Manthan is an extraordinarily powerful and intense depiction of social change. As it has been 15 years since I've seen this film, my recollection of details may not be completely accurate; but the story tells the struggle of Indian dairy farmers to gain a fairer share of the proceeds of their labor from the larger milk-processing companies to whom they sell their raw milk. While my recollection of factual details about this movie is limited, I do recall vividly the strong emotional and artistic impact Manthan had on me. It should be noted that director Benegal also made Ankur (The Seedling) which, with a completely different story, also incarnates the painful social changes India is undergoing as it moves from a more to a less feudal social structure -- and in both movies dealing with these themes without preachiness or pronounced ideological heavyhandedness.
Reviews
2 Reviews
Land of Silence and Darkness
(1971)
An exhilarating answer to the question, Who is my brother?
27 December 1999
Herzog's documentary is a stunning revelation of what it means to be human. When we first see the profoundly disabled people on the screen, we shy away from them, disturbed to consider that these creatures might be people like ourselves. But through the love of the woman whose work Herzog captures here, we discover them as precisely what they -- and we -- are: human brothers and sisters endowed by God with both the need for love and an unimpaired (despite physical handicaps) capacity to love. Watching this movie some 20 years ago, I found this remarkable film one of the most exhilarating cinematic experiences of my life (and I'm now 55 and a veteran of many, many movies, and this film retains its wondrous place in my memory), a testament to the unity of the universal human family told with the artist's -- Herzog's -- aesthetic objectivity, yet clearly giving voice to a passionate embrace and advocacy of life, no matter how physically disabled.
Tell Your Friends