Dharavi (1992)

I've just reviewed Sudhir Mishra's excellent 1992 film Dharavi, starring Om Puri and Shabana Azmi - you can read the review on Filmi Geek.

In the review, I did not discuss Shabana ji's performance - it says something about her skill, I think, that even an excellent performance can be an unremarkable thing when one sits down to comment on one of her films. In Dharavi, I particularly liked the physicality of her work; the way she carried herself, even the way she sat, was very different from her own natural bearing and yet still very natural. Her character spent most of the film angry or frustrated or despairing, but there were some smiles as well.

Here are some screencaps.

















I am very partial to Shabana ji's looks at this time, in her early-mid 40s - not that she wasn't completely lovely before, or isn't still - but I think because the first films I saw of hers were from the 1990s, this is what she looks like in my mind's eye.