Flashback Why Amar Prem is one of Hindi cinema's
Flashback Why Amar Prem is one of Hindi cinema's most enduring classics As Amar Prem turns 50, we revisit Sharmila Tagore's stylised but supremely seductive performance that holds the mutating plot together. If I had to pick one Hindi film as my all-time favourite it would have to be Shakti Samanta's Amar Prem. From its opening montage of a young rustic girl watching her callous husband bring home another wife, to the dying moments when the woman, now in her twilight years, is taken away to the relative comfort of her foster son’s home as the festivities of Durga Puja break out on the streets of Kolkata… Amar Prem is a glorious homage to that favourite Bollywood archetype: the golden-hearted prostitute. That Sharmila Tagore plays the woman whom men of all ages gravitate to in pursuit of some life-changing nurturing is a very happy situation for the screenplay. In the film a 7-year old boy and a 30-plus man both desire the same kind of emotional attention from her. This pros