Critics reviews

Guru Dutt is a tragic figure in Bollywood history, a tremendously talented actor and filmmaker who committed suicide at the age of 39. He was able to direct eight films before his passing, the most famous of which is Pyaasa (1957), an intensely moving melodrama about a struggling poet, Vijay (played by Dutt).

The film's subsequent tale of fame, mistaken identity, and class exploitation is one worthy of Dickens, but what really comes through is a portrait of a rapidly modernizing society obsessed with money, status, and power — and the lonely romantics who foolishly, heroically refuse to give in to it.

The wondrous Pyaasa, Dutt's masterpiece, is an exploration of the tragic idiom, unprecedented in Hindi cinema. A bleak view of materialistic post-Partition India, it concerns a homeless poet, suffering from his lover's betrayal and living on the streets of Calcutta—with his only friend being a young prostitute. The great S.D. Burman songs from the movie are still popular today.

The final third of this 1957 Indian musical is convoluted but also moving, as dramatic compositions heighten the narrative conflict between artistic idealism and an avaricious society. Unfortunately the print being shown lacks subtitles for the frequent musical numbers, which seem important to the story—some of them are settings of Vijay's poems.