Monika Mehta

READING CINEPHILIA IN KIKAR

HA-HALOMOT/DESPERADO SQUARE, VIEWING
THE LOCAL AND TRANSNATIONAL IN
SANGAM/CONFLUENCE

Introduction
The opening sequence of Benny Torati’s Kikar Ha-Halomot/Desperado Square (2000)
shows a sparse and dusty landscape dotted with ramshackle houses. On an unpaved
road, Yisrael-the-Indian, an aficionado of Hindi films (hence the sobriquet), dressed in
a flowery shirt and bell-bottom pants, rides a motorbike with a sidecar. From an old
cassette player nestled between the motorbike’s handles, Mukesh croons ‘ye to kaho
kaun ho tum (2), mujhse puuchhe bina dil mein aane lage, meethi nazaron se bijali
giranee lage/Tell me who you are (2), you’ve entered my heart without my
permission, your sweet gaze strikes like lightning …’ This song from Raj Kapoor’s
Aashiq/Lover (1962) blankets the landscape as Yisrael rides on a winding road, passing
the residents of Tel Aviv’s Hatikva Quarter, foregrounding the theme of cinephilia
central to Kikar Ha-Halomot’s narrative.1
Kikar Ha-Halomot (KHH) intertwines the story of a neighbourhood’s affection for
an old theatre that has been closed for 25 years, with the tale of an unrequited love. A
year after the theatre owner, Morris Mandabon, dies; his younger son Nissim has a
dream in which his father asks him to re-open the theatre. As Nissim and his elder
brother George undertake this task, the residents of the neighbourhood are thrilled,
especially the cinephiles, Yisrael and the theatre’s old projectionist, Aaron. When the
brothers ask the two men which film to screen at the theatre’s opening, they
unanimously suggest Raj Kapoor’s Sangam/Confluence. Their mother, Seniora, objects
when she learns about her sons’ plan to screen Sangam. Another obstacle facing
the brothers is that the only print of the film is in the hands of their uncle Avram,
Morris’s long-absent brother, who has just returned to the neighbourhood after
25 years and who initially refuses to give them the film. As the narrative unfolds, we
discover that like Sangam, the story of Morris, Signora and Avram is a tale of
a love triangle. Torati pays homage to Hindi cinema by extensively quoting Sangam. In
addition, KHH’s structure echoes that of a Hindi film. The dominant plot
(the opening of the theatre and Seniora and Avram’s story) is accompanied by
several subplots: George’s romance with Gila, a waitress at his restaurant; the
building of a bonfire; neighbourhood residents Sarah and David’s comic shenanigans.

South Asian Popular Culture Vol. 4, No. 2, October 2006, pp. 147-162
ISSN 1474-6689 print/ISSN 1474-6697 online ß 2006 Taylor & Francis
http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals DOI: 10.1080/14746680600797194
148 SOUTH ASIAN POPULAR CULTURE

There is also liberal use of both Hindi and Greek music–and even a song-dance
sequence.2

Theoretical engagements and interventions

While most studies presume that globalization is a phenomenon limited exclusively to
the expansion of Hollywood, the expression of cinephilia in KHH points to alternative
cultural flows. Along with scholars such as Sheldon Lu, Hamid Naficy, Robert Stam,
Ella Shohat, to name a few, I seek to de-centre Hollywood in debates on globalisation.
Furthermore, discussions on cinephilia focus on the Euro-American context with
occasional references to a few non-western directors who are the current darlings of the
film festival circuit. As de Valck and Hagener note, the historiography of cinephilia
marks France as the site of its origin (12). For example, Paul Willemen writes:

we first of all have to realise that [cinephilia] is a French term, located in a

particular rationalization or attempted explanation of a relationship to cinema that
is embedded in French cultural discourses. (231)

The narrative of cinephilia begins with France and then moves to the cultural
exchanges between Europe and the USA from 1950s onwards. An example of this
narrative can be found in Sontag and Elsaesser’s articles. Sontag notes:

Cinephilia had first become visible in the 1950’s in France: its forum was the
legendary film magazine ‘‘Cahiers du Cinema’’ (followed by similarly fervent
magazines in Germany, Italy, Great Britain, Sweden, the United States and
Canada). Its temples, as it spread throughout Europe and the Americas, were the
many cinematheques and clubs specializing in films from the past and directors’
retrospectives that sprang up. The 1960s and the early 1970s was the feverish age
of movie-going, with the full-time cinephile always hoping to find a seat as close
as possible to the big screen, ideally third row centre. (sec.6, 60)

Elsaesser writes:

Cinephilia, then, wherever it is practiced around the globe is not simply a love of
cinema. It is always caught in several kinds of deferral: a detour in place and
space, a shift in the register and a delay in time. The initial spatial displacement
was the transatlantic passage of Hollywood films after World War II to a newly
liberated France, whose audiences, avidly caught up with the movies the German
occupation had embargoed or banned during the previous years. In the early
1960s, the transatlantic passage went in the opposite direction, when the
discourse of auteurism travelled from Paris to New York, followed by yet another
change of direction from New York back to Europe in the 1970s, when thanks to
Martin Scorsese’s admiration for Michael Powell, Paul Schrader’s for Carl
Dreyer, Woody Allen’s for Ingmar Bergman and Francis Coppola’s for Luchino
Visconti these European masters were also ‘‘rediscovered’’ in Europe. Adding the
mediating role London played as the intellectual point between Paris and
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New York, and the metropolis where art school buffs, art house audiences,
university-based film magazines and New Left theorists intersected as well….
(Thomas 30)

