Masoom

It is an EXCELLENT film - showing India of early-1980s, but the story is very relevant today too. Everyone, especially the three children, have acted so well. Beautiful songs too ! Subtitles help - though I can tell you they do not do justice to the original dialogues and lyrics. The quality of the print itself is not good though, and there is a disclaimer to this effect right in the beginning. If you go through the reviews (so far posted here) - anything less than 5 stars says it is for the poor print, not for the strory! If you can bear the less-than-good-quailty of the print, do watch this film - You Will Love It !

Amazing made , a delicate subject handled extremely well. The star of the movie is the child actor who is the illegitimate child. Watch it for little moments of absolute brilliance.

Unlike many older movies where your memory of it is sometimes better than the movie itself, Masoom did not disappoint! It's a timeless story that is well told with great songs to accompany it.

Watched with wife, it is a 1 Kleenex box movie. The subtitles helped. Considering it was made in early 80s, it has a powerful and still relevent story, told very impressively.

Very good movie

This movie is our family favorite, but we were really disappointed by the quality of the DVD. There were random freezes at multiple key points and that spoiled our show. I dont think I will buy a Hindi DVD from Amazon again...

DVD video quality is very bad. I have never been able to get it to work in my player. It is very grainy.

Masoom  (or "Innocent") is a GREAT 1983 Bollywood (Hindi) drama film and directorial debut of critically acclaimed filmmaker Shekhar Kapoor. Starring Naseeruddin Shah, Shabana Azmi, Jugal Hansraj, Urmila Matondkar & Aradhana, Masoom is an adaptation of Erich Segal's 1980 novel  Man, Woman, and Child  with the screenplay, dialogues & lyrics by Gulzar and music by R.D. Burman. Although I gave this movie 4 stars, its NOT because of the movie itself, but because of the DVD. Otherwise I'd have given it 5 stars and still wished I could have given it even more!Although this is NOT the first Hindi movie I saw as a child (that was likely  Gopaal Krishna ) it is definitely ONE of the first and over the years/decades I've seen this movie HUNDREDS, if not THOUSANDS (maybe even TONS more!) of times -- and yet so far, I've still never gotten tired of it (and in fact, I'm watching it AGAIN [for probably the TEN MILLIONTH time!] right now, as I type this!). However, despite my parents being from India (they were born & raised there and came to the US in their mid to late 20s and have stayed ever since) my brother & I did NOT see very many Indian movies growing up, even though some/many of my fellow first-generation "ABCD" ("American Born Confused Desi") kids have seen lots of movies from India (and NOT just Hindi/Bollywood films but also regional-language movies like in Tamil, Malayalam, Telegu, etc.) FAR MORE than my brother and I. For a number of reasons, we saw very few Hindi/Bollywood movies during childhood & adolescence.First of all, in those days (especially before the I.T./computer programmer boom & wave of emigration from India) when the Indian community in this country (especially in this area) was still pretty small, and the general interest in Indian food & culture and Hindi movies was not as prevalent & popular as it is now, Indian grocery stores & restaurants were very few and far between (one of my earliest memories are of traveling over an hour just to get to the closest Indian market to stock up on essentials -- now, in 2015, I can think of 8-10 Indian groceries & restaurants just within a 5 mile radius alone!). I was born in the late 1970s and even though VCRs had come out/were just starting to come out & gain popularity in the general public, it was very difficult & inconvenient, if not nearly impossible (at least around this area, at that particular time) to get Hindi movies for rent, let alone purchase. Even with home VCR ownership becoming more widespread as I grew up, and businesses like Blockbuster Video, started gaining ground, and even local public libraries began to stock VHS videos & movies for checkout/rental, unfortunately, for the most part (with a few notable exceptions) it didn't really cross over to the International or at least the Bollywood genre. Moreover, although, the Indian grocery stores also started renting out Hindi movies, because these shops were often still a very long drive away, the rental period was so