Not having read Hesse's novel, I went to see this film during its first and controversy-plagued release in Calcutta in 1976, purely for the music composed by my idol Hemanta Mukherjee. The film was certified by the censors as fit 'For Adults Only'. By Indian standards, I can see why.Regarding the music, 2 correspondents had flayed Hemanta Mukherjee in the Calcutta daily THE STATESMAN for having vulgarized Siddhartha's quest with two Bengali songs, each from a different, and earlier, Bengali film. True, one can wonder why Bengali in a film which has already used the convention of characters in ancient India speaking English. Imagine Achilles in TROY suddenly breaking into modern Greek while otherwise speaking English. However, the theme song on the river is unexceptionable contentwise. I am a little uneasy about the other song. Let us concede that for anyone who has seen the 2 Bengali films, the songs would come with their own distinct situational associations. This is my problem with the other song, as I had seen the Bengali original by the time I saw SIDDHARTHA.Watching the film again in the late 1980s at the Penultimate Picture Palace, Oxford, I had to confess to a sneaking sympathy with my cousin, who, in 1976, had dismissed the film as 'pavement philosophy'. The narrative struck me as potentially pretentious and quite unconvincing in its pontifications at times.The photography, however, is breathtaking,and the cast seem sincere in their performances. Incidentally, with reference to user gabravo123, at the PPP, Oxford, I think a bunch of Bengali students were the only viewers in a single row.Similar to his/her experience? However, the reason why not one of us moved as the closing credits rolled is because we were all mesmerized by the divine voice of Hemanta. For gabravo123's information, the two songs have been available on a 45 rpm disc since the late 70s, only there is no reference to the film on the disc. It is just titled HEMANTA KUMAR. They, I'm sure, are available now on CDs of the singer-composer's film songs. Incidentally, why does gabravo123 mention Rabindranath Tagore? I hope s/he is not implying that Tagore has anything to do with the lyrics, both of which are by the late Gouriprasanna Majumdar.

I read the novel Siddhartha and found it to be a very interesting, and good book.In class today, we watched this film. It was just awful. Everyone in the class was laughing every five minutes because of how terrible both the acting and filming was.The filming is dreadful. One second you'll see Siddhartha talking, and then it will randomly transition into some five second scene of a bird flying, or someone saying something random and irrelevant to the plot.There is a scene where Kamala gets bit by a snake--you don't even see the snake bite her. You just see her scream this ear-piercing and unnatural scream and fall to the ground--it was possibly the worst acting of any scene in any movie I've ever seen.Seriously, this movie is awful. I read the book and loved it, so did many of my AP Literature classmates, but not a single person in the room enjoyed the movie--they all laughed because of how terrible and random it was.Siddhartha searched to find the realms of enlightenment--this movie searched the realms of stupidity and terrible acting, and succeeded.

Well, I am a big Hermann Hesse fan and found this to be a very good representation of the book, it definitely got main ideas across to say the least. Although with every book-to-movie it misses out on at least a few details... but I mean, I have no real complaints.I would definitely recommend this film to any Hermann Hesse fans, or even anyone interested in spirituality or Buddhism.I do wonder why it's received such a low score though, I am guessing many people never read the book or are not familiar with H.H.In any case, compared to most modern day films this was actually captivating and had a heart to it.

...other than that no redeeming features. I didn't realise that this had been made circa 1972. I thought it was a new release in 2003. I thought it felt dated (and now I know why). The pace of the film was slow, and the acting...well, it was sort of like watching a high school play. Nice message, though, even if a little "preachy."