In contrast to Sontag’s and Elsaesser’s accounts, KHH highlights an alternative

transnational exchange between Israel and India. The film also invites us to consider
the role of the theatre in a poor, working-class neighbourhood as opposed to urbane
circles in the glittering metropolises of Paris, London and New York.
While the 1960s and 1970s are referred to as the heyday of cinephilia, the mid-
nineties bring forth pronouncements of its demise. An oft-cited piece, Susan Sontag’s,
‘The Decay of Cinema’, mourns the death of cinephilia, i.e. ‘the vanished rituals of–
erotic, ruminative–of the darkened theatre’ as well as the end of remarkable European
and Hollywood filmmaking. Sontag attributes the death of cinephilia to the rise of new
technologies such as television and to exorbitant production costs that favoured
blockbusters (sec. 6, 60). KHH demonstrates that theatre going continues to appeal to
audiences on two counts. First, the film’s narrative underscores the pleasures of
viewing Sangam at the theatre on the large screen. More importantly, the theatre is an
affective space where love blossoms, betrayals happen, the community gathers and
reconciliations occur. Second, KHH has circulated and won acclaim at international
film festivals which are new spaces that continue an older tradition of audiences
gathering to view films on the silver screen (Rosenbaum and Martin; de Valck and
Hagener 13). In pronouncing the death of cinephilia, Sontag fails to account for these
festivals. In fact, I first heard of the film from a friend who saw it at the Berlin Film
Festival. My own viewing of the film happened through a subtitled DVD acquired
through jewishstore.com. The means of my access to the film indicates the importance of
DVD and internet technologies in the transnational flow of cinema. In light of this, I
agree with many of the contributors to Cinephilia: Movies, Love and Memory who argue
that contemporary technologies have enabled the growth of a globally literate cinema
audience, thereby increasing cinephilia.
Both the arguments lamenting the demise of cinephilia or celebrating its
democratization via contemporary technologies share a focus on European and
Hollywood cinemas (‘Permanent Ghost: Cinephilia in the Age of Internet and Video’
series; Rosebaum and Martin; Sontag; De Valck and Hagener; Willemen). In contrast,
KHH invites us to attend to the different pleasures offered by Indian popular cinema.
For example, the cinephiles in KHH speak fondly of the song-and-dance sequences in
popular Hindi films and sing their favourite tunes. Cinephilia then can be envisioned
not only as love at first sight but also as love at first sound. Moreover, the soundtrack
of the film makes liberal use of Hindi film tunes and Greek music. In drawing our
attention to the aural dimension of cinephilia, KHH compels us to consider other
technologies through which films travel and inspire affection. Since most discussions
on cinephilia concentrate on European and Hollywood films, they unwittingly focus
on the role of visual technologies such as the large screen, television, DVD and the
internet in circulating images. KHH points to other technologies such as cassettes and
records, which have been central conduits for the circulation of popular Indian films at
home and abroad.
Through a reading of KHH, I seek to re-orient the discussions on globalization and
cinephilia. Drawing upon Lalitha Gopalan’s work, which attends to specific features of
150 SOUTH ASIAN POPULAR CULTURE

popular Indian films such as the song-and-dance sequences and intermission, I

examine the conventions and strategies of Hindi films that inspire love. While
Gopalan thoughtfully outlines the different features of popular Indian cinema and
demonstrates how they operate in constructing narratives, she does not consider
questions of transnational reception. Works on Indian cinema such as Kaur and Sinha’s
Bollyworld: Popular Indian Cinema through a Transnational Lens, Mishra’s Bollywood
Cinema: Temples of Desire, Ray’s, ‘Bollywood Down Under: Fiji Indian Cultural History
and Popular Assertion’, and Sardar’s, ‘Dilip Kumar Made Me Do It’ have examined
transnational reception. However, they have primarily explored how Indian films
mediate relations between the diaspora and homeland.
Unlike these studies, Larkin’s and Abadzi’s works attend to the role of popular
Indian cinema in non-diasporic contexts, raising another set of questions about the
global reach of Indian films. They compel us to consider why and how some cinemas
exercise more appeal in certain cultural contexts. According to Larkin, ‘Indian films,
their stars and fashions, music and stories’, have been popular amongst the Hausa in
Nigeria for more than 40 years because they provide ‘a way of being modern that does
not necessarily mean being Western’ and assist in fashioning their ethnic identity
(172):

… Indian film offers a space that is alter to the West against which a cultural
politics (but not necessarily a political one) can be waged. The story does not stop
there, however, because Indian film also offers Hausa a cultural foil against other
Nigerian groups, to wit, Igbo and Yoruba. (172)

