Mera Naam Joker is
an Indian romantic drama film directed and produced by Raj Kapoor in 1970 and
the story of the film was written by Khwaja Ahmad Abbas. The film is starred by
many famous performers at that time of India like Raj Kapoor himself as the
main character playing role of a joker, Manoj Kumar, Kapoor’s son Rishi Kapoor
as his childhood character, Simi Garewal as Mary or teacher, Dharmendra,
Rajendra Kumar, Dara Singh, Achala Sachdev as Kapoor’s mother, Om Prakash,
Padmini, Kseniya Ryabinkina a Russian-Soviel ballet dancer, Rajendra Nath,
Agha, Mukri Eduard Sjereda, Polson, Birbal, Dunder and many.
Raj Kapoor in Mera Naam Joker (1970)
Plot Summary:
Raju is a joker. He makes people laugh even in sorrowful
position. The story is in three divisions, first, Raju’s school life and circus
to streets life. In school life he loses his fondness with school teacher, in
circus life he loses his love with Marina and his mother and at last he loses
his love of Mary (Padmini) and loses everything.
Rishi Kapoor and Simi Garewal in Mera Naam Joker (1970)
Description:
Mera Naam Joker is a
semi-autobiographical film of life, love and philosophy of Raj Kapoor as an
entertainer. Six years have been spent to make this film. I think it is the one
of the favorite films but I cannot give it 10 ratings out of 10. I have given 9
out of 10 in IMDb. It is one of the lengthiest films of India. The most
attractive subjects of the film are story, its emotion with background music
and performance besides editing style in a word its cinematic style is very
different from others of India or our subcontinent. I watched this kind of film
from Sir Charlie Chaplin. Raj Kapoor has tried to do the best of his cinematic
style with Chaplin’s film style. But there is something differences between
those kinds of cinematic styles. I think the music is very popular in India or
our subcontinent. In every film there is song or something different kinds of
background music that are adjusted with geographical area. For example, In
Europe film’s music is different from India. Its main cause is geographical or
cultural or different interests. In this film the most attractive point is its
emotion. It has a good story. Cause it is a semi-autobiographical story of an
entertainer. It’s like a real story. A joker always makes laugh people as an
entertainer. He loses everything. I think in India the people don’t accept a
joker goodly. For example, Raju’s mother did not take Raju’s decision to be a
joker. As Ruju’s father was an entertainer or joker and al last she got the
consequences. She has seen his death. Besides, a joker’s life is very complex
in Indian society. He has to leave, lose but always makes laugh. He loses love,
family and everything. I think the story’s main attraction is its emotion and
it is used nicely in this film. Secondly the performance is real or natural. I
was finding the lack of naturalism in this film but in vain.
Simi Garewal in Mera Naam Joker (1970)
Analysis:
I would like to share two points here about its analysis.
Fist its formal technique and second about its thematic content. The formal or
technical sub-points are its cinematography, editing, mise en scene, lighting,
diegetic and non-diegetic sound, genre and its narrative. On the other hand, in
thematic content, I would like to describe about its history or race, or gender,
sexuality or class or the environment of the film. The cinematographer of the
film is Radhu Karmakar. Its cinematography is good in this sense that the shot
divisions of the film and camera movement and tracking shots are very artistic.
Besides, editing style is more important to make the story turn into a meaningful
and artistic film. Props and scenery arrangements are very important in this
film. In a word, the mise en scene is very attractive. Lighting is also an
important tool here. In this film lighting is used extremely to express the
shape of the subject and character. Besides, background sound is used
precisely. Shankar Jaikishan is the music composer of the film. There is an
important and attractive music that enable the audiences to enjoy it. It’s a
romantic drama but the emotional music and scene express it as sorrowful. In a
word its narrative is excellent and attractive. The second one is its thematic
content. I think the content of the film is about entertainment. So, there are something
class, race or sexuality that is not a word to justify. The main word is
entertainment and structure of the film.
Manoj Kumar in Mera Naam Joker (1970)
Conclusion:
I think it is one of the great and famous films of Raj
kapoor. I have watch several films of Raj Kapoor but it is filled with a lot of
emotion. In this story the joker is always ready to make laugh the people but
he does not care that while sorrowful environment and the audiences who get
pleasure also don’t care or don’t find him deeply. For this reason, I would
like to inform that who still did not watch this movie, can watch it as early
as possible.
