Vishwa Mehra

With one side of her face terribly burned after an accident, Rupa (Zeenat Aman), a village girl, lives a life of shame & ridicule until one day, Rajeev (Shashi Kapoor), the newly-arrived engineer of the nearby dam, hears her exquisite singing voice & asks her father's permission to marry her - without completely seeing her real face. When Rajeev finally sees her disfigured face on the wedding night, he refuses to believe that she is the same person he loved & goes in search of the Rupa he loved.

A kindly minstrel named Raju aids an injured man only to be captured by bandits. Brought to the bandit community, Raju tries to reform their cycle of killing whilst constantly under the threat of death from the tyrannic Raka. The bandit chief's alluring daughter, Kammo, sees that the man poses no real threat and falls in love with his innocence. But did the community underestimate Raju's influence?

Ganga Singh lives near Gangotri with her brother, Karam. One day she comes to the assistance of a young man... (imdb)

The brooding, noir-ish Aag is an ideal entrance point for audiences unfamiliar with Hindi cinema: it often feels like a 1930s Hollywood melodrama with an expressionistic twist. (Elliott Stein attributes this to the plethora of Germans at Kapoor's first studio apprenticeship; Kapoor himself cited Citizen Kane as his chief inspiration, especially in the film's complex flashback structure. (TIFF Lightbell)