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.
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.