Review of Sachaa Jhutha

Introduction

Manmohan Desai, the man who invented traditional cinematic Indian themes of mythology, culture and escapism before it was tarnished by the likes of David Dhawan, directed this film with the same warmth, humour and emotion linked to his other movies like Amar Akbar Antony, Suhaag & Naseeb. Saatcha Jutha appears to be his weakest film however despite it having some fine moments.

With famous songs and a fine performance, Rajesh Khanna shows his range as an actor playing the parts of both Bhola and Ranjit. The supporting cast also do well, a little campy at times but what wasn’t in those days.

Of course the film is pretty much outdated in terms of the way films are made now and the content of its social trends would anger most open mind people. Bearing all this in mind when watching the film will no doubt hamper viewing. Realising this I put common sense away to one side for two and half-hours (as I do with most Bollywood films) and enjoyed the film.

Video

Saatcha Jutha is presented in its original aspect ratio of 1.33:1 and for the first time has been presented for the digital age. But the outcome of this disc has saddened me for what I expected was not to be...

I think many of our website readers are aware of the excellent treatment DEI does on Indian films for DVD and their reputation has grown quite exceedingly. Knowing they would do this film made me smile as the film has always had major problems like blemishes, scenes missing and was always poor in quality. When I first saw the disc I was somewhat confused. While a sense of quality is still present in the encoding part of the DVD process, I couldn’t help but notice the 35mm film print has deteriorated so much that it felt as if DEI had used a normal cinema print.

The way film prints are kept in Indian film laboratories, or by their rightful owners, always has me concerned and this film shows why. The DVD was mastered from an interpostive print (I even doubt that the original print even exists now as many of Manmohan Desai’s films have suffered the same fate: extinction), and many scenes on this DVD are washed out with signs of wear and tear. This won’t concern the everyday Indian film viewer as older films on television, VCD, VHS and even some Eros/Video-Sound DVD titles are a whole lot worse. But for the avid DVDmaniac will be slightly disappointed.

Also colour correction should have been done scene by scene to make the film look more restored, but what DEI have done here isn`t too bad. Some scenes do have the presence of being washed out, but at the same time they have never looked this good for the home video format. A good rendition of colour saturation is also present during some scenes. Dark details, contrast and shadows are fair considering the condition of the interpostive print and again DEI have done the best job they could. All scenes are seen with ease and with some finer detail.

Audio

The mono soundtrack is in general quite audible with its fair share of hiss and pops. There are also some moments of sound dropout, but all these factors didn’t bother me during watching as the state of the orignial source said it all.

Features

The menus are the DEI standard design with English subtitles.

Conclusion

Sachaa Jhutha is not your classic film or blockbuster but DEI still does its best to present the dying film in the best possible manner. This title gets the personal thumbs up from me.