A] [B] [C] [D] [E] [F] [G] [H] [I] [J] [K] [L] [M] [N] [O] [P] [Q] [R] [S] [T] [U] [V] [W] [XYZ
  Bigree Naslain (1983)
Starring: Mohammad Ali, Rani, Shahid, Bahar, Aslam Parvez, Saqi
Director: Mohd Tariq
Synopsis:
amazing slice of feminism with Bahar as Lollywood's own Mrs. Robinson
Reviewed by: Omar Khan
Seen this movie?
So what did You think of it?
What did you think?





E mail us your comments
 


.

The film opens with Bahar and her clubbing friends celebrating at their local den of debauchery when she receives a telegram from home with shocking news that delights her. Hina (Bahar) who has changed her name to the far more stylish and society friendly Honey, learns that her father has suffered a third heart attack. The news sends her into throes of delight as she foresees a life of untold luxury ahead of her once her old man kicks the bucket and it doesn't look as though it will be too long now. Barely able to hide her excitement Honey leaves her friends Mr. Billion (desi name: Khudabaksh) and boyfriend Goofy to make sure she is at home to receive her millions once the old fogy keels over.

Once at home Bahar chides the servants for treating her like a Burqa clad old lady. She lets fly a volley of abuse at the lot of them and accuses them of sponging off her fathers' wealth. When she refuses to even look in on her ailing father claiming an allergy to sick and old fashioned people, the old man literally crawls over to her room to say hello only to find Honey injecting herself with a whopping great load of grade "A" smack! When the old man confronts her, she lets him have it, leaving him squirming on the floor having suffered another massive heart attack. Instead of helping or calling for help Honey simply watches her father writhe in agony hoping it won't be long before she is counting her millions.

After the old man's death Honey refuses to partake in any of the funeral rites choosing to lounge around the house in her revealing nightclothes guzzling copious amounts of whiskey straight from the bottle. One by one the loyal servants are fired and the house is turned into a den of heathen westernized debauchery, bereft of any shred of morality or ethics. Honey refuses to grow old insisting age is nothing but a number and years later she is busy trying to pick up her teen age daughters class mates as her latest sex object. All this has come about due to her fathers' short sighted insistence that his daughter be sent to the finest schools of Europe for a "western education." - a certain, tried and tested, time honoured recipe for disaster. Bahar even taunted her father before he died reminding him that the day he sent her to Europe was the day he lost he forever and now he was to pay for his folly…it was only natural.

After waking up with a particularly bad hangover and throwing out some family mourners, Bahar attacks her fathers most loyal and trusted aide (Saqi) who in turn accuses her of murdering her father. She proceeds to attack him with a metallic vase and shows him the door. When Saqi is chucked out his family members namely Mohammad Ali decides to take on the rampaging Honey and approach her for justice. Meanwhile Honey is in a foul mood having been informed by her lawyer that she has to be married in order to receive the millions promised in her fathers will. When Mohammad Ali confronts Bahar at home he is astonished when she proposes to him (in order to get at the loot) and he accepts keeping in mind his family's enormous financial hardships.

Mohammad Ali's family is horrified at the wife he has chosen and they become estranged from him and Honey. A year passes and Mohammad Ali is busy handling Honey's massive business interests but one day he overhears her talking about her sexually liberated lifestyle to her ex-boyfriend and Mohammad Ali guns the fellow down in a murderous rage! Now Ali is behind bars and Honey is free to enjoy her inheritance on her own though she has a daughter as a minor inconvenience. Honey hides the fact that Rani is her daughter introducing her to people as her younger sister as she prowls teenage parties like a predator looking for its piece of meat. A sexually liberated older woman who is a pure hedonist and doesn't give a damn about convention or customs or morality…a sort of desi version of Mrs. Robinson - Evil personified in the context of South Asian morality.

Daughter Rani follows in mother Honey's debauched westernized footsteps - a pill popping heathen with the loosest of morals if any at all. Fellow student (and estranged cousin) Shahid finds LSD capsules in Rani's books and accuses her of being hooked on deadly "rockets" as the drug is known in local parlance. Little does Shahid know that LSD is a mere appetiser for her diet of heavy duty drugs in which an oversized syringe of heroin is the main course. Fantastic events unfold ; murder, rape, drugs, incest, electric shock therapy amongst them. Sister Honey is forced to go underground with a posse of her henchmen. Though Rani is a chip off the old block (habitual LSD user and Dope Fiend) she is deeply affected by a moralizing lecture delivered by Shahid in his tight bell bottom trousers, chest revealing stylish designer shirt and fabulous lamb chop side burns that even Elvis would have envied. Shahid wows her with his anti western diatribe and Rani becomes a saintly Taliban devotee overnight having seen the light.

Meanwhile Sister Honey sells her daughter Rani to her friend Mr. Billion for ten Lakhs much to the daughters horror - but she is rescued from the fiends clutches by goody-two-shoes Shahid who saves the day but only momentarily as Rani is now enslaved by her drug addiction and Mr. Billion has a massive supply of heroin by which he aims to control not only Rani but also Honey and her drug crazed goon squad. In a chilling climax, good manages to prevail over evil and the message is driven home in no uncertain terms that anything and everything western or modern is utterly evil and will bring doom and destruction of the worst kind on those fools who embrace such a heathen lifestyle. Bigree Naslain is a huge classic of fanatical bashing of everything western; morals, lifestyle, eduction - an outright damning of the entire western civilization! .

The film which sadly flopped in a dismal manner is dominated by Bahar as the evil Mrs. Robinson clone - an ageing ex siren who is now more of a hag who refuses to let go of her youth. A woman strong enough to stand up in a man dominated world and demand equal rights and her right to be a sexual predator at the age of 50 like almost all men of that age. How many 50 year old women do we see marrying 18 year old boys in our society yet it is very common to see girls of 15 being forced to marry doddering old men more than five times their age. Nonetheless, there is no room for a woman as aggressive, as independent minded, as sexually liberated and as the woman Honey is portrayed as. Funnily enough…if Sister Honey had been a man, her behaviour would be totally normal and quite acceptable. Yet fact is she is a woman and for them equality is a distant dream - on film as well as in reality. Bigree Naslain is a not-to-be-missed socio-drama with a totally deranged message prescribing the most asinine kind of nationalism.


list of all the "desi" reviews
A] B] [C] [D] [E] [F] [G] [H] [I] [J] [K] [L] [M] [N] [O] [P] [Q] [R] [S] [T] [U] [V] [W] XYZ
The LOLLYWOOD section