Umrao Jaan (2006) Reviews

• A Mixed Bag

  apant2006-11-05

  First and foremost, I appreciate Dutta's good intentions of exposing today's generation to the beauty of Urdu Zabaan and Lakhnawi Tehzeeb. It takes courage to do an Urdu film, in an age where Hinglish is fast becoming the linguafranca of people. It's a pleasure to hear the main characters of Umrao Jaan mouth dialogue in chaste Urdu. The problem is that except a few – Shabana Azmi and Aishwarya Rai who has evidently worked hard on her diction – no other actor can carry it off. And at many places the 'Lakhnawi' flavour of the language is missing. And even chaste Hindi words like 'Maan-Maryada' creep into the dialogue at times. Next, the production values of the film are quite good. The sets are opulent, the costumes and jewellery exquisite. While the film is a visual delight, the objective of recreating 19th century Lucknow is not achieved. Nawab Sultan dons a Pathani look, Faiz Ali is more Afghani, and despite J.P Dutta's best effort, the Rajasthani element ends up making brief, yet damaging appearances in the art decoration. The narration of Umrao's story demands a bit of 'thehrav', a relaxed unfolding of events. That calls for some patience on the part of the audiences who are used to instant gratification. However, I think J.P Dutta got carried away and completely forgot that a slow film need not be boring. Some of the sequences are so long drawn out that one loses interest after a while. When Nawab Sultan returns to the kotha in a drunken state, his scene with Umrao takes boredom to new heights. I wouldn't mind even a 15 minute scene where Umrao and Nawab might just exchange poetry or converse in high-flown Urdu. But here, there is no poetry to appreciate, there's no delicacy of zabaan to relish, and there's really nothing consequential going on. It hurts. The film is so long that by the time the film ends, it seems that you've been sitting at the theatre for ages. I did not get bored because I was carefully listening, analyzing and appreciating the language of the film. But for someone who does not appreciate Urdu it can be quite a torture. I am probably one of the very few people who have liked Anu Malik's music in Umrao Jaan. After watching the film, people are cursing the movie even more because they think the songs add unnecessarily to the length of the film. I disagree with this. The songs, and the lyrics, are the highlights of this film. Instead of dialogue, the narrative moves through songs. If Umrao wants to say something, she says it through a ghazal (remember, Ruswa's Umrao is a poetess). I also think very highly of Vaibhavi Merchant's choreography. Her steps, movements and gestures are full of ada, as one would expect in a film about a 19th century 'tawaif'. Aishwarya looks stunning as Umrao Jaan. And it is also evident that she has worked hard on her performance and dialogue delivery. I always considered her as a beautiful face with no acting talent. But in Umrao Jaan she is quite good, if only by her standards. So while it cannot be rated as a great performance in absolute terms, coming from Ash it certainly is a good job. Sadly, Abhishek disappoints big time. And I wouldn't only blame the script for that. His performance is very flat, something one doesn't expect from an actor who has shown considerable improvement over the years. The only actor who is consistently good in the film is Shabana Azmi (what else did you expect?) The film's biggest drawback is it's script. J.P Dutta's film follows the same narrative structure as the book, where in her twilight years Umrao Jaan tells the story of her life to the author – Ruswa. In that respect J.P Dutta tries to be truer to the book than Muzaffar Ali's 1981 version. I was quite pleased with the way J.P Dutta chose to start his film. However, the changes introduced later and the confused characterisation spoil what could've been a great film. I'm all for making changes to literary works to suit the medium of celluloid, so long as it doesn't alter the spirit of the original writing. But Dutta goes a step further and creates a few entirely new events to add twists to the story. These changes do not add to the film; in fact, they drastically change some of the important characters. The main problem with Dutta's script is that most characters have either not been properly developed or altered significantly. Gauhar Mirza (Puru Raj Kumar), Bismillah (Divya Dutta), Khursheed (Ayesha Jhulka), Faiz Ali (Suneil Shetty) – all had significant roles to play in the literary Umrao's life, but in the film all except Faiz Ali get very marginal roles, almost as if their presence was only incidental. Even Faiz Ali's character has been changed drastically. Except the fact that he's a dacoit who Umrao elopes with, every single aspect of his character and role have no relation to Ruswa's story. Ditto with Gauhar Mirza. The only character who comes across just the way Ruswa envisioned is Khanum, played with characteristic ease by Shabana Azmi. On the whole, while J.P Dutta's Umrao Jaan has some positive aspects to it, it doesn't come across as a genuine attempt at recreating Ruswa's novel. And the length of the film, just kills it!

