Radha gets married to farmer Shamu. With time, they get four kids, but Shamu's loan from Sukhilala, a money shark, leaves them with a permanently bad contract that demands that Sukhilala takes 3/4 of their harvest each year. In order to survive, the couple decides to expand their farm, yet while trying to remove a giant rock from the land, it falls on Shamu's arms, which thus have to be amputated. As a disabled man, Shamu one night leaves the farm from shame and disappears. A flood destroys the village, causing a famine, two of Radha's kids die, but she decides to stay and rebuild the farm. As grown ups, their two sons, Birju and Ramu, are very different. When after numerous teasing of the girls one of them provokes Birju, he goes mad and attacks Sukhilala for his exploitation of their farm. Birju flees and returns with a gang of bandits to kill Sukhilala and kidnap his daughter Rupa during her wedding. Radha shoots Birju because she wanted to save Rupa.
Even though it is considered one of the most recognizable and famous Hindi films of the century, "Mother India" is an overrated soap opera whose three hours of running time brought it closer to boredom than to an epic. Just like the family's farm is exploited by a loan shark, the whole movie uses their suffering to exploit it to almost intolerable, exaggerated proportions, without almost any sense for subtlety, ingenuity or creativity in cinematic language. Its more complex themes cover abuses in lending and usury, delivering at least some thought-provoking ideas, such as when it is implied that Birju became grumpy and aggressive as a kid due to this poverty, and that this translated into his violent nature as a grown up, which ultimately made full circle when he takes revenge against the loan shark of the village. However, this can only go so far as an excuse, since Birju is a very unsympathetic, irritating character, and thus the audience in the end cheers more that he should get killed than the loan shark.
Actress Nargis is another virtue, giving a strong, dedicated performance as the allegorical mother who sacrifices herself completely for her children: the iconic sequence of her holding a plow and dragging it across the field is almost reminiscent of Jesus holding a cross, indicating at the symbolic burden that every person has to endure in his or her life. She even says: "It is easy to contemplate suffering when you are sitting at the throne". Moments illustrating her rural life include Radha sneezing while trying to pick up the spilled chili powder or holding her kids and possessions in the house on a wooden suspension, even though the water is up to her neck due to a flood, while a snake swims towards them, searching for a dry place from the water. Unfortunately, the majority of the story is banal, grey and one-dimensional, especially during the heavily syrupy moments in which the brute Birju just gets worse and worse, while his mother just loves him more and more: this 'undue love' causes dramatic boredom. The musical sequences are unnecessary, most notably during the unintentionally comical moments of the mother singing when she and Birju are walking in the forest, after having fled from a mob in the forest. The only interesting moment is the surprising ending, i.e. Radha's determined action, yet the viewers first have to plow their way through a melodramatic story to get to that good part at last.
Grade:+
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