The film lovers of the city would get a chance to watch Naseeruddin Shah and Shabana Azmi’s legendary movie ‘Sparsh’.
The 1980 Hindi feature film directed by Sai Paranjpye would be screened here on Sunday at Abhirang Auditorium under the weekly film screening organised by Chhavi series of classical cinema, Bharat Bhavan. Notably, the movie was screened earlier as well at Bharat Bhavan and received a huge response by the Bhopalites. Two shows were screened of it with both the shows having house-full shows.
It stars Naseeruddin Shah and Shabana Azmi playing the characters of a visually impaired principal and a sighted teacher in a school for the blind, where they fall in love though soon their complexes tag along and they struggle to get past them to reconnect with the "touch" of love. The film remains most memorable for the subtle acting of its leads, plus the handling of the issue of relationships with the visually handicapped, revealing the emotional and perception divide between the world, the "blind" and the "sighted", epitomized by the characters.
The film won the National Film Award for Best Feature Film in Hindi. The film won numerous awards including National Film Award - Best Actor for Naseeruddin Shah, while Sai Paranjpye got the Best Screenplay. At the Filmfare Awards, it won the top two: that of Best Movie and Filmfare Award - Best Director, plus a Best Dialogue Award for Sai Paranjpye.
Sparsh is a wonderfully made movie. The acting is one of the best made in many years. Most movies featuring physically challenged people end up in showing sympathy and depict what normal people can do for them. Anirudh Parmar is blind, but he does not let this impairment bind him down. He runs a school for the blind as a principal. He meets with social worker, Kavita. Kavita is attracted to him, and he slowly also gets attracted to her. When marriage is proposed, both agree to marry each other. Then Anirudh starts having doubts whether this marriage is going to succeed, as he feels he is being patronized, and pitied.