Cinema
Rupban
রূপবান
Salahuddin · 1965
Synopsis
King Ekabbor Badshah has no child. A hermit he meets in the forest promises him a son, on one condition: at twelve days old, the child will have to marry a twelve-year-old girl and go into exile the very same day. Prince Rahim is born; he is married to Rupban, the vizier's daughter, who carries him off into the forest. Protected by the king of the jungle, they live there; Rahim grows up without knowing who she is, and at school Tajel, daughter of King Sayed Badshah, falls in love with him.
Context
In the early sixties, the tale of Rupban was filling the jatra, the popular open-air theatre, while Bengali cinema in Dhaka was buckling under competition from Urdu and Hindi films. Salahuddin went to see the performances to understand what attracted the public, shot near Sylhet in December 1964 and January 1965, then at the Dhaka studio, and released the film on 5 November 1965. Made for a lakh and a half rupees, it earned about twenty, and seventeen prints had to be struck instead of the usual four or five.
Who it is for
A black-and-white film carried by its songs, with music by Satya Saha and the voices of Abdul Alim and Nina Hamid; the plot follows that of the tale.
Prizes and reception
Regarded as the first great popular success of the Dhaka studios, it brought audiences back to Bengali-language films and opened a long series of adaptations of folk tales.