The acting of each individual is praiseworthy. The Vedic recitation hasbeen captured well, and in these modern years, one of the mostdifficult jobs of bringing in age-old authenticity to the geography hasbeen achieved without doubt.

The movie brings an amazing calm with it and takes you at a differentlevel with each scene, also making you want to see more of GV Iyer’sworks. Sadly, he passed away before finishing his work on Ramayana.

2) DON'T MISS THIS MOVIE AT ANY COST. If you like classics, this would beat the top your list.

No words can describe the bliss you'd enjoy after watching this movie.This movie about Advaita and Sankara comes with a screenplay andcharacterization that is completely different from the run-of-the-millmovies and easy-to-swallow story lines. Interpretation is left to theviewer and whichever way viewer interprets, he/she ends up inunderstanding Advaita!

G V Iyer's idea of personifying Wisdom and Death as Sankara's friends,to me, is the best part of the film. It takes the viewer into a sublimeworld. The abstract Advaita explained the best way! Vedic Hyms, musicis excellent (Balamuralikrishna has done a good job).

A special mention for the locations. Amazing locales. Be it Narmada infull flow or the ascetic caves, G V Iyer has done a terrific groundworkto identify and use the perfect locales.

All actors lived with their characters. It is a music to ears whilelistening to dialogues in Samskrit.

Only sore point of the movie was the production quality. I wish thismovie is remade with better cinematography, cameraman. Pity and shamethat there was no big financial support in 1983 for this first everSamskrit movie. And you don't get the DVD for this movie in India. Itis only available in US market. Why?

3) Adi Shankaracharya is well known not only in India but the rest of theworld. He lived around 1100 years ago and has worked greatly for thebenefit of Hindu society. His life is pure and beyond question. He isan inspiration to all human beings.

G.V.Iyer has captured the mood of the times of Adi Shankara so wellthat we feel that we are leaving in a bygone era while watching themovie. It is taken as an art movie more than a commercial movie and isa treat to watch. Selection of actors is also good, also the locationsand the narration. The language and the scenes in the movie depict thetimes and is not influenced by the present condition. Also there is noexaggeration which is attempted in the movie. G.V.Iyer has also takenmovies like Madhvacharya, Ramanujacharya, Bhagavad Gita, Shantala,Swami Vivekananda, Hamsa Geethe to name a few. All the movies aresimple, but the message and mood is definitely out of the worldexperience. Hope our new trend of directors will imbibe from the likesof G.V.Iyer which I feel is a real tribute to the master.

4) I am thankful to the director for making this movie. The idea ofdepicting Death as a young companion of Adi Shankara is just brilliant.It also gives us a glimpse of times past and the glory and heroism ofAdi Shankara's mission. The only complaint I have is the low-budgetnature of the project. The reason must be that the movie was notcommercially funded and lacked the financial resources of a big-budgetproduction, but that may be for the better since the director did nothave to bow to commercial compulsions in making the movie. A granderproduction of the same movie in regional languages is long overduegiven Adi Shankara's instrumental role in reconciling Buddhistphilosophy with Vedic Philosophy and singlehandedly revitalizing Dharmain India.

An association wants to help ugly people,although their means aredownright questionable: gathering them all in an immense property wherethey will live far from the laughing crowds.Some "customers" arealready knocking on the office door ,for they are sick and tired ofhearing other people laugh at them:they want a place in the so-calledShangri -La .Enter Adhémar (Fernandel) who registers the samedesire.But the members are not convinced and the "candidate " begins totell the story of his life.

Then begins a long flashback which seems more like a series of sketches,it's a screenplay that lacks consistency.Every time Ahémar fails,afriend from his army days(Andrex) comes to the rescue and finds him anew job.The best moments are to be found in the first part: thefuneral,and mainly the "tragedy":Adhémar becomes a prompter in atheater and it's much fun to watch him and the actors parodying Racineand particularly "Andromaque" (it's a spoof on the first scene whenOreste meets again his old friend Pylade).

But all in all ,it's a false good idea.It's not pleasant to be "ugly",and the desirable mansion where those people are to live makes onethink of a luxury concentration camp.The subject had to be treated withcare ,and it's finally a disappointment.

2) Widower Barrister Shukla lives a wealthy lifestyle in Bombay along with his daughter, Rekha. His sister, Subadra, and her husband passed away in an automobile accident, and he undertook to look after their son, Shyam, who runs the family business along with his paternal cousin, Rajan. Shyam meets with Radha, both fall in love with each other and get intimate. His uncle wants him to visit Shivcharan Sharma and meet his daughter. Shyam does so, and the door is opened by none other than Radha herself, so Shyam thinks it’s destiny that’s uniting the two lovers, and informs his uncle that he approves of Sharma’s daughter. He then travels abroad, returns home after several months, goes to meet with Radha and that’s when he finds out that Radha was really a prostitute, having multiple affairs, worked as a servant with the Sharmas, and the girl he was supposed to marry is Meera. He changes his mind about Radha, and gets married to Meera. On the very first night Meera informs him that she is a mother of a baby, Shyam gets repulsed and decides to stay away from his bride. Matters get even more muddier after Radha re-enters his life, and Rajan informs the family that he was Meera’s lover and the biological father of the baby.

Story

A simple device – off voice narrated story, this is assumed from thebeginning of the film, we don't know until very close to the end thatit is the boy, the off voice, who is generating the plot as the picturemoves along. The second part is the unveiling of everything. Reveilingall the inspiration sources, it shows how inspiration can come, in themost innocent and open of minds, the one of a child.

"once upon a time there was a son who wanted to have a father whowanted to have a son". This quite sums it… this is story folding ofterrific quality

Camera work

This is one of the most intelligent and subtle camera works i haveobserved lately. Ultimately, one can almost consider it as thecomplement of dialogue, the descriptions we don't get through dialoguenor off voice narration so, the camera is the boy's imagination.Subtlety is its trade mark. Sublime work, completely adequate in everymoment, in every intention.

Photography

Impressively good. It's very hard to find this kind of precision ofcontrasts and this understanding/interpretation of the light of acinema set (though on real location, it was temporarily a cinema set),even in richer productions. This is a painter's work, the baroquepainters, specially Rembrandt, worked light on the same basis. Onceagain i am astounded.

Music

In a time when Delfins were a band worth listening, though not knownoutside Portugal (foreigners loose), the soundtrack is made of acatchy, ear friendly tune and a necessary number of simple, almostminimalistic pop-rock instrumental themes. Solid work, maybe notreaching the quality of photography and camera in terms of adequacy tothe moments, but good anyway.

The film is a fable of miscommunication and empty relation, redeemed bythe dream of the one who hasn't been corrupted yet. It's a story ofemotional heartbreak, not developed feelings; ultimately the occidentalcontemporary cancer which is the disproportion between the daily lifevalue of relations and money. Too me, more important than understandingthe mental mechanics behind every story folding trick, camera work,etc. is the capacity of feeling invaded and (more or less) identifywith the thing. That will probably tell something about you.

My evaluation: 4/5 (almost getting to 5)

2) Imam Hasan, his wife Hacer and his daughter Fatma arrive at Karaaa

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