He further explains, ‘[t]he adoption of song-and-dance sequences in Hausa videos is

one of the Bollywood-influenced intertextual elements that distinguish them from the
Yoruba-and English-language videos, also made in Nigeria.’ (170). The Hausa video
makers also use the song-and dance sequence to represent romantic love. In his
analysis of the Nigerian Hausa video film In Da So Da K’auna (The Soul of My Heart,
Ado Ahmad, 1994), Larkin points to the importance of aural technology in the
circulation of Hindi films. He demonstrates how the tape recorder ‘mediates between
the Indian films and Nigerian Hausa videos, enabling a declaration of love through
song, so central to Indian films and their popularity in Nigeria, while preserving the
sexual segregation necessary to Hausa Islamic values’ (170).
Like Larkin, Abadzi also notes the appeal of Hindi films songs and melodramatic
narratives, especially, among working-class female audiences in Greece. She links this
popularity to the widespread poverty in Greece during this time:

The plots of the movies resonated with the wounded Greek psyche. Suffering
women, street children who had to drop out of school, jealous sisters-in-law,
vengeful mothers-in-law, interdependencies, betrayals, and frequent unhappy
ends resonated with the difficult choices of poorly educated Greek people
subsisting in large cities. In particular, the characters appealed to poor women.
The maidservants and factory workers saw themselves depicted on the movie
screen, hoping for deliverance. Maybe the rich young man would marry the poor
beautiful girl who worked at his house. Maybe lost relatives would appear to take
care of the abandoned street child who sang so beautifully. Suffering in the movies
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was combined with spectacle. There were scenes of palaces, beautiful houses,
jungles, elephants, spectacular countryside’s, and medieval-period costumes.
Though often depicted as poor and unhappy, the Indian actresses were gracefully
modest, with bright clothes and much jewellery. They enabled the audiences to
see people like themselves improving their conditions, but also to be transported
to a reverie far from reality.

Not only were the films popular with the audiences Greek musicians also produced
variations of Hindi film songs.
Following Larkin’s and Abadzi’s works, I pay attention to the political and social
contexts in which cinephilia emerges and develops.3 I inquire how the triangle of the
local, national, and transnational is mediated via cinema and cinephilia. I show how
cinephilia in KHH not only marks a transnational relation but also becomes a strategic
device for engaging with pressing national concerns such as ethnicity (especially, the
representation of the Mizrahim and Israeli Arabs), class and the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Cinephilia and the past: recuperating the melodramatic mode,

(re)presenting Mizrahim
De Valck and Hagener note that in ‘theoretical discussions, there is a discernable
tendency to investigate cinephilia as an act of memory’ (15). According to them, it is a
‘play with the film-historical imaginary’ that ‘sets the contemporary mode of cinephilia
apart from previous generations’ (15). They explain that there is a ‘tendency of
contemporary films—mainstream, art and avant-garde, Western and others—to use
history as a limitless warehouse that can be plundered for tropes, objects, expressions,
styles, and images from former works….’ (15). In re-staging the past, these films do not
attempt to provide a faithful image of a historical period. Rather, they point to the
constructed nature of the past–and show the ways in which media has been intimately
associated with narrating the past. In her analyses of Todd Haynes’ Far From Heaven, Paul
Thomas Anderson’s Boogie Nights and Wes Anderson’s The Royal Tenenbaum, Elena
Gorfinkel points out that by introducing anachronistic elements into their films, these
directors re-work history, problematising race, gender and sexuality as larger social
concerns. More importantly, they highlight the limits of representation of these issues
by Hollywood. In doing so, these ‘practicing cinephiles’ both pay homage to Hollywood
as well as reveal its representational boundaries (153–68).
An aspect of Torati’s film that immediately catches the viewer’s eye and ear is
that though ostensibly set in the 1990s, it employs the mise-en-scène of the 1960s and
1970s. Flowery shirts, bell-bottom pants, hairstyles, the motorcycle with a sidecar,
the music, and cassette and record players are some of the elements used to evoke an
earlier time. It is not only the mise-en-scène that references the past but also the
behaviour of some of the adult characters which comes across as infantile. Through
the course of the narrative, we encounter Baruch, Yonatan and Morad who indulge in
juvenile antics, which include destroying a portion of Yisrael’s house while trying to
get wood for a bonfire and then happily splashing about in his bathtub; tying up David,
a fellow resident, who has stolen neighbour Sarah’s stockings and stuffed them in the
front of his pants; playing cat’s cradle with Sarah and vying for the opportunity to
152 SOUTH ASIAN POPULAR CULTURE

braid her hair which she wears in pony tails; constructing a wagon; and building a
bonfire to burn an effigy of Charles De Gaulle.
While viewing the film, one wonders why the film is foregrounding these
elements. It could be argued that the film recreates the world of the bourekas, which
were very popular in Israel in the 1960s and 1970s. Dorit Naaman writes that bourekas
were:

mostly, comedies, with some melodramas…. They were produced without the
aid of the commerce ministry (which supported ‘‘art films’’) and for commercial
profit. Critics regarded the genre as ‘‘low’’ entertainment, but many people
(both Ashkenazim and Mizrahim) crowded the theatres and made the films
profitable. While directed mostly at Mizrahim, the bourekas were mainly
produced and directed by Ashkenazi filmmakers and often-used Ashkenazi actors
to play both the roles of Mizrahim and Ashkenazim. (37)

