Pyaasa

Pyaasa

(Pyaasa), Guru Dutt / IND, 1957
original version / English subtitles, 146 min

This is Guru Dutt’s real masterpiece. It tells of the thirst for love, for recognition, for spiritual fulfilment. There is a strong parallel between the hero, a poet, the outsider trying to make a place for himself in the society he inhabits and the director, the outsider, trying to leave his independent stamp in a world of formulaic cinema.