short (typically around 1-3 days with no renewals/extensions), and both my parents worked demanding full-time jobs and were unable and/or unwilling to make such a long drive during the work-week just to return rented videos, it wasn't really feasible to rent Hindi movies very often, if at all. Also, UNLIKE these days when Bollywood movies are a staple feature at at least a couple (if not more!) local theaters, in those days, as far as I can remember there were NO theaters anywhere (at least within a reasonable distance) that screened Hindi movies (or ANY Indian movies) on a regular/consistent daily, weekly or even monthly basis. I mean, once in awhile, there'd be a Hindi movie showing at some specific theater for a special screening or something. But even then, usually the theater was too far away and/or only one scheduled showing (instead of a variety of dates, times & locations as is available with commercial Hollywood movies, and to a lesser extent, even independent movies). Although there probably WERE ways to see Hindi movies even in those days (goodness knows, many of my fellow "ABCD" kids of Indian friends of my parents/family friends saw plenty of Bollywood & other Indian movies growing up) for whatever reason, my parents weren't so inclined and/or didn't see it as a good use of at least half a day (all told -- both driving to & from the theater, and in the movie itself, since Hindi movies are usually at least 2½ - 3 hours or more!) of their limited time outside of work and that was one of the several reasons we didn't see many Indian movies during childhood & adolescence.Secondly, although my parents grew up in India and are multi-lingual, my brother & I were born & raised in America, and we grew up speaking English. At home, my parents either spoke both English & Konkani (an Indo-Aryan language belonging to the Indo-European family of languages spoken on the western coast of India as well as being an official language of the state of Goa, and a minority language in the state of Karnataka and northern Kerala) which is our family/ancestral mother tongue -- and while my brother & I understood/can understand Konkani, we'd inevitably always answer back in English because it was just easier & what we felt most comfortable/fluent with, given that we spoke/had to speak English everywhere else (school, around the neighborhood, etc.). That is one of my biggest regrets -- NOT becoming fluent in Konkani and other languages while still young & able for them to be more easily learned & permanently ingrained. Anyway, even though my parents speak several languages (at minimum, my dad knows/speaks English, Konkani, Hindi & Marathi, and my mom knows/speaks English, Konkani, Hindi, Telugu, Marathi and possibly Kannada, I'm not sure), because my brother & I grew up speaking English with Konkani as a secondary language in the home, with the exception of the sporadic Hindi classes we took as children, we did not have much experience with Hindi. So since we understood/understand very little (just a few random words, phrases, etc.) of Hindi, and because in those days, English subtitles were not usually (with a few rare exceptions) available on the VHS tapes, and DVDs/Blu-Rays (let alone online video streaming) with English (and other languages) subtitles & captions wasn't even yet a conceivable mainstream concept, my brother & I had to rely on our mom for translation of the dialogue in the few Hindi/Bollywood movies we DID see. Although I'm sure she tried her best, what would inevitably happen is that while she was busy translating one segment of the conversation for us, she would miss the next one, so there would be huge gaps in the translation, and often essential dialogue would be accidentally or even DELIBERATELY (if she thought it was inappropriate and/or that we weren't old enough yet to hear it) left out of the translations. So we had to figure out the story from the scenes pictured and inconsistent & incomplete translations. As a result, we didn't watch many Bollywood movies growing up. I can count on one hand (with a couple of extra fingers!) or maybe two hands at the most, the number of Hindi movies I remember seeing as a child and teenager.In fact the ONLY Hindi movies I remember watching during the first 13 or so years of my life prior to high school, was THIS movie (which was originally a movie rental [one of the few Hindi movies we'd rented] that got lost and paid to replace, only to later find it & have it for keeps), Gopaal Krishna (which, if I