• "Umrao Jaan" could have hit the mark, but missed it by a wide margin

  Amruta2006-11-04

  I have just watched J.P. Dutta's remake of the classic "Umrao Jaan" from 1981 and I find that there's a lot to say about it, not all of which is very positive. To begin with however, I will say that Aishwarya Rai's performance was very good in the film. She has been called a wooden faced actor in the past, and has also been credited with no more than four facial expressions that she can use in her performance. But in "Umrao Jaan" Aishwarya seems to have matured greatly. Her performance captured Umrao Jaan's maddening joy at finding love, and then her confusion, despair, the betrayal she felt and the ultimate resignation to fate when she realizes that she's lost everything. If Rai's acting seems repetitive or slightly tired at times, this can mostly be attributed to less than perfect direction from J.P. Dutta, and many other actors in the film have also failed to deliver the best they could for this very reason. Abhishek Bachchan, who is now a very versatile actor, delivered a rather forgettable performance in the film. He was slightly awkward in his screen movements, seeming uncomfortable in some of the indoor settings and, as the first and biggest love of Umrao Jaan's life, he did injustice to the role. His acting was so understated that it prevented viewer identification with the character. He could not evoke an emotional response in any of his scenes, least of all in his last scenes in the plot where the anger, resentment and resolute cold hearted rejection of Umrao Jaan by her lover came across only as petty tantrum thrown by an adolescent. Mostly however, these flaws in the film could have been prevented if J.P. Dutta had kept a firm grip over the screenplay, over the editing, and over the number of people in the cast. It seems that with too much to direct by himself, Dutta could not do full justice to many parts of the film, and veteran actors like Shabana Azmi, Himani Shivpuri and Divya Dutta directed themselves to fill in the gaps in the director's frenzied vision. There are too many actors in the film fighting for screen space, so much so that no one except a few make any impact. This has been a problem with a couple of Dutta's other films too, namely "Border" and "LoC", where the script was crowded with far more characters than required, and too many well known actors played them on screen. The screenplay for "Umrao Jaan" should have been tighter. Dutta does not find a good mix of emotions here. The first part of the film's story is almost entirely neutral or happy with viewers waiting for some dramatic tension or conflict to appear. Umrao Jaan's and Nawab Sultan's courtship is dragged on for scene after scene until just before the interval where we see some action beginning to happen. The remainder of the film is then entirely sad. The length of the film makes these polarities stand out even more, and the transition from the best time of her life to the worst is too slow to happen, and then very suddenly accomplished. Most importantly, it seems that Dutta could not resist the temptation to put in everything that he had shot. This film sorely needs stricter editing. Perhaps it is because Dutta has edited it himself, that one finds too many unnecessary scenes in the film. If he had had an impartial editor do the job it would not have been botched up out of sentimental attachments to the 'director's baby'. Martin Scorsese, when he went to the cinema with his friends, realised that if the viewers laugh at some point at which they're not meant to, then obviously the film has gone wrong there. I found the entire theatre howling with laughter at many scenes that were not meant to be funny at all. In particular three crucial scenes in the film, one in which Nawab Sultan goes to Umrao drunk and on the defensive. He then chooses to misunderstand her concern for him as pity. This scene dragged on for so long that the audience started picking on the dialogue and laughing at all the inappropriate times. Another scene, where Faiz Ali finds Umrao unresponsive to his love so he rips her clothes off and then screams in anguish, evoked guffaws louder than the character's own enraged cries. And finally, after enduring the film for ever so long, the audience had no sympathy for Umrao at the end when, after her last mujra, the whole court is in stunned silence for a minute. At this point, all that the audience sitting behind me could think of was how ridiculous all the people looked sitting on the floor with their heads hung low. And to add a last point to my argument, where the director paid attention to such exquisite and minute details as far as the beautiful period sets and costumes were concerned, there he failed to spot a most obvious gaffe. Suniel Shetty appears in one scene, in which the camera is positioned so that his feet are in the centre of the frame, to be wearing regular 21st century rubber soled and heeled lace up shoes. Apart from this there were plenty of scenes were one could see the adhesive strips on fake beards, mustaches and wigs. But despite all the flaws in the film, it was visually stunning. A real treat for the eyes. I would recommend that people watch "Umrao Jaan" to admire the beautiful and opulent period detail and Aishwarya Rai.