The structure of the bourekas as described by Ella Shohat is similar to Hindi films:

Cinematic devices such as commentative music and expansive body gestures

externalize emotions and render them redundantly explicit. ‘‘Bourekas’’ films,
which employ broad types rather than rounded characters, are non-psychologised,
in this sense, unconcerned with the psychic nuances of the protagonist’s internal
world. Close-ups tend not to pinpoint a psychological dynamic but rather to
reveal perceptible signs such as tears. The manifestation of emotions through
expression and gesture often borders on the caricatural and at times … becomes
consciously parodic … the interaction between the individual characters effaces
the personal dimension and is congruent with the social paradigm. (130)

Namaan further explains that in the bourekas, the Mizrahis were stereotypically
portrayed as ‘illiterate, warm-hearted, violent, simple and members of big families’
(39). The bourekas largely represented the Mizrahim as an underdeveloped
community, which needed to be integrated into the larger Israeli nation, dominated
by the modern Ashkenazim community and values. This genre, according to Shohat,
sought to ‘bridge the gaps of Israeli society and thus promote an image of ethnic/class
equality, pluralistic tolerance, and solidarity’ (131). Naaman confirms Shohat’s
argument, ‘[i]n accordance with the melting pot ideology of the time, these films
attempted to establish national identity above and beyond ethnic differences’ (38).
I would like to suggest that in referencing this genre, KHH points to the
problematic representation of Mizrahis in Israeli cinema and seeks to resituate their
concerns and desires. KHH repeats the stereotypical representation of the bourekas but
with several differences. The focus is on the Mizrahi community rather than its
integration with the nation. In fact, we see how distant this community is from the
metropolis of Tel Aviv when the characters return from the city in a vegetable cart,
carrying the projector for screening Sangam. In contrast, the camera provides us a
glimpse of skyscrapers, highways and fast cars. Furthermore, if the critics of an earlier
period spoke disparagingly of the melodramatic mode employed by the bourekas, the
film celebrates it and underscores its importance for the community. Following
Madhava Prasad, I would suggest that the melodramatic mode is appreciated not only
 READING CINEPHILIA IN KIKAR HA-HALOMOT/DESPERADO SQUARE 153

for aesthetic reasons but also because it speaks to their social condition in so far as they
experience their lives melodramatically (459–60). The characters in the film express
appreciation for larger-than-life heroes such as Tarzan, Maciste and Hercules, and put
on mini-performances mimicking them. They are also captivated by tales of sacrifice,
bravery and love. On the trip from the city, Aaron, with a cinephile’s eye for detail,
vividly narrates a dramatic fight sequence from a Mexican film to a rapt audience. It is
interesting that KHH references Mexican, Indian, Italian, British and Hollywood films
but never explicitly speaks of Israeli cinema. In the process, KHH foregrounds the
transnational elements that were central to the formation of the bourekas and the Israeli
audience. Shohat says that the intertext of the bourekas includes:

for example, the Hollywood musical … the Italian melodrama … and more
generally, the tradition of ‘‘comedy of errors’’, of comic confusions and
identity…. These influences are mingled with the more familiar borrowings from
Yiddish cinema and theatre, as well as from Middle Eastern cinema…. To these
basic melodramatic and comic structures are added the thematic leitmotifs
common in Egyptian, Iranian, Turkish, and Indian popular cinema, such as
marginalized protagonists, the contrast between the rich and the poor, and the
topos of love’s triumph over social obstacles, all at times against a backdrop of
‘exotic’ criminality and folklore. (127)

It is by referencing foreign cinemas, specifically Indian, that KHH highlights the limits
of representation in Israeli cinema.4 It compels us to reconsider the depiction of
Mizrahis in bourekas and to re-imagine a much-maligned Mizrahi audience from the
past at whom these bourekas were directed.

Sangam and the love triangle

While the characters in KHH admire Hollywood, Mexican and Italian films, the
greatest affection is reserved for Indian films. In one of the most moving sequences,
when brothers Nissim and George ask Aaron which films were the blockbusters,
Aaron narrates the history of film exhibition in the neighbourhood:

First, there was Godzilla, then Maciste, then Hercules, then came Zorro, then the
cowboys. Once we started showing Indian movies, that’s all people wanted to
see. Three-hour long movies, full of singing and dancing. The show would start at
4:30 pm. By 3 pm, people were already lining up for tickets.

Suitably impressed, the brothers inquire, which film to screen at the theatre.
Smiling, Aaron responds, ‘If you screen an Indian movie the neighbourhood will go
wild.’ It is important to note that in KHH, a love for Indian films does not take on the
character of resistance; this cinema is not measured against the gold standard of
Hollywood. As Aaron’s account indicates, there was a wide array of films available for
viewing, with each cinema offering its particular pleasures. The preference for Indian
films, we later learn, was based on an appreciation for particular narrative
conventions. It is to be noted that in KHH, ‘Indian movies’ refers to just Hindi films.
154 SOUTH ASIAN POPULAR CULTURE

