Party (1984)

An exemplary tale set in a middle-class artistic milieu inaugurating Nihalani’s long-term project of filmed theatre. Mrs Rane (Mehta) a party for the recipient of a literary prize (Singh). The gathered ‘intelligentsia’ are to be shallow hypocrites compared with the absent poet Amrit (Shah), who abandoned his literary career to become an activist among the tribals. The original Marathi play was criticised for its superficial depiction of the Bombay intelligentsia and the film does not really improve matters. Nihalani commented about the differences between the play and the film: ‘There is a major difference in the thrust. The play is concerned with the question of art versus life. The film goes a bit further and tries to see whether a person can have two contrary sets of morality: one as an artist and the other as a human being.’