• well done

  joeva_za2006-11-06

  I saw the original movie when I was 10 back in 1982. Remakes of a successful film are always difficult because to many they will never live up to ones expectations. This one by JP Dutta was a great effort. Aishwariya looked and acted great and Abhishek had a haunting presence. And Shabana Azmi is her usual excellence. The music is wonderful - Anu Malik's stuff here is reminiscent of his "Refugee" soundtrack (which overall was better) but there are some real gems here especially "Tumhari mehfil mai aa gai hai" (gives me shivers). For many of us this movie will be nothing new - if you have seen the original or "Pakeezah" or even "Memoirs of a geisha". But it there are new and younger audiences out there who really should give it a try.

• Excellent!

  leeloo672006-11-04

  I've just seen this fantastic movie (twice in the theater), and the complaints I've heard about it completely escape me. It makes me wonder if they watched the entire movie, as the ending scenes are among the best ever filmed. For cultural reference and point of view, I am a 35 year old American male living in the United States and a fan of any good film. This movie is incredible and an achievement in Bollywood film. There have been some really great movies coming out of Bollywood (and some great non-Bollywood is Black and Raincoat) recently such as Devdas and Lagaan. Both of those movies really showed off the best elements of typical BW, but both also had at least a little of the, well, cheese or melodrama that tends to show up in the standard Bollywood movie. Umrao Jaan had no melodrama (and hardly any comic relief either). The music and dancing element that is a staple of BW and in most movies seems to come out of nowhere was here given a foundation in reality and a reason for existence due to the main character's profession. Speaking of the main character, Aishwarya Rai as Umrao Jaan herself was perfect casting and she did an incredible job at real acting and never once hinted at melodrama. Most of the musical numbers belonged exclusively to Rai, and in fact she was in almost every shot in the entire movie. One of the complaints is that this movie is too long. It was not too long but rather pretty average for BW, as it is only a few minutes longer than Devdas and is in fact shorter than Lagaan (at the time of this writing the run time was not given on IMDb.com, but my watch indicated about 210 minutes including intermission time). Another complaint is that it has too many songs. It did not have too many - there were six I believe which is about average for BW, and each one played an important part - especially the first and last songs in the movie. Besides their importance, the performances of the musical numbers were absolutely incredible - most of this was achieved on the shoulders of Rai - and after each musical number I seriously couldn't wait for the next one (hoping it would again feature Rai). Additionally, the songs themselves were absolutely amazing and fresh; real talent was behind the scenes here. The performance by Rai in the musical numbers was, to me, what completed the entire film. I called this movie an achievement because it features only the BEST elements of BW while incorporating things that are new and different from the typical BW feature that only uplift it's credibility, reality, and entertainment value. The goal of the BW film is to transport the viewer to another reality, and this one does it better than any I've seen.

• Rai shines, but Dutta fails a Legend.