While Hindi cinema is dominant in India, this instance demonstrates that as it travels
abroad, it assumes a national character.5
When Yisrael, sporting a Raj Kapoor look (according to Aaron), joins the group,
he and Aaron begin to nostalgically reminisce about Indian cinema. They break into a
very popular song from Raj Kapoor’s Shree 420/Mr 420, ‘Mera jhoota hai Japani, yeh
patloon Englishstani, sur par lal topi Russi, phir bhi dil hai Hindustani/My shoes are
Japanese, my pants are from England, the cap I wear is Russian but my heart is
Indian.’ After the song ends, Yisrael implies that it is from Raj Kapoor’s blockbuster
Awaara/The Vagabond, which alerts us to the fact that cinephilia is not predicated on
perfect knowledge; the song is actually from Shree 420 which like Awara was also a
smash hit in India and abroad (Lutegendorf; Bali et al.). Many scholars have noted that
in Indian cinema after World War II, ‘the trail blazers into the global markets were
Mehboob Khan, Raj Kapoor, and V. Shantaram’ (Pendakur 40–3). Kapoor’s films
have had legendary success in the Middle East and Soviet Union.6 According to Erik
Barnow and S. Krishnaswamy, ‘Awaara, dubbed into Turkish, Persian, and Arabic,
broke box-office records in the Middle East. Raj Kapoor and his feminine co-star,
Nargis, became popular pin-ups in the bazaars of the Arab world’ (160). Elliot Stein
writes that Awaara and Shree 420 consolidated Kapoor’s ‘screen persona as an Indian
variant of Chaplin’s underdog, an image to which he would return in film after film.’
This persona was central to Kapoor’s national and transnational success.
Continuing their exchange, Aaron playfully quizzes Yisrael about Indian cinema:
Aaron: Who made [Awaara]?
Yisrael: Raj Kapoor
Aaron: Who played in Mother India?
Yisrael: Nargis, Sunil Dutt and Rajendra Kumar. Ask something really hard.

George breaks this exchange, inquiring, ‘Yisrael, which Indian movie was the biggest
hit of all time.’ As Yisrael begins to answer, ‘There were a few …’ George
interrupts, ‘Not a few, the biggest.’ And, Nissim presses, ‘The one movie that
everyone loved the most.’ Yisrael emphatically states, ‘Sangam … I swear.’ Aaron
confirms Yisrael’s choice, ‘Sangam was a big hit. It played for half a year until Morris
shut down the theatre.’ Yisrael jumps in, dramatically narrating the plot:

it has a great storyline about two life-long friends named Gopal and Sundar. Both
of them are in love with Radha but neither knows about the other. When Gopal
discovers that Sundar is in love with Radha too, he bows out in his favour on
account of true friendship. For years, Gopal suffers silently because he loved
Radha and Radha loved him–a real man. He gave up his true love for the sake of
friendship. It all turns out very sad in the end.

Yisrael’s rhapsodic exposition reveals that Hindi films, appealed to the neighbourhood
residents because of their melodramatic narratives. While the characters admire the
physical feats of larger-than life male heroes such as Tarzan, Hercules, Maciste, the ‘real
men’, as Yisrael notes in the case of Sangam, are the ones capable of grandiose emotional
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feats such as sacrificing one’s love for the sake of friendship (or as in KHH, for the sake of
one’s brother, adding Avram to the category of ‘real men’). Later in the film, as George
is wooing Gila, he points to Rajendar Kumar’s image on the poster of Sangam and echoes
Yisrael’s words that Kumar’s character is a ‘real man.’ In fact, Gila is more receptive to
George’s romantic overtures after he displays his sensitive side by screening Sangam.
There are male characters in the film who display their physical prowess, for instance,
Nissim by beating up a fellow resident and in a more comic vein, David simulating an
erection by stuffing stockings in his pants. However, the film suggests that male
characters such as Avram, Aaron and Yisrael are the ‘real men’ because of their capacity
for deep emotional attachments.
Adding to Yisrael’s account, Aaron, says, ‘the stars of the movie are Raj Kapoor,
Rajendra Kumar and Vyjanthimala–really, great actors. The songs are in colour.
There are 31 acts. It’s almost 4 hours long. They don’t make them like that anymore.’
While recent studies on the reception of Hindi cinema focus on the contemporary
period, KHH draws our attention to another moment in Hindi cinema’s transnational
success, thereby inviting us to historicize the reception of this cinema. This is not the
era of ‘Bollywood’7–which circulates as a brand name- but one which was
preoccupied with auteurs, stars and love for certain narrative conventions. The
sequence ends with Aaron and Yisrael singing a mournful song from Sangam, ‘Dost
dost na raha, pyaar, pyaar na raha, zindagi hamein tera aitebaar na raha/My friend was
no more my friend, my beloved was no longer my beloved, Life, I no longer trusted
you …’ Nissim looks at them in surprise and turns to George stating, ‘That’s the
music I heard in my dream.’ This fact clinches the deal and George says, ‘Sangam, it
is.’ I suggest that as a ‘practicing cinephile’, Torati chooses Sangam over blockbusters
such as Awaara or Mother India because its story resonates with KHH’s narrative.
In 1964, Raj Kapoor’s first technicolor film, Sangam, was released in India.
Taking its title from the meeting place of three separate rivers, Saraswati, Ganga and
Jamuna, the film narrates the conflict between homosocial bonds, i.e. dosti/friendship
and heterosexual romance. In a familiar resolution to the triangle in Hindi films,
Gopal/Rajendar Kumar dies (he shoots himself) so that the heterosexual marriage can
survive. The 1960s in the Indian film industry witnessed a shift in terms of both
themes and technology. More films began to be made in colour and directors left
behind old narratives of social realism to explore consumer romance both at home and
abroad (Dwyer and Patel 47–67). While Sangam was very much part of the new breed
of films which emerged in the 1960s, it was not without older, familiar themes of
Kapoor films’ including patriotism, sacrifice and class conflict. According to Elliot
Stein, Sangam was

