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Paar (film)

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Paar
Poster
Directed byGoutam Ghose
Written byGoutam Ghose
Partho Mukherjee
Partha Banerjee
Dialogues bySurendra Pratap Singh
Based on
Paari (also spelled Paarhi)
by Samaresh Basu
Produced bySwapan Sarkar
StarringShabana Azmi
Naseeruddin Shah
Om Puri
Utpal Dutt
CinematographyGoutam Ghose
Edited byPrasanta Dey
Music byGoutam Ghose
Production
company
Orchid Films Pvt. Ltd.
Release date
  • 21 May 1984 (1984-05-21)
Running time
141 minutes[1]
CountryIndia
LanguageHindi

Paar (transl. The Crossing)[2] is a 1984 Indian Hindi-language drama film directed by Goutam Ghose and produced by Swapan Sarkar through Orchid Films. Written by Ghose with Partha Banerjee and Partho Mukherjee, the film stars Shabana Azmi, Naseeruddin Shah and Om Puri.[3] Naseeruddin Shah won a Volpi Cup for his role as Naurangia.[4] The film is based on the Bengali-language short story "Paari" by Samaresh Basu.[5][6]

Plot

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The film of exploitation in rural Bihar, in which a landlord (Utpal Dutt)’s men wreck a village by giving villagers lesser remuneration than what they should actually get as per government law. A local school teacher (Anil Chatterjee) fights for the deceived lower caste villagers and helps one of them - Ram Naresh (Om Puri) to become the Panchayat pradhan.

Later on the benevolent schoolmaster (Anil Chatterjee), the progressive force in the village, was killed by landlord's men. The labourer Naurangia (Naseeruddin Shah) breaks with a tradition to passive resistance and retaliates by killing the landlord's brother Hari Singh (Mohan Agashe). Naurangia and his pregnant wife Rama (Shabana Azmi) become fugitives from justice and flee from the village as per Naurangia's parent's advice. They eventually moved to Calcutta to find for a job in Nadia Jute mill, Naihati but due to the deteriorating condition of jute mills Naurangia fails to get a job there and struggles for survival.

After many efforts to find sustenance elsewhere, the two decide to return home. To earn the fare, they agree to drive the herd of pigs through the river, causing the pregnant Rama to believe she has lost her baby (They already lost their first child at age 3 due to a fall into the well). But they have to swim across a wide, swiftly flowing river Ganga, in which they nearly drown before reaching safety. At the end of the film, Naurangia puts his ear to her belly and listens to the heartbeat of the unborn baby.

Cast

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Production

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Development

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While reading about caste atrocities in Bihar in a weekly magazine called Sunday, Ghose wanted to make a documentary, but was unsure it'd reach a wider audience.

He then thought of Samaresh Basu’s Bengali short story, Paari and adapted it into a screenplay with co-writer Partha Banerjee, adding the back-story of the couple's journey to the city.

When Basu read the screenplay, he was sceptical about how Ghose would film the climax.[8]

Casting

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Naseeruddin Shah lost several kilos on a "protein-loaded diet" as part of the preparation for his role.[8]

“What I did for Paar was to evoke the muscle memory of having to dig a hole in the ground for water to pass through and to study the physiques and body language of such people,” Shah said, in an interview with the Sight and Sound magazine of the British Film Institute. “I worked very hard, lost a lot of weight and exercised strenuously. I had to look like a man who had not eaten anything but puffed rice and sugarless tea for years.”[9]

Music

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Apart from co-writing, directing and cinematography, Ghose also composed the music of the film.

Personnel

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Source(s):[10]

  • Music by Goutam Ghose.
  • Orchestra arranged and conducted by Aloke Nath Dey.
  • Songs rendered by Ranjana Sen, Partha Sengupta and Shabana Azmi.

Release

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The film released on 21 May 1984.[11] It was screened at the 41st Venice International Film Festival, where Naseeruddin Shah won the Volpi Cup for Best Actor for his performance in the film.[12]

Accolades

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Year Award Category Nominee(s) Result Ref.
1984 Venice International Film Festival Golden Lion Goutam Ghose Nominated [13]
UNESCO Award Won
Volpi Cup for Best Actor Naseeruddin Shah Won
1985 National Film Awards Best Feature Film in Hindi Goutam Ghose and Swapan Sarkar Won [14]
Best Actor Naseeruddin Shah Won
Best Actress Shabana Azmi Won
1986 Bengal Film Journalists' Association Awards Best Actor Naseeruddin Shah Won [15]
Best Actress Shabana Azmi Won
1986 Filmfare Awards Best Screenplay Goutam Ghose and Partha Banerjee Won [16]

Legacy

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The retrospective reception towards Paar has been overwhelmingly positive.[17][18]

