Under the weekly film screenings at Bharat Bhavan, a Hindi movie ‘Ek Ruka Hua Faisla’ was screened here on Sunday at Abhirang Auditorium. But, no crowd was noticed at the hall as compared to earlier shows.
Directed by Basu Chatterjee, Ek Ruka Hua Faisla is a remake of the Golden Bear winning, American motion picture ‘12 Angry Men’ of year 1957, which was directed by Sidney lumet, the film in turn was an adapted from a teleplay of the same name by Reginald Rose.
Released in the year 1986, the movie casts Annu Kapoor, Pankaj Kapoor, Hemant Mishra, KK Raina, MK Raina and Amitabh Shrivastava. The movie surrounds the story of one dissenting juror in a murder trial tries to influence the verdict with his personal prejudices and biases.
The story begins in a courtroom where a teenage boy from a city slum is on trial for stabbing his father to death. Final closing arguments are presented and the judge then instructs the jury to decide whether the boy is guilty of murder. The judge further informs them that a guilty verdict will be accompanied by a mandatory death sentence. The twelve-man jury retires to a private room, where they spend a short while getting acquainted before they begin deliberating. It is immediately apparent that the jury has already decided that the boy is guilty, and that they plan to return their verdict quickly with the sole exception of Juror Number 8 KK Raina.
He explains that there is too much at stake for him to go along with the verdict. His vote annoys the other jurors. The rest of the film centers the jury's difficulty in reaching a unanimous verdict. While several of the jurors harbor personal prejudices, Juror 8 maintains that the boy deserves a fair deliberation.
Though film screenings at Bharat Bhavan is a weekly event organised every Sunday under Chhavi series of classical cinema, but due to the scorching heat the movie-goers are not visiting the regular shows. On asking about the matter, in-charge of the Chhavi series said, “As the film shows begin from 12 noon and due to the summers people tend not to attend the screening. But as far as classical cinema is concerned people love to visit the multi-art centre to watch the movies of different genres.”