remember correctly [I was just a toddler the first time I saw it, so I *could* be wrong!] was originally given to us by a close family friend who, to the best of my recollections, bought it on a trip to India, had it converted and gave us a copy), the  Ramayana  & Mahabharat  series (which my maternal aunt visiting from India first brought a couple volumes of -- and later got the rest from family friends and elsewhere),  Deewana Mujh Sa Nahin  (which I saw in a movie theater in India during a 3 month summer trip in 1990) and maybe a couple others that I can't recall. Then, during high school I saw maybe a couple/few more Hindi movies. But still they were ALL without English subtitles, and since those movies I saw in the theater (one of them during a HELLISH trip to India in my senior year of high school) I couldn't have my mom translate, I had to try to figure out the plot from the scenes pictured, and mostly watched for the song & dance numbers inherent in the MAJORITY of Bollywood movies (including THIS one!)But since the advent of DVDs/Blu-Rays (as well as YouTube, Netflix and other online movie streaming) as well as the far greater availabily and accessibility of Indian movies in general, I've not only seen a lot more Bollywood movies (and other genre of Indian films) but I've also gone back and seen & gotten DVDs of childhood staples/favorites like Masoom and Gopaal Krishna and I ♡ ♥ ♡ them!☆☆ WARNING: POSSIBLE SPOILERS!! ☆☆Masoom is a touching film about the impact that one's past choices & indiscretions can have on the present and future, both on oneself as well as one's family and other innocents. This movie, which is an adaption of the 1980 novel, "Man, Woman, and Child" by Erich Segal, is about the Malhotra family. D.K. Malhotra (Naseeruddin Shah) a successful architect living an idyllic & happy middle-class life in Delhi with his beloved wife, Indu (Shabana Azmi), and their two daughters, Pinky (Urmila Matondkar) and Minni (Aradhana) when their peace is suddenly shattered after D.K. is notified that an extramarital one-night stand that he'd had with a former classmate, Bhavna (Supriya Pathak) during their school reunion ten years earlier, had resulted in D.K. fathering a child. D.K. and Bhavna never saw each other after that, and Bhavna never told D.K., they'd had a child together as she didn't want to risk breaking up his family.However, now Bhavna has passed away, and the secret has to be revealed because her & D.K.'s son, Rahul needs a home/family and D.K. is the only option, both as the father and as Rahul's only living relative (Bhavna's entire family had been killed in a car accident while she was still in school -- D.K.'s sympathy over which, was one of the factors that brought him & Bhavna together in the first place. The school headmaster who'd been close with Bhavna's family confided in D.K. that Bhavna had been/become very withdrawn since losing all of her family, and he [the headmaster] was concerned about her & enlisted D.K.'s help in trying to bring her "out of her shell"). After Indu finds out about D.K's brief, illicit liaison with Bhavna while at his school reunion (which occurred during Indu's pregnancy with Pinky -- which is why she presumably had not attended with him) she is understandably devastated & furious -- even moreso when she learns that Rahul, the product of that affair will have to live with them. Although Indu tries to leave her husband, she is persuaded (albeit very reluctantly!) to stay by D.K. who promises that Rahul's stay with them will only be for "just a few days" only until he can come up with other arrangements, while hoping that once actually he comes and Indu gets a chance to get to know him, that her maternal instincts (especially because Indu loves children) will kick in, and she'll come to accept him, eventually, in time.When Rahul arrives, D.K., Pinky & Minni wholeheartedly (well, initially Minni more wholeheartedly than Pinky) welcome Rahul into the home. Minni especially, takes to him, so much so that she tacitly appoints Rahul as her "big brother" calling him "Rahul bhaiyya" ("bhaiyya" [along with "dada" and "aanna"] are used commonly in Indian culture as terms of respect/endearment for elder brothers) unwittingly, without even knowing that Rahul actually IS her half-brother, because none of the kids were told that D.K. was Rahul's father. Instead Pinky & Minni were led to believe that Rahul is the son of a distant relative, whose mother died and whose father has "gone away" -- and its