Andha Naal (That Day, 1954) review: Although Iâm an aficionado of international films, Iâll confess I am relatively unfamiliar with Indian cinema. [Actually, âIndian cinemaâ is something of a misnomer, since there are multiple film industries producing films in different regions/languages.  âBollywoodâ refers to Hindi-language cinema produced in Mumbai, whereas Andha Naal is a product of the Tamil-language film industry based in Chennai.] I believe this is chiefly a matter of access rather than disinterest: I did (quite unusually for me) actually purchase a DVD of Rangoon (2017), whose leading character is loosely based on the cult actress âFearless Nadiaâ of 1930s-40s Bollywood fame.  Recently, while doing a bit of research on Rashomon for my film course, I stumbled across a reference to Andha Naal, indicating its director was inspired by the Kurosawa picture in some ways.  Coincidentally, both Rangoon and Andha Naal are set during the Second World War and (to a greater or lesser degree) involve Japanâs attempt to foment Indian nationalist sentiment as a way of damaging Great Britainâs war effort.
  Andha Naal takes place in 1943 in Chennai (formerly Madras), a city in Tamil Nadu state on Indiaâs southeastern coast.  Radio engineer Rajan is discovered in his house, shot to death.  An open suitcase, containing clothes and large quantities of cash, is nearby.  Police inspector Naidu and C.I.D. investigator Sivanandam respond.  Rajan lived with his wife Usha, his younger brother Pattabi, Pattabiâs wife Hema, and the latter coupleâs young son.  The crime was reported by Chennaia, a wealthy businessman who lives next door and heard the shot.
  Chennaia tells the police he overheard Rajan and Pattabi arguing over money: Rajan refused to turn over his brotherâs share of their family inheritance, and Pattabi angrily says this emasculates him.  Chennaia imagines a scene in which Pattabi confronted Rajan and shot him to death. When interrogated, Pattabi denies his guilt.  He admits his wife urged him to claim his share of the inheritance, and tells Naidu and Sivanandam that Hema has a short temper.  He imagines that Hema could have shot Rajan in anger. When questioned, Hema pleads innocence, and suggests Rajan was murdered by his mistress, dancer Ambujam.  In Hemaâs imagined murder scene, the pregnant Ambujam is rejected by Rajan and kills him as a result.  Ambujam, when apprehended, points the finger of guilt at Chennaia: she was his mistress before she left him for Rajan, and in her recreation of the crime, it is the jealous Chennaia who shoots Rajan.
   Naidu and Sivanandam do not closely interrogate Rajanâs widow Usha, who is obviously very distraught.  Usha tells them the first time she met Rajan was when they were both university students. At a student meeting, agitators were calling for a strike to protest the detention of pro-independence Congress Party members (such as Gandhi) by the British authorities.  Rajan accuses the outside agitators of stirring up the students for their own financial gain, and he says going on strike will achieve nothing: students should get an education and then work for a strong, independent India. However Usha, one of the small group of women students at the meeting, rejects Rajanâs argument, accusing him of lacking patriotism.  Rajan later visits Ushaâs father to ask for financial support in a program to provide radios to poor people in India (so they can become educated); Usha and Rajan meet again, fall in love, and marry.
  Sivanandam gathers the fingerprints of the suspects, and compares them with prints on Rajanâs shoesâafter he was shot, someone knelt and held his feet.  Usha, Chennaia, Ambujam, Pattabi, and Hema are brought to Rajanâs house that evening by Naidu.  Sivanandam gives each of them a pistolâloaded with blanksâand orders them to imagine he is Rajan and shoot.  Everyone complies except Usha.  Sivanandam has Hema and Pattabi placed under arrest for murder, which compels Usha to confess to the crime.
