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'''Holi'''


aka Festival of Fire
1983 116’(120’) col Hindi
d/co-sc/co-lyr Ketan Mehta pc Film Unit, Neo
Film Associates st/co-sc/co-dial Mahesh
Elkunchwar based on his play
co-dial/co-lyr Hriday Lani c Jehangir
Choudhury m Rajat Dholakia
lp Sanjeev Gandhi, Manoj Pandya, Rahul
Ranade, Ashutosh Gowarikar, Amole Gupte,
Om Puri, Naseeruddin Shah, Deepti Naval,
Shriram Lagoo, Aamir Khan, Mohan Gokhale


Mehta’s first Hindi film addresses the increasing
lumpenisation of university students featuring
scenes of victimisation reminiscent of Volker
Schloendorff’s Der junge Toerless (1966).
Forced to attend a lecture on India’s cultural
heritage while on holiday, the boys rebel. The
violence gradually escalates into a major battle
with the authorities as the colourful and
anarchistic pre-Vedic spring festival, Holi, turns
into a menacing festival of fire with burning
school furniture. The college principal induces
a boy to denounce the leaders of the rebellion.
The informer is publicly humiliated and is
forced to commit suicide. Mehta decided to
shoot almost all the scenes in sequence shots,
often using a crab-dolly or a steadycam, and
using synch sound rather than playback or
post-synched sound (in spite of the
complicated songs and the musical
accompaniment). The film’s enthusiastic and
hallucinatory participation in student violence
(of which it is supposedly critical) allows it to
move away from its original political thrust,
conveying existential despair instead. The film
enjoyed a cult audience in New Delhi for a
short period.

[[Film]]