Review of Sayangsiddha


Review of Sayangsiddha.

In the mid-70s directors in Bengal experimented with masala films. Sayangsidha was an example of such type of films.

In that film Ranjit Mullick was the elder son of Satya Banerjee. He was the owner of huge amount of property but was given narcotics and remained abnormal. His younger brother was tutored by Utpal Dutt to whip his elder brother and exercise his right over the property of Satya Banerjee. Satya Banerjee’s first wife died. His second wife Chaya Devi neglected the elder son Ranjit Mullick.

Ranjit Mullick was married to the daughter of Kali Banerjee, that was Mithu Mukherjee. Mithu Mukherjee was very notorious in the village as she proved herself to be a dare devil character. Once she married Ranjit Mullick, she realized that there was nothing require wrong in him. He was beaten and terrorized, so became abnormal.

Mithu Mukherjee taught her to read and write after marriage. One day when his younger brother tried to whip him, she snatched the whip and whipped the younger brother instead. Satya Banerjee did not give his ancestral property to the younger son. So there was violence at the end of the film backed by Utpal Dutta. His men tried to kill Ranjit Mullick to allow the younger brother to be the absolute owner of the property after the death of Satya Banerjee.

They did not succeed in their attempt. The music composed by Nochiketa Ghosh was very impressive with hit songs of Manna Dey like “kichi michi kichi michi”, songs of Asha Bhosle like “mone hoy aaj aami”, etc. The performances of character artists in the film like Bhanu Banerjee were very impressive.

Bengali films shifted from the literature based classics to masala films in the late 70s. Sayangsiddha was remade in hindi with Jeetender playing the role of Ranjit Mullick and Hema Malini playing the role of Mithu Mukherjee.