   Usha explains the events that led to Rajanâs death (flashback).  She overheard him communicating with Japan via radio, coordinating an air raid on Chennai that evening.  Afterwards, he is to survey the damage, then meet a Japanese submarine off the coast and travel to Japan (which he had previously visited). Usha accuses him of betraying his country but Rajan says India never did anything for him, citing the rejection of the radio scheme that would have made him rich and famous.  He thinks he might be âGovernor Rajanâ or âLord Rajanâ after Japan wins the war and India is free of British rule.  To this, Usha replies that India doesnât need the aid of a foreign power to win its independenceâit will become free of its own volition and through its own merits.  When Rajan shows her a map of cities and facilities (like dams) to be bombed by Japan, Usha protests that millions could die of illness and famineââIndia has a surplus population,â Rajan callously tells her, and killing some millions is justified.  With this, Usha seizes his pistol, determined to prevent Rajan from leaving. There is a struggle, and Rajan is shot to death. Â
  Sivanandam knew Usha was guilty because her fingerprints were on Rajanâs shoes (in her flashback, we see her fall to her knees and touch them) but he ordered Pattabi and Hemaâs false arrest to force her to confess.  However, before Usha can be taken into custody, she goes into another room and commits suicide (off-screen: a shot is heard).
  Andha naal is about 130 minutes longâactually rather short for an Indian filmâand its lack of musical numbers (âwithout a dance or a songâ) was advertised to suggest that the film was both a novelty and a serious work.  Aside from a few extraneous sequences, itâs paced well. One curious aspect of the film is the presence of a number of brief appearances by characters who perform some âeccentricâ business that interrupts the narrative flow.  These include the two âagitatorsâ at the student meeting, a shopkeeper who sells Sivanandam a drink, a cart driver whoâs taking Ambujam out of town until he collides with a man on a bicycle (the bicyclist is also given a lot of screen time)âeach of these characters has a couple of minutes to basically do a monologue showcasing their acting.  These inserted bits of awkward comic relief are often amusing but really seem out of place.
  The Rashomon influence on Andha Naal (acknowledged by the director) is not very strong.  Whereas Rashomon told the same story multiple times, with each character relating his/her version, Andha Naal shows the murder of Rajan 5 times (only one of which is accurate), but 4 of these are imagined scenes by individuals who were not witnesses.  Chennaia, Pattabi, Hema, and Ambujam speculate about what might have happened, but itâs clear they have no proof, and werenât witnesses. Thus the moral ambiguity in Rashomonâwhat is the truth, and who is embellishing their own story to make themself look goodâis absent in Andha Naal.  However, itâs interesting to note that each personâwhile essentially accusing someone else of murderâdoes not present the accused as a bad person: they each have perfectly valid reasons for disliking Rajan, and his cynical and/or rude behaviour in all of the fantasy/flashbacks practically justifies his murder!
  Sivaji Ganesan, who plays Rajan, is only shown in flashbacks (aside from the very beginning of the film which depicts his death âliveâ).  Ganesan, who would go on to become one of the most famous actors in Tamil cinema, plays an unpleasant character but with a certain amount of ambiguity.  Heâs antagonistic, sarcastic, and even grandiloquent in his âmurderâ scenes, butâuntil Ushaâs confessionâheâs not necessarily depicted as an outright villain (when he first meets Ambujam, whoâs having a picnic with Chennaia, Rajan is quite charming and funny).  Ganesanâs two biggest scenes are Rajanâs speech to the student protestors (his first encounter with Usha), and his final confrontation with Usha (split into two parts), which culminates with his death.  In the first, Rajan is passionate, rational, and confidentâhe tells a companion that the assembled students will soon be cheering him despite his opposition to the strike (and heâs correct), suggesting he has both a high opinion of himself and a low opinion of others in comparison.  In the climactic scene with his wife, Rajan is manic, boastful, disdainful, and bitter; in the years since the student strike scene, Rajan has seen his grand radio scheme fail, has lost a child, and has apparently fallen out of love with his wife.  The latter seems to be grounded in politics: early in the film, Inspector Naidu and Savanandam see portraits of Gandhi and Nehru on the wall of Rajanâs house, as well as the book âTowards Swaraj [Self-Rule]â, and ask a servant if Rajan was patriotic.  âNo,â is the replyâthose items belonged to Usha, his wife.
