollywood
Hindi cinema, popularly known as Bollywood and formerly as Bombay cinema, refers to the film industry based in Mumbai, engaged in production of motion pictures in Hindi language. The popular term Bollywood, is a portmanteau of "Bombay" (fo ...
films, but very abnormal for an independent parallel cinema film. In an interview on the film, Shahani stated his approach was to "take into account the way our traditions are surviving in popular art. Both folk and
popular art always have
epic elements. Even pulp literature is a distortion of the epic form."
''The Seventh Art'' film blog reviewed the film positively stating, "A staunch
Marxist, Shahani examines the
class struggle on multiple fronts: in the writing that nearly recites the
labour theory of value
The labor theory of value (LTV) is a theory of value that argues that the economic value of a good or service is determined by the total amount of " socially necessary labor" required to produce it.
The LTV is usually associated with Marxian ...
, in the densely layered soundtrack where various voices vie for power and the casting, where the star value of the actors is in conflict with the characters they play."
Film blog ''The Case for Global Film'', in a piece of Indian Parallel Cinema stated that "Kumar Shahni felt while making ''Tarang'', ''It is a pity that societies tend to make museum pieces of art when, in fact, the need for it is as natural and as instinctive in people as eating and drinking.'' That is probably why Tarang comes through to the discerning viewer as a moving experience, even if he is completely unaware of the intricacies of Shahani’s personal imagination."
See also
Parallel Cinema
Parallel cinema, or New Indian Cinema, is a film movement in Indian cinema that originated in the state of West Bengal in the 1950s as an alternative to the mainstream commercial Indian cinema.
Inspired by Italian Neorealism, Parallel Cinema ...
Maya Darpan
''Maya Darpan'' () is a 1972 Indian Hindi-language film directed by Kumar Shahani. It is a significant work of the Indian Parallel Cinema movement which started during the 1950s with filmmakers Satyajit Ray ,Mrinal Sen and Ritwik Ghatak. The fil ...
Kumar Shahani
External links
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Tarang (film)
1984 films
1984 drama films
Indian drama films
1980s Hindi-language films
Hindi-language drama films
Films scored by Vanraj Bhatia