Ankur = The Seedling

Benegal’s first feature, based on his own story, is a subtlely nuanced exploration of the interrelationship between power, ritual, sexuality and violence. The milieu of feudal society in South India is carefully established as the setting for the playing out of power relations in the liaison between the temporarily abandoned wife of a deaf-mute farmhand and the landlord’s son sent to manage the farm. For the son, sexual attraction is linked to the woman’s lack of social status. Yet he is initially restrained by his middle class fear of exposure. From a position of relative anonymity the woman develops a complex response to the son’s presumption.

Credits: Producers, Mohan J. Bijlani, Freni M. Variava ; director, writer, Shyam Benegal ; photography, Govind Nihalani ; music, Vanraj Bhatia.
Cast: Shabana Azmi, Sadhu Meher, Anant Nag, Priya Tendulkar.