Paar still remains one of the rare films in the Hindi cinema to have shown anxieties navigated by the migrant workers of India, especially in a pre-COVID-19 landscape.[19]

Naseeruddin Shah continues to be the only Indian to date to win the Best Actor award at the Venice Film Festival (for Paar).[9]

The film was successfully saved from becoming a lost film with restoration efforts made by the National Film Archive of India (NFAI), Prasad Laboratories and Ghose himself.[20][21]

Note

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  1. ↑ She is Ashok Kumar's daughter, not the famous Indian actress Roopa Ganguly.[7]

References

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  1. ↑ Goble, Alan (1999). The Complex Index to Literary Sources in Film. United Kingdom: Bowker-Saur. p. 48. ISBN 1-85739-229-9. Retrieved 9 July 2026.
  2. ↑ "The Crossing (1984)". Rotten Tomatoes. Archived from the original on 7 December 2025. Retrieved 8 July 2026.
  3. ↑ "PAAR (1984)". bfi.org. United Kingdom: British Film Institute. Retrieved 8 July 2026.
  4. ↑ "For Paar movie, Naseeruddin Shah won a Volpi Cup for his role as Naurangia".
  5. ↑ Bubla Basu (4 August 2017). "Book versus movie: Swimming pigs and a perfectly adapted short story in Goutam Ghose's 'Paar'". scroll.in. Retrieved 25 July 2021.
  6. ↑ Gulazar; Govind Nihalani; Saibal Chatterjee (2003). Encyclopaedia Of Hindi Cinema. Popular Prakashan. p. 337. ISBN 978-81-7991-066-5.
  7. ↑ "Bollywood actor Deven Verma passes away". The Economic Times. 2 December 2014. ISSN 0013-0389. Retrieved 23 March 2024.
  8. 1 2 Ramnath, Nandini (20 July 2020). "Film flashback: In Goutam Ghose's 'Paar', an audacious body-and-soul exploration of survival". scroll.in. India: Scroll.in. Retrieved 21 August 2026.
  9. 1 2 Pal, Amitabh (17 February 2019). "Naseeruddin Shah on making "an antidote to the Bollywood poison"". bfi.org.uk. the United Kingdom: Sight and Sound, the British Film Institute. Retrieved 16 August 2026.
  10. ↑ Arunachalam, Param (14 April 2020). BollySwar: 1981 - 1990. Mavrix Infotech Private Limited. p. 466. ISBN 8193848225. Retrieved 22 August 2026.
  11. ↑ Thakor, Harsh (8–14 September 2024). Basu, Timir (ed.). "PAAR 40". Frontier. Vol. 57, no. 11. Archived from the original on 4 October 2024. Retrieved 5 July 2026.
  12. ↑ Dionne, E. J. (10 September 1984). "FILMS ARE THE STAR OF VENICE FESTIVAL". nytimes.com. United States: New York Times. Retrieved 5 July 2026.
  13. ↑ "VENICE FILM FESTIVAL – 1984". Retrieved 6 October 2013.
  14. ↑ "32nd National Film Awards" (PDF). Directorate of Film Festivals. Archived (PDF) from the original on 14 October 2019. Retrieved 2 September 2020.
  15. ↑ "BFJA Awards 1986". filmiclub.com. Archived from the original on 15 April 2015.
  16. ↑ "FILMFARE AWARDS WINNERS LIST (1954–PRESENT): FULL LIST OF WINNERS BY YEAR & CATEGORY". filmfare.com. India: Filmfare. Retrieved 5 July 2026.
  17. ↑ Bhattacharya, Roshmila (14 August 2025). ""Naseeruddin Shah Is Big Brother By Four Days": Paar Director Goutam Ghose". outlookindia.com. India: Outlook (Indian magazine). Retrieved 16 August 2026.
  18. ↑ Ghosh, Sankha (20 July 2020). "CLASS APART! How Goutam Ghose's 'PAAR' extracted the BEST ACTOR in NASEERUDDIN SHAH". timesofindia.indiatimes.com. India: The Times of India. Retrieved 16 August 2026.
  19. ↑ Sampath, Janani (19 April 2020). "Shree 420, Gaman, Paar: Bollywood's ode to migrant workers". thefederal.com. India: The Federal. Retrieved 16 August 2026.
  20. ↑ Dasgupta, Priyanka (17 April 2025). "2 'lost' cult films restored, efforts on to revive another". timesofindia.indiatimes.com. Kolkata: The Times of India. Retrieved 16 August 2026.
  21. ↑ Banerjee, Shreya (15 April 2026). "Why filmmaker Goutam Ghose, now Kolkata's Sheriff, is racing against time to restore his films". thehindu.com. India: The Hindu. Retrieved 16 August 2026.
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