Muzaffar Ali directorial 1981 classic, “Umrao Jaan” re-releases in theatres on June 27.
Muzaffar Ali directorial 1981 classic, “Umrao Jaan” re-releases in theatres on June 27.
In the recent trend of producers going in for re-releases, notedly, Muzaffar Ali’s Umrao Jaan is among the beneficiaries.
As per Muzaffar Ali, this re-release makes its re-emergence special,
as Umrao Jaan’s rights are held by the son of the original producer of the film.“Had he sold the film to a streaming channel, it would have lost its mystery. Interestingly, people want to see the film in its better form.
The movie restored by the National Film Archive of India, will be out in PVR and Inox theatres on June 27. Audiences can expect Rekha’s amazing grace, sumptuous visuals, gorgeous costumes and jewellery, Khayyam’s music, Asha Bhosle’s singing, Shahryar’s lyrics.
Most of all, they will see “a convergence of nostalgia and a dream for the future”, as Ali wrote in his memoir Zikr – In The Light of Shadow and Time (Penguin Random House, 2023).
The movie, like the novel, is set in the nineteenth century. It traces Amiran’s arrival in a brothel in Lucknow and her relationships with characters played by Farooque Shaikh, Raj Babbar and Naseeruddin Shah.
As per Ali, Amiran’s experiences run parallel to the decline of Lucknow as the cultural hub of the former kingdom of Awadh. Umrao Jaan is classified as one of the most important courtesans films made in India, but it’s actually a “lost Lucknow film”
“It’s a film about relooking at Awadh with a sense of truth,” the 80-year-old filmmaker and designer observed. “A lot of films of this kind are placeless. You can’t smell the place.
In Umrao Jaan, the fragrance of Lucknow is very strong. My film is deeply rooted in the geography of a place where he belonged.”
Umrao Jaan grew out of Ali’s own heritage as a descendant of Awadh’s Kotwara principality. Before Umrao Jaan, Ali had directed the 1978 released Gaman a poignant account of a taxi driver in Mumbai who dreams of returning to the village and family he has left behind in Uttar Pradesh.
In his memoir, Ali writes about what attracted him to Ruswa’s novel: “Woven into the tapestry of the light and shade of the period’s refined decadence is the life of a woman, who, in spite of being the victim of the most adverse circumstances, evolves into a highly cultured human being, an accomplished poet in her own right.”
Ali further writes that the film was meant as a “journey in celluloid which would embody the frail and ephemeral beauty of Awadh”.
The Lucknow that Ali evokes in Umrao Jaan is a thing of the distant past – there is no Umrao Jaan trail to be followed in the present. “The film is a slice of Lucknow that touched me, that has gone by, that is no more. Some people who watch Umrao Jaan and go to Lucknow might get a shock.”
News Edit KV Raman