a runaway hit–from its release in 1964 until 1969 it held the record as the biggest
grosser in the history of Indian cinema. Today, it still ranks as one of the half-
dozen top-grossing Indian films of all time. It was also a huge money-spinner
through the Middle East–the only film to run simultaneously for several years in
both Israel and Egypt.

Sangam’s blockbuster status is confirmed by the distributor in KHH who tells the
brothers when they ask him for a print of Sangam, ‘Would I be sitting here, if I had
Sangam?’ Dwyer and Patel note that Sangam was:
156 SOUTH ASIAN POPULAR CULTURE

… described as an ‘‘earnest and ambitious effort to synthesize the modern

European culture with that of ancient India through an immortal love story of
love and friendship’’ (168).

Torati’s film is less interested in the modern pleasures offered by Sangam and
more in the traditional themes of love and sacrifice.
In KHH, when the brothers ask Yisrael, how many times he had seen Sangam, he
coolly replies, ‘100 … 200 times.’ To convince the brothers that this is no
exaggeration, he lists his viewings, ‘the matinee show, the evening show, and the
midnight show with Avram and Seniora.’ In the process, he unwittingly reveals that
Seniora and Avram were once lovers. Perched on the theatre’s rooftop, Yisrael used
to watch both the on and off-screen romances. Aaron later confirms this revelation
and tells the brothers that everyone was in love with Seniora, but she loved Avram.
The parents arranged Morris and Seniora’s marriage–and a delighted Morris did not
know that his brother loved Seniora. Thus, Avram was left ‘in a jam and had to leave.’
At the end of Aaron’s sympathetic account, Nissim asks, ‘Is that why he won’t give us
the film?’ Aaron explains, ‘It isn’t any film. It was their film.’ Both Aaron and viewers
familiar with Sangam’s narrative understand that it is their film, not only because it is
memento of their love but also because it literally transforms into their story.
Sangam not only helped forge Seniora and Avram’s relationship, but also foretold
its demise. In KHH Seniora recounts to Aaron that twenty-five years ago Avram was
supposed to meet her at the theatre after talking to Morris about their romance; she
waited for him until sunrise but he never came. For her, this marked the end of their
relationship. The theatre becomes the site both for the blossoming of their romance
and its betrayal. Later, when Seniora visits her husband’s grave, she encounters Avram
who concedes that he made a mistake by leaving and keeping their romance from
Morris. While the film invites us to sympathize with Avram’s predicament, it also
empathizes with Seniora’s loss and anger. Unlike Sangam, where Radha’s frequent
pleas to not marry Sundar as well as her tirade against Sundar and Gopal for treating
her as property fall on deaf ears, the female characters in KHH speak their mind and
are heard. If, in leaving the town, Avram had unwittingly cast Seniora as property, by
admitting his mistake, the injustice done to her is acknowledged.8 Apart from Seniora,
the film depicts Gila as an assertive single-mother who does not easily bend to
George’s will. In a more comic vein, Sarah is more than willing to get back at David
for stealing her stockings and cassettes. She also deflects his romantic overtures in the
theatre, citing a preference for the on-screen romance. Through such depictions, the
film not only intervenes in the dominant representations of Mizrahi female characters
in the bourekas, who were often portrayed as weak-willed and oppressed, but also
Radha’s portrayal in Sangam.9
Earlier in the film, the brothers and Aaron enter the dilapidated theatre. The
building is stuffy, the chairs and the floor are covered with debris, and old posters are
strewn on the floor. With Aaron, they walk into the old projection room. The camera
lovingly pans over opened film cans. Aaron longingly picks up an old cigarette box
and an empty bottle of orangeade, remarking to the brothers that this is what they
smoked and drank in those days. His nostalgic comments draw our attention to
cinema’s tight links to other economies. Film viewing is not simply about watching a
movie; it also involves partaking of other pleasures including eating, drinking,
 READING CINEPHILIA IN KIKAR HA-HALOMOT/DESPERADO SQUARE 157