  Ganesan pulls out all the stops in his final scene, the culmination of the film, but his previous appearances indicate this was a deliberate escalation of style, not over-acting.  Javar Seetharaman, who plays the canny detective Savanandam (and also wrote the screenplay based on a screen story by director S. Balachander), is the most naturalistic and understated of Andha Naalâs performers; Pandari Bai (who reportedly appeared in âover 1,000 filmsâ ) as Usha is generally very subdued (spending a significant portion of her screen time with tears running down her face), while most of the other main performers go from zero to sixty in their acting velocity with some frequency (eye-bulging is a favourite tactic).  This is not to say Andha Naal is badly actedâacting techniques vary by culture in any event, so âbadlyâ is in the eye of the beholderâjust that the upper range of emotions displayed is fairlyâŚintense.
  The direction, cinematography, art direction, etc. of Andha Naal are quite good.  Most scenes (including âexteriorsâ) were shot on sets, but there is a bit of location shooting, notably in the opening sequence.  Director Balachander shoots a fair amount of the film in a slick, standard, zero-degree style, reserving his heavy guns for the climax, in which he utilises a moving camera, quick cutting, impressionistic lighting and camera angles, etc.  The opening sequence is also impressive: after the opening voiceover narration/printed prologue, we see Rajanâs murder, then a striking backlit image of Chennaia running down a flight of stairs and into the street (as the credits unroll, he continues to dash wildly through the streets of the Triplicane neighbourhood).  The print quality is quite good, with only a brief bit of damage apparent in the climactic sequence.
   The socio-political aspects of the film are interesting, although non-Indians (like me) will spend a fair amount of time checking the Internet for more information.  [For example, Usha says Rajan could have become famous and respected like âChandra Bose.â  I wondered if this was a reference to Subhash Chandra Bose, leader of the Indian National Army, the Japanese-backed independence movement during World War II. But after Googling, itâs clear Usha meant famous scientist Jagdish Chandra Bose (since Rajan is science and technology oriented, being a radio engineer).]
  While the aforementioned Rangoon is unabashedly pro-INA (Indian National Army), Andha Naal soft-pedals the anti-British message and takes a stand against Japanese intervention in Indian matters.  No non-Indian characters appear on-screenâthe Japanese are heard communicating with Rajan via radio, and âthe Britishâ are only referenced a couple of times in dialogue.  In the student strike sequence, the incarceration by the British of members of the pro-independence Congress Party is a triggering event; later, when Rajan bitterly cites the governmentâs rejection of his radio plan as one reason for his treason, Usha points out that it was âthe Britishâ who refused to finance the scheme, not Indians (i.e., Indians are not in control of their own country). Â
  The Japanese aerial bombing of Chennaiâwhich occurred on 11 October 1943, as cited in Andha Naalâwas a relatively minor event carried out by one airplane.  The film more or less accurately depicts this (the bombing is not shown, but a handful of explosions can be heard), although it appears the scriptâs frequent references to the aftermath of the bombing take liberties with the facts (apparently âthe city was reeling under the impact of a massive flood which triggered a power blackout. There was no radio, no newspapers and no electricity so people did not know about it.â).  Until the filmâs conclusion, the dialogue referring to the bombing is almost the only indications that World War II was going on (there is one sign pointing to an air raid shelter on one street set).  However, the denouement reveals Rajanâs identity as a Japanese agent, and this changes the filmâs narrative: Rajan was not killed because he was a selfish, egotistical person, but because he was a traitor to India.  That is, not necessarily a traitor to the Allied cause (personified by the British colonial regime), but to the Indian people who would be harmed by Rajanâs facilitation of Japanese attacks on India.  This is a crucial point: Ushaâs âpatriotismâ is to India and Indian independence, and Rajan is betraying these ideals.  At no point is there any stated support for the Allies or any ideological attack on Japan (other than Japanâs apparent willingness to kill innocent people).
   Andha Naal is a well-made and fascinating film in many ways, and spending just over 2 hours watching the English sub-titled version (the sub-titles arenât perfect but are certainly intelligible) is a worthwhile investment.
   Andha Naal is currently available (with English sub-titles) on Amazon Prime in the USA.
