That 80's

a revolutionary idea for the 1980's when movies were either about a bumbling next-door hero and his funny situations including his love life or the masala movies of the hero fighting villains and saving the girl.

somewhere trying to make a space with niche audiences were movies which were "non-family" movies, because a family was not supposed to sit together and watch a philandering husband, a wife who could walk out of her marriage or a broken family. where the woman was not afraid of a divorce and the man was not apologetic about his love for a woman who was not his wife.

Arth and Ijaazat. there is something about these movies that makes it so compelling to watch. the flawed husband, a forbidden torrential affair with a devastingly attractive, stunning but traumatic woman, the wife who is deeply in love with her husband only to realize that he has feet of clay, who is torn between love for her husband and the need to save her self-respect. the movies characteristically explore the uncomfortable issues of infidelity, broken relationships, the stifling socio-cultural boundaries. they call-out to our need for the forbidden, the unexplained attraction for the flawed or damaged person, the inherent nature of a person to run after mysteries.

and then, who can forget the beautiful words in Arth - tum itna jo muskura rahe ho, kya gham hai jisko chupa rahe ho....