Kickass article.

I've only seen Junoon and the amul film. Netaji, Zubeidaa and Sardari Begum too but they were all pretty shity.

very good article. I personally love Bhumika. It was my first Benegal film. After watching Kalyug, Sooraj Ka Saathvan Ghoda, Trikal I realized that Benegal deserves a lot more accolades. It is surprising how he never gets mentioned in the list of greats.

And I am surprised you did not like Ankur, I thought it had all the typical characterstics of Benegal film with some awesome performances.

I won't say I didn't like Ankur, it was pretty good in its way. But Nishant traveled over somewhat similar territory with far superior results.

Nicely done. I've seen Mandi, from the movies you've listed.

I want to procure Bharat Ek Khoj somehow, missed most of it when I was a kid.

Most of the NFDC stuff is either not available or available in the most bhosad-chodh way, like the Kumar Shahani films on Ultra(crap) Video. Luckily most of Benegal's work was private-funded and the video rights were given to Shemaroo which is alright so far as non-recent Indian films are concerned.

Some years ago, a US-based DVD studio called Cinebella did reportedly excellent releases of a few Indian films including Adi Sankaracharya and Suraj ka Satvan Ghoda. They had been intending to do Bharat EK Khoj but like many good things, the company went under and nothing came out of that idea. It's stupid really, because a couple years back I saw VCD copies of this serial on Bahadur Shah Zafar with Ashok Kumar in the lead role. That was a serial which even in the Doordarshan-only days nobody actually saw.

Bahadur Shah Suffer! Yeah that was really boring. All talk no action, he was a sad emperor.
A friend has promised me a copy, If I do get my hands on Bharat Ek Khoj, I'll torrent it.

Have been spending a lot of time watching Bharat Ek Khoj and all I can say is, I am just in awe of this achievement. I am just through the first 8 episodes and the sheer magnitude of what it covers in terms of art, history, culture and mythology is incredible. I like that it's educational in the best way possible, it doesn't make judgements on it's characters but teases thoughts giving equal wavelength to both historical and mythological viewpoints and makes one want to learn more about the traditions and histories it's talking about.