REVIEW: MAITIGHAR (1966)

An unflinching tale of patriarchal exploitation and violence, Maitighar deserves recognition as a landmark of Nepali cinema.

Nearly six decades since its release, B.S Thapa’s Maitighar maintains a firm imprint on Nepali popular culture- largely through its soundtrack, with still beloved songs like “Basanta Nai Basna Khojcha” and “Ma Pyaar Bechidinchu” continuing to enjoy heavy rotation. The first privately funded Nepali film, it is the namesake for Maitighar in Kathmandu- allegedly from a hoarding board bearing the film’s poster becoming such a popular and convenient landmark that it displaced the original Newa name of the site, Phibo Kya. There’s a case to be made that Maitighar’s music and lore have overshadowed the actual film itself too- which seems to now largely have been relegated to cursory acknowledgement as a classic in the scant realm of Nepali cinema discourse.

Maitighar stars Mala Sinha, a Bollywood actress of Nepali descent most famed for featuring opposite Guru Dutt in 1957’s Pyaasa. We are first introduced to her character, Maya, as an elderly grey haired prisoner who refuses to leave despite the end of her sentence. When a psychologist is summoned to make sense of her, she insists he must hear her life story to truly understand- recounting a tale characterized by a constant befalling of tragedy and danger The first of these occurs early in the film as Maya’s husband, Mohan (C.P Lohani) dies in an accident on a hunting trip in their native Pokhara. As stigmas around widowhood manifest themselves through in laws and villagers who now see her as a harbinger of bad luck, Maya -pregnant with a daughter- is forced to leave behind her young son and seek refuge somewhere else as life in Pokhara starts becoming untenable. Her travels take her to Nepalgunj where she’s taken in by Phoolmaya, who works as a Badhini- someone that sings and dances for a living. Though Phoolmaya initially postures as kind and sympathetic to Maya, her true nature is exposed when she, alongside a cohort of men from the village, entrap Maya into work as a Badhini herself against a threat of sexual assault.

Maitighar is the story of a woman trying her best to navigate through a patriarchy that abhors her. Maya’s widowhood uproots her socially and spatially- promptly read and instrumentalized towards her exploitation by Phoolmaya and her circle. Such being, Maya’s rootlessness becomes a defining tenet of her personhood, or lack thereof. In the absence of a family to protect her, she is entirely at the mercy of strangers that hold her captive and indentured towards their profit and her dehumanization. Coerced into becoming a Badhini, she is resigned to a life where her fetishization and objectification are normalized. Contemplating self harm, Maya rues how the deaths of her husband and parents have deprived her of both her marital and maternal home- marking a tragic end to her journey with her maitighar, poignantly juxtaposed with the fondness with which her character sings of it as being dearer to her than her own life in “Basanta Nai Basna Khojcha” earlier in the film during her courtship with Mohan.

Maya or rather Nirmaya- the name she takes upon on starting her new life in Nepalgunj- is a tragic hero, who on coming to terms with the permanence of her misfortune, aligns her will and earnings towards securing a good and respectable life for her children. She arranges for her daughter to be educated at a private school in Kathmandu and her son, who does not know her and unbeknownst to him, through law school- which figures into a cruel and ironic twist that contributes to sealing Maya’s fate. A conversation Maya and Mohan have as newlyweds about the importance of making sacrifices for love rears its head, in devastating fashion, long after his death when she starts realizing that her freedom is what might need to be sacrificed to shield her now adult daughter from the ill and perverted intentions of bureaucrat Jagat Man.

Mala Sinha portrays Maya with a gravity that compellingly embodies the vicissitudes her character gets enveloped within. Whether it be Maya in her youth, middle age or older and whether in bliss, despair or seeking revenge- Sinha is as convincing as she is versatile. As such, her only credit in a Nepali film is a monumental feat of acting that fortifies Maya’s standing as one of the most important characters to have emerged from the cradle of Nepali cinema.

Maitighar’s non linear narrative, oscillating from Maya’s retelling of the events in the “present” to past flashbacks, spans multiple decades and districts. Evenly paced, the plot’s congruence is particularly impressive given the long time frame within which its events occur. While the audience is privy to Maya’s entire story, she conceals much of it from her new acquaintances in Nepalgunj. When Maya’s hushed yearly visits to Kathmandu rouse the suspicions of Jagat Man, it sets the scene for a thrilling sequence as Maya is tailed to and around the capital by one of Jagat Man’s henchmen.

During the scene depicting what some would call the story’s falling action, Maya’s hair becomes jet black again, without explanation, in the present. With this occurring right after a flashback depicting the moments before her imprisonment, it makes for a confusing affair when the characters from the scene prior, separated by years in the story, appear again exactly the same as if no time has elapsed since we last saw them. Though short in duration, the faults of which some might be willing to overlook, it is a disservice to an otherwise mostly upstanding film that its vital closing scene is hampered by such a silly, almost comical continuity error. At the same time, it is far from enough to preclude the film from being an exemplar of largely cogent filmmaking and a solid entry into Nepali cinema’s early canon. An unflinching tale of patriarchal exploitation and violence, its politics and social messaging remain pertinent more than half a century later. All in all, Maitighar deserves recognition as a landmark of Nepali cinema not just for its pioneering status but also for being one of the best movies to have come out of the industry in its infancy.

GENRE: Drama

RUNTIME: 2 hrs 14 mins

OUR RATING: ★★★½

All pictures are taken from the film, uploaded by @HiTechEntertainment