windupbird573

Kalpana (1948)

Beautiful and wildly imaginative

This film is essentially a musical, and I know pretty much nothing about Indian music and dance, so I can't offer any kind of expert critique of the technical aspects of those elements of this film, but I can say that I found the music and dance in this film wonderfully entertaining and absolutely compelling. The dance performances are terrifically creative and dramatic and the dancers one and are are highly skilled and remarkably athletic as the best dancers always are.

The story is pretty standard stuff of the "Let's put on a show" variety, but the real pleasure for the audience here is in the music and dance, of which there's plenty.

Also of note are the special effects which are primitive but great fun.