  akbarnali2006-11-11

  Poor Aishwariya Rai. To have had to suffer the indignity of being "the most beautiful woman in the world." It may sound like I'm being excessively sarcastic, but you're only half right. Rai, like many other actors before her, has had to contend with preconceived notions of her artistic abilities. What makes her unique is that she has also had to contend with the very thing which has brought her so much international attention: her looks. Unlike India's other major screen mavens renowned for their beauty (Madhubala, Rekha, and Manisha Koirala among them) Rai's ethereal charms have consistently been lodged against her as proof that she is nothing but a plastic mannequin with the emotional range of a Barbie Doll. And until recently, her detractors have largely been right. Bhansalli's "Hum Dil Dechuke Sanam," for all its puerility, showed that Rai deserved the title of "performer," if not "actress." His follow-up, the heinous melodramatic bloat called "Devdas," gave a glimpse into what was possible for Rai under the right set-up: she was, and remains, the only thing worth watching in a film that should have been called, "Paro." And now "Umrao Jaan" finally brings the inner being out which pronounces the arrival of Aishwariya Rai "the actress." While one may question J.P. Dutta's motives for filming a story already memorialized as a classic, one does not question his casting of the lead. As Ameeran/Umrao Jaan, Aishwariya at last achieves that elusive but indispensable acting necessity: emotional nudity. Regardless of whether one agrees with the film or the character, she cannot be faulted for turning in a hollow, soulless, or canned performance. Here she is fully in character, physically, aesthetically, emotionally—even psychologically. And while the film is melodramatic, Rai is decidedly not. She delivers the superficial necessities of the eponymous courtesan—breathtaking beauty and grace, and dances which are embodiments of both—but her performance is never subdued by the surface features of Umrao Jaan. Witness the scene in which she is repudiated by her aristocratic lover in his drunken stupor: the dual conjuring of disbelief and anger as she spits out the refrain, "Vah Re, Kismat" ("Oh, Fate.") is perfect in its subtlety. Barely moving her lips to deliver the curse of her fate, Rai demonstrates that she is capable of much more than is customarily delegated her way. The film features a few lightweight actors, like Sunil Shetty, who is woefully wooden and miscast. One cannot help but pine for a menacing Shah Rukh Khan or a grunting Abhishek Bachchan in the part of Faiz Ali. Bachchan is, of course, present as Nawab Sultan, Umrao Jaan's only true love. Sadly, he delivers an uninspired portrayal of an aristocrat tormented by his desire for a courtesan. Dutta's casting is way off here as well. Sultan is frankly the kind of part screaming to be played by Ajay Devegan or Akshaye Khanna. Much has been made of the fact that Shabana Azmi is playing the part of brothel keeper which her mother played in the 1981 film. Unfortunately, Dutta conceptualizes the part from a much more clichéd stock "mother" stereotype which lacks the bite and deformed morality which made the original so interesting. Perhaps a Rekha or Sridevi would have made the part more deliciously dramatic, making this a film about the forging and destroying of female bonds in a misogynistic world, rather than a romanticized portrayal of prostitution which ignores the fundamental questions of a woman-identified sanctuary for women in 19th century India. We'll have to wait until the story is absorbed by experimental feminist cinema—oddly enough, Muzaffar Ali's film deals with these issues rather lucidly. One thing I'd love to see is an adaptation by a female director- Mira Nair or Deepa Mehta could work unique wonders with such a story. But back to Dutta. The main drawback of his film is its script. It is constructed as a chaptered retelling of the life of Umrao Jaan who recounts her memorable journey to the man who would later memorialize her in print. The film revolves around a ho-hum love story thrown on top of an absolutely awful introduction in which the kidnapped Ameeran inexplicably accepts her place in the brothel because it offers her material opulence. How many sheltered 10-year-old girls will accept the position of prostitute-in-training? Not many, I'm glad to say, but Dutta's film explains away the young victim's angst or torment as though she had been peddled off for a day at a carnival. Whatever the realities of life were for 19th century working class girls, the flippant caricature offered by Dutta was most definitely not it. Comparisons between Dutta's and Ali's films are difficult to maintain, yet unavoidable. The plot/characterizations are sufficiently different, yet one cannot help but think of the peerless Rekha as Umrao Jaan. Despite Rai's earnest performance, designer costumes, and modernized mujras, Rekha continues to literally own Umrao Jaan. Few scenes can compare to Rekha's wordless devastation in the moment her lover has come to invite her to his wedding. Her longing, yearning, and rage all rally in her eyes as angry tears and she tears away Sultan's shirt without revealing the heart she longed to conquer. Not a single moment in Dutta's film approaches the depth of this scene, and so Dutta will have to settle for the embrace of the moment, if not of history. The same holds for the film's music: Anu Malik's compositions are fine works of music, no doubt, but there are frankly too many of them and offer little range. Javed Akhtar's lyrics, however, deserve special mention, particularly the final lament "Poochrahe Hain Poochnewale." The final stanza of "Patthar Ab Kya Phenk Raheho, Hum Pehlese Zakhmi Hain" (Why do you cast your stones when I am already wounded?) bespeaks the brilliance that *should* have been. Alas. And so the final word is that Aishwariya is a revelation, but the film tells us something we already know: a classic cannot be remade.