unclear what exactly Rahul was told about his relationship to D.K. & Indu. Though Rahul calls D.K. & Indu, "uncle" & "aunty", in Indian culture, its common to call ALL elders "uncle" & "aunty", even if not biologically related, as a sign of respect, and use relation-specific terms, like "maasi"/"maami", "kaki", "chachi", "pachi" or the like for biologically-related aunts, and "maama", "kaka", "chachu", "bappa" or the like for biologically-related uncles. Anyway, though D.K., Pinky & Minni immediately accept Rahul into the fold of the home/family, unfortunately Indu is very aloof, distant and even cold & angry, towards not just D.K. (who *may* deserve her wrath) but also towards Rahul (an innocent victim/bystander who does not deserve it) who she sees as a constant reminder of her husband's infidelity. In trying to penalize D.K. for his one sole indiscretion, 10 years earlier, Indu treats the innocent Rahul very shabbily. Even when it seems that Indu's maternal instincts may be kicking in and she may be starting to warm to him, even the slightest reminder of D.K.'s transgression, immediately quashes any chance of that.For example, in one scene Rahul makes Indu a beautiful handmade jewelry box (actually a bangles box) as a birthday present for Indu. When she sees the gift, she asks Pinky if she bought it, and Pinky replies that she didn't. So Indu says Minni couldn't possibly have bought it, and asks who bought it, and Minni tells her that Rahul personally made the jewelry box by hand for her, for her birthday gift. Indu is overcome, and just starts to reach her hand out and is about to stroke/caress Rahul's face and cuddle him when she sees D.K. coming down the stairs. So instead, Indu leaves the room without a word, and Rahul naturally misunderstands (not knowing the reason for Indu's reaction) and asks/says to D.K., Pinky and Minni, "Aunty ko achcha ne laga" (Aunty didn't like it?) and D.K., Pinky and Minni have to try to reassure him. Another example, happens soon after (maybe later that day/evening/night) when Indu is taking off her jewelry and admiring Rahul's bangles box. In appreciation, she goes into Rahul's room, where she sees he is sleeping without having gotten underneath the covers. So Indu lovingly and in a motherly way, pulls the blankets/bedsheets up around him, to cover him warmly. But as she is doing so, she sees a photo album cube (a cubed photograph frame with slots for multiple pictures) of Rahul and his late mother, Bhavna by his bedside. Seeing all the photos of the woman who her husband had had a one-night stand with, Indu gets upset, drops Rahul's photo cube on the ground and turning on her heels, she rushes back to her and D.K.'s room. After looking at herself in the mirror for a moment, she picks up a similar photo cube that is on her own bedside table and has photos of her & D.K. and starts turning it around looking at those pictures. But instead of seeing the actual photos in THAT cube frame (which are of HER and D.K.) her mind starts playing tricks on her and in every picture that she looks at, she sees only Bhavna & D.K. together in the photo, and NOT her and D.K. as is actually the case. So Indu gets angry (or angrier) and forcefully knocks Rahul's bangles box off the dressing table, the noise which wakes D.K. (who's in the bed, sleeping) and when he asks what was that/what happened, she tells him to take his son away from there.So, with all these tensions simmering at home, D.K. unhappily concludes that the only solution is to send his son away, enroling him in a boarding school in Rahul's hometown of Nainital -- justifiable given the situation at home. The basis for that decision seems further reinforced when Rahul gets injured indirectly because of Indu's neglect. It happens one day, while D.K. is at work, Pinky & Minni are at school. Rahul is at home with Indu, and he is building something in the workshop, doing some hammering/tinkering when he gets hurt, and Indu is not even aware of it, because she basically ignores him (which makes me wonder why they did not enroll Rahul in school in Delhi right away, so that at least until his fate was decided, Rahul would have proper supervision during the days, WITHOUT relying [or having to rely] on Indu to provide it). When D.K. finds out (and its Minni who brings it to his and the family's attention at dinner when she sees Rahul's bandaged hand) he and Indu have a big fight, and decides to take Rahul to Nainital right away to enroll him in a boarding school there. However, not