smoking, romancing and conversing, to name a few. Later, the theatre is dusted and
painted, a new red velvet curtain is drawn across the screen and a curiously fresh
poster of Sangam is brought and pasted on the marquee. The shots of the theatre recall
Cinema Paradiso, demonstrating Torati’s quotation of and homage to yet another film.
A festive spirit envelops the theatre as the community gathers to watch Sangam.
Patrons arrive, dressed up for the occasion, carrying cotton candy and chocolates.
Ululations resound on the soundtrack as the audience enters the theatre. Yisrael
inaugurates the screening by riding into the theatre on his motorcycle, yelling,
‘We’ve got Sangam!’ As the screening begins, a viewer familiar with Sangam
immediately notes that it is not sequential but follows an affective logic. The scenes
that resonate with the audience as well as with Seniora and Avram are cherry-picked.
In doing so, the film demonstrates how fans, in this case the diegetic audience–and the
director, appropriate parts of the narrative that speak to them. The camera moves
back and forth between the screening and the audience’s reactions. They are
enthralled by scenes of Radha and Gopal’s courtship; they happily clap, sing, and
dance to strains of Bol Radha bol/Tell me Radha, tell me in which Sundar attempts to
woo Radha; and they weep while watching a distraught Radha declaring her allegiance
to Sundar as he mournfully sings Dost dost na raha.10
The most poignant editing is reserved for Seniora and Avram, seemingly the only
residents who do not attend the screening. As Avram is packing his suitcase to leave the
neighbourhood once more, he hears strains of Dost dost na raha. Instead of, screening the
actual images associated with the song, the film shows us an earlier sequence, one in
which Gopal is wooing Radha. For Avram, the song of betrayal silences Gopal and
Radha’s courtship and by extension, Avram and Seniora’s romance. The camera cuts to
another sequence from Sangam in which Radha pleads with Gopal to tell Sundar about
their relationship and rues the fact she fell in love with Gopal since he values his
friendship with Sundar more than their relationship. From the screen, the camera moves
to a weeping Seniora lying on a bench with her arms clasped, perhaps recalling her own
predicament. As Radha tells her friend sadly, ‘I married Sundar, after all,’ the scene cuts
to Seniora with tears streaming down her face.
The last excerpt from Sangam is of Sundar and Radha’s wedding. The camera
moves from a shot of the wedding to Avram sitting on the steps of his house and then
returns to the wedding, with Sundar and Radha circling the fire. As the knot tying
them unravels in front of Gopal, Sundar requests Gopal to tie the knot tightly so that
it will never loosen. The soundtrack continues with this scene but the camera once
more cuts to Avram. As Gopal ties the knot, there is a close-up of a crying Radha.
The camera immediately cuts to a sobbing Seniora who seemingly turns her head away
as if from this painful scene. This sequence ends with a reflective Avram on the steps
of his house, insinuating that he is recalling instances from his relationship. The
editing, by moving between Seniora, Sangam and Avram, evokes memories of an
unrequited love. Interestingly, while Sangam concludes with Gopal’s death, its
screening in KHH ends with the wedding, referencing the end of the romance
between Avram and Seniora 25 years ago.
Elsaesser describes cinephilia as ‘the love that never dies, the love that binds the
present to the past in memory’ (Elasesser, ‘Specularity and Engulfment: Francis Ford
Coppola and Bram Stoker’s Dracula’ 206). While the theatre and the screening
become a way to link the past and the present, they also stitch together the present
158 SOUTH ASIAN POPULAR CULTURE

and the future. The theatre becomes a space for initiating relationships between
George and Gila as well as David and Sarah. The film ends with Avram leaving
town and stopping at the theatre on his way. He requests another midnight screening
of Sangam from Aaron. Now, with only Avram in the audience, the camera revisits
the scene of Gopal wooing Radha, crooning ‘yeh mera prem patr padh kar, tum
naaraz na hona, ke tum meri zindagi ho, ke tum meri bandgi ho/do not get
upset while reading my love letter, you are my life, you are my life-long companion.’
Soon after, Seniora appears at the theatre entrance, parting the curtains at the door
and looks at Avram watching Sangam. She then turns to the screen, as Gopal continues
singing to Radha, ‘tujhe mein chaand kehta hoon magar us mein bhi daag hai/I want
to compare your beauty to the moon, but even the moon is blemished, tujhe mein
suraj kehte hoon magar us mein bhi aag hai/I want to compare your beauty to the
sun but that is too fiery.’ Seniora turns back to Avram and their eyes meet as
Gopal sings, ‘bas itna mein kehta hoon, ke mujhe tumse pyaar, pyaar hai (3)/I
just want to say this much, that I love you (3). Once more, Sangam recalls and
mediates Seniora and Avram’s relationship. As their gazes hold one another, Seniora
walks toward Avram and sits beside him. The scene of Sundar singing Dost dost na
raha appears again on the screen but the soundtrack plays evocative strains of Greek
music. Sundar turns from the piano, seemingly looking directly at the couple in
the theater. At this point, Avram gingerly takes Seniora’s hand and she rests her
head on his shoulder. I suggest that Sundar is a displaced projection of Morris. In
holding Seniora’s hand in front of Sundar/Morris, Avram finally admits his love for
Seniora to Morris. Aaron, peering through the projection room slot, and Yisrael,
peeking from his former perch atop the theatre, watch Sangam unfolding on and off-
screen.
The choice of Sangam is important not only because it parallels the story in KHH
but also, the Arab-Israeli conflict. This is suggested via an allegorical reading of the
triangle viz. two brothers vying for the same woman (land). More importantly,
Avram is portrayed by the well-known Israeli Arab actor Mohammed Bakri. Both
Shohat and Naaman note the importance of passing in Israeli cinema. Naaman writes:

