(Please Note: Shown in an unsubtitled print with a complete written English synopsis.) Guru Dutt, having introduced the moody anti-hero into popular Indian cinema, turned inward in Kaagaz ke Phool to survey the tortured moods and mercurial fate of the film artist himself. Dutt portrays a successful director who, estranged from his wife and daughter, falls in love with his young protégée; her star rises while his falls. (She is portrayed by Waheeda Rehman, who indeed grew from vamp to artist in Dutt's films.) Kaagaz ke Phool is a poetic exploration of the world of cinema; it has been called Dutt's 8-1/2. Its obvious autobiographical nature makes the last scene a haunting premonition of Dutt's own depression and eventual suicide, which this film, admired by cinephiles but a box-office failure, may well have set in motion.