surprisingly, with all the problems at home pre-occupying D.K.'s mind/distracting him, his job/work is suffering. Yet, he still asks his boss, Mr. Dhawan for time off (so that he can take Rahul to Nainital to look at & get admitted/enrolled in a boarding school there). Although Mr. Dhawan is vehemently against it (especially as they have a big presentation with a client coming up, and a lot of work still left to do) D.K. essentially extorts him into giving him the time off by threatening to resign from the firm, if he doesn't get it.I'm not going to say anything else about what happens, or how this movie ends -- and if you don't want "spoilers" giving away everything that happens, I strongly recommend that you stay away from the Wikipedia page about this movie (or ANY movies that you want to be a surprise and don't want to be "spoiled" about!)Masoom is a very poignant & heart-rending movie (I recommend keeping a box [or TWO!] of Kleenex on hand, in case its needed!) and a MUST-SEE for anyone & everyone who likes touching family dramas/tearjerkers in the same vein as movies like  Kramer vs. Kramer  (which I've not yet ever seen) and  The Deep End Of The Ocean  (which I HAVE seen).The casting is OUTSTANDING and I ♡ the acting of pretty much EVERY SINGLE character. Not only are the kids (Urmila Matondkar, who plays Pinky Malhotra, Jugal Hansraj who plays Rahul, and Aradhana who plays Minni Malhotra) ABSOLUTELY ADORABLE, and Saeed Jaffrey and Tanuja EXCELLENT as D.K.'s friend, Suri (Jaffrey) and Indu's friend, Chanda (Tanuja) but the BEST OF ALL are Naseeruddin Shah, Shabana Azmi, and Jugal Hansraj who play the three MAIN/STARRING roles of D.K. (Shah), Indu (Azmi) and Rahul (Hansraj) and TRULY & TOTALLY SHINE as those characters!This movie is FABULOUS, and the only reason I gave it 4 stars instead of 5 stars (or more!) that I'd give to the movie specifically, is because the quality of the DVD itself, could have been better. Although its NOT as bad as my "Gopaal Krishna" DVD (which has the SAME or similar issues, but MUCH WORSE) if Baba Digital had put just a little more time, money & effort into the manufacturing and "editing" of the DVD, I'd have had no problem giving it 5 stars. But unfortunately, its clear that they spent as little time, money and effort as possible rushing the production of his DVD, to pay attention to & avoid preventable defects of recording/manufacturing like abrupt cut-offs of scenes. For example, in the scene where D.K. gets the letter requesting/notifying him that Rahul is coming to Delhi, and because D.K. is at work when it arrives, Indu opens & reads it and gets furious, and calls D.K. at his office to let him know & tell him she's leaving. But because he's in a meeting, she speaks to his secretary and hangs up. But the DVD cuts off the sound while Anita is still talking and doesn't even give subtitles/captions so the viewer can at least read what was said. Speaking of subtitles/captions, although this DVD movie DOES have English subtitles, they have NOT been done as well as they could have been. Because not only are some of the translations inaccurate, but certain lines, phrases or words are omitted, and some translations of the dialogue are left incomplete.If that's not bad enough, there are at least a couple scenes (not including the aforementioned scene of Indu and Anita on the phone) where the subtitles are NOT properly time-synchronized to appear right when the person saying the line (or lines) is ACTUALLY speaking it, but instead either happen too early or too late. The worst example of this is in the last few scenes of the movie, when D.K., is at the train station in Delhi to put Rahul on the train to his boarding school in Nainital. As Rahul is getting on the train, D.K. asks the chaperone taking him to Nainital to make sure he doesn't drink the "outside water" (tap water/water from the train), and the chaperone asks if they have Rahul's water bottle/canteen. When Rahul says that he forgot it in the car, D.K. says he'll go back and get it, even though the chaperone tells him that there is no time and the train will be leaving any moment. However because of a series of delays, including the ticket-taker not allowing D.K. to leave until he shows him the ticket, and the car next to his in the parking lot, being parked too close to allow D.K. to get into his car, by the time that D.K. gets back to the train platform, the train has just finished pulling out of the station. The worst part is that its just at/around