In early bourekas, the main roles (both Ashkenazi and Mizrahi) were played
by Ashkenazi actors. Supporting roles, as well as Arab characters (who were
rare) were often played by Mizrahim…. Because Israel is a small country,
audiences are adept at recognizing an actor’s ethnicity, so any ethnic displace-
ment is evident to an Israeli viewer…. Rather, the identifiable presence of
Ashkenazi actors in Mizrahi roles accentuated the lack of Mizrahim in Mizrahi
roles and called attention to the problematics of ethnic representation in general.
(31)

Naaman maps racial passing in the USA to the Israeli context without interrogating the
issues of downward and upward mobility in the social hierarchy. Alternatively, KHH
points to this hierarchy in casting Bakri as a Jewish character (which more closely
parallels the USA context of racial passing).11 Unlike the bourekas where the passing
involved downward displacement in the hierarchy, this passing, through invocation of
upward mobility, further underscores the problematic representation of Israeli Arabs
in reel and real life.
 READING CINEPHILIA IN KIKAR HA-HALOMOT/DESPERADO SQUARE 159

Last take
Part of my pleasure in watching KHH was that it celebrated rather than denigrated the
melodramatic mode. I was displaced in time and space and transported into the
theatre. The diegetic audience’s laughter and tears while watching Sangam evoked
memories of similar viewings in theatres in Delhi. Their infectious love for Sangam
redeemed the film for me.

Acknowledgements
I am very grateful to Rajesh Bhaskaran for his help and support in completing this
article. I would also like to thank Haim Bresheeth, Dale Hudson, Dorit Naaman and
Anupama Prabhala-Kapse for their input. Dina Iordanova’s and Dimitris Eleftheriotis’
patience and generosity is much appreciated. Finally, this article would not have been
written without the cooperation of my two-month old daughter, Sahana; I should like
to dedicate it to her.

Notes
1 As an avid fan of Hindi films, this sequence reminds me (as for any self-respecting
viewer of Hindi cinema) of Jai/Amitabh Bachchan and Veeru/Dharmender in
Ramesh Sippy’s blockbuster Sholay (1975) riding through a similar terrain on a
motorbike with a sidecar, singing, ‘yeh dosti hum nahin torenge, torenge dum
magar, saath tera na chhodenge/we will never break this friendship, we’ll die but
we’ll never leave one another’s side.’ It is possible that Torati is also familiar with
Sholay, considering the popularity of Hindi films in Israel.
2 Ravi Vasudevan describes the structure and features of Hindi cinema.
3 We must remember that in the case of Israel, a love for Hindi film arose and
flourished during a period in which Arab films were banned. According to Dorit
Naaman, ‘[until] the 1960s Arab films were not available in Israel (TV only came in
1969, and since then Egyptian films are shown regularly on Friday evenings).
Similarly, Arab music was not played on the radio. This was a state policy. So the
closest was Indian films, and Greek music–both represented in the film–which were
consumed primarily by Oriental Jews in the periphery.’ Dorit Naaman, e-mail
message to author.
4 According to the website, jewishfilm.com, Hindi films were actually very popular in
Hatikva; Saturday night was the big night out to see a film. Torati, a Hatikva
Quarter activist would be familiar with this information.
5 Since for the characters, Hindi cinema is Indian cinema, I use the two
interchangeably even though I think the distinction is very important.
6 For further details about Raj Kapoor’s transnational success, see the following select
references: ‘Filmdom’s First Family: The Kapoors’; Barnouw and Krishnaswamy;
Mishra; Pendakur; Saari; Stein.
7 Both Rajadhyaksha and Prasad have written about the term, ‘Bollywood’.
8 I have always disliked Sangam because of the way in which it shortchanges Radha’s
character and KHH enables me to revel in ‘dosti’ while not offending my feminist
sensibilities.
160 SOUTH ASIAN POPULAR CULTURE

9 Shohat writes about the representation of Mirazhi females. See Shohat, Israeli
Cinema: East/West and the Politics of Representation, 115–178.
10 In Sangam, the song sequence Bol Radha bol appears first in the narrative. Radha and
Gopal’s courtship is shown later. This courtship is followed by Sundar and Radha’s
wedding. Later, when Sundar discovers an old letter written to Radha, he feels
betrayed and sings the song, Dost na dost raha.
11 Jewishfilm.com’s review of the film noted an exclamation point next to the fact that
Mohammed Bakri was playing a Jewish character.

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Monika Mehta is an Assistant Professor in the Department of English at Binghamton

University. Her research and teaching interests include Postcolonial Literature & Film;
Globalization, Diaspora, and Cultural Production; Gender & Sexuality; Cinema in South
162 SOUTH ASIAN POPULAR CULTURE

Asia; the State & the Entertainment Industry. She is currently working on two projects:
She is completing her book-manuscript, Selections: Cutting, Classifying, and Certifying
in Bombay Cinema, which examines censorship of sex in Bombay cinema. She has
begun research on her next project, Disjunct Economies: Libidinal and Material
Investments in Bombay Cinema, which explores how processes which go under the
name of ‘globalization’ have reconfigured relations among Bombay cinema, the Indian
state, and Indian diasporic communities. Address: Department of English, Binghamton
University, PO Box 6000, Binghamton, NY 13902–60000. [email: mmehta@
binghamton.edu]