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It is a deeply moving, crisply logical (even as the peppers dried in the sun would be), beautifully thought out film. The range of Son Bai's character from the early playfulness, the innocent chanchalta of a happy, hard working village wife, the tender moments with her husband, her loneliness when the husband is gone to his job in the railways, and her fiercely effective rage towards her greedy attacker: the Subedar. Yet, there is no Mother India like (a film alluded to, in a complimentary way, throughout parts of the film's plot line) high drama in her rage; it is very authentic, sincere, not filmy, and the silent alliance between Abu Mian and Son Bai, their clear understanding of what is at stake is depicted powerfully -- with very few spoken words, only Ketan Mehta's brilliant cinematography and Om Puri's and Smita's excellent chemistry. Others, including such stars as my most favorite Indian actress, Dina Pathak (whose mother roles are as profoundly moving as Daisy Irani's, though fewer, child roles), Deepti Naval, Supriya Pathak, and of course, Naseerudhin Shah (only he could have acted the Subedar in just that precise, perfect way to make all other elements of the film work so extremely well), also Ratna Pathak is very good, nearly everyone who acts in this film has done excellently well. One of the world's ten most important films, a timeless classic and firmly grounded in historical time.
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