this point in the movie, that the DVD displays the subtitles for the next scene, TOTALLY giving away the suspense of what happens (not going to give it away here, either though). Instead of waiting until the actual scene to show the subtitles they show them before that scene even starts, and totally "spoils" the surprise. It doesn't really matter as much to me, since I've seen this movie HUNDREDS, if not THOUSANDS of times since the age of 5-6, but for those seeing it for the first time, the improper time-sychronization of the subtitles in this scene can & does/would ruin the surprise of the MOST IMPORTANT part & climax of the entire movie!Unfortunately, this is NOT the only Hindi movie DVD with these kinds of issues. My DVD of "Gopaal Krishna" has the SAME kinds of issues, but MUCH, MUCH worse. However UNLIKE many/most other Hindi DVDs (INCLUDING the much-worse quality "Gopaal Krishna" DVD) this DVD does NOT include subtitles for the songs (as it does for the rest of the movie). I don't know why that is -- I've never noticed those problems on most (or really, ANY!) of my other Hindi/Bollywood DVDs like  Kuch Kuch Hota Hai , Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge , Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna, my 3 disc set (Two Disc DVD + CD) of Taare Zameen Par, my 2-disc set of Veer Zaara or others. Thus, I suspect that the manufacturers of the DVDs for lesser-known, or lesser-publicized (UNLIKE the modern-day Bollywood blockbuster hits of the present-day) and older Hindi movies like "Gopaal Krishna" & "Masoom", are skimping on the production costs, because they don't see the DVD sales of these movies being as profitable as the new movies getting tons of Internet and media press worldwide. Its a shame that they don't realize that if they put out a quality product, even if its for old(er) movies, that long-time & loyal fans of those movies will still buy them, even if they already own it. For example, I already owned VHS versions of both "Gopaal Krishna" and "Masoom" when I bought the DVD versions -- and if they come out with a GOOD-QUALITY Blu-ray version, I'd still get it AGAIN (but it would have to be BETTER [and NOT identical to or worse] than the DVD for me to do so) on Blu-ray, even though I already have the DVD!Because I ♡ ♥ ♡ this movie!Although the DVD itself is mediocre, the movie, IMHO, more than makes up for it. Its a moving and poignant film and is a MUST-SEE for all but the youngest children and/or most conservative of families -- because it DOES deal with the issue of adultery. However even then, adjustments can be made to enable even younger kids to see this movie. For example, if I recall correctly, I first saw this movie when I was 5-6 and my brother was a couple years younger. However, in part because we didn't understand Hindi, my mom took advantage to slightly manipulate the translations (because as I mentioned above, subtitles weren't available on most videos [or at least this one!] back then) to avoid telling us that Rahul was the product of an affair, but rather saying that he was D.K.'s son from a previous marriage and that Indu was just sad/angry because he wasn't her biological son. It wasn't until we were older that we found out that Rahul wasn't a child from a previous marriage but conceived during an adulterous one-night stand (why it never occurred to us [or at least to me] beforehand to "do the math" between the difference in Pinky's and Rahul's ages, I'll never be able to explain!)Nevertheless, regardless of the relatively adult subject matter (which as I said, can be manipulated/adjusted the way my mom did, for younger children) this is an EXCELLENT film. The casting is PERFECT (or as close to perfect as its possible to get), the acting is EXEMPLARY, and the songs are BEAUTIFUL, some of them (like "Tujhse Naraaz Nahin Zindagi", "Do Naina Aur Ek Kahani" & "Huzoor Is Kadar Bhi Na") are touching & mournful tunes, and others (like "Lakadi Ki Kaathi") are lively and upbeat. Basically a BEAUTIFUL movie!!☆☆☆☆ 4 STARS for the DVD + ☆☆☆☆☆ 5 STARS (if not, a LOT more!) for the movie itself = ☆☆☆☆ 4 STARS!!!!!!

गुलजार साहब की बेहतरीन फिल्मों में से एक।

Great movie with good picture quality

Moved and cried.I'm a Japanese learning India.This film is an example of kindness of India to people.Whatever the reasons are, it seems people here are kind to others.Thank you very much

This movie is very good and print is also very good. Audio and Video is digitally restored.

Simply great. Five *****