Nov 06, 2006 05:28 PM
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Nobody other than me was as excited to watch umrao jaan !!....i botalmost every newspaper in town and read almost all reviews online toonly be disappointed becoz all harmoniously scrapped the movie as acacophony.. even the trusted reviewers did upset me...my cuzin oncetold me stories that the stars u get for a movie is how well u warm thebeds of the critics!!(sex immaterial)... now I am doig some seriousthinking on this one... and like someone once quoted "rumours arealways to be believed"..
neways so wots my take on the movie... here follows:
iwont particularly stick to a protocol while writing abt this movie,becoz it wud mean an insult to art.. yes JPDutta dreamt of making UmraoJaan Ada and he fulfilled his dream...he made it .period.. Does my notwatching(or watching) the old movie qualify me to talk abt it... inthat case no such qualification exists.. so at the outset the interviewi watched on TV of JPDutta made me want to see this movie(one of theless significant reasons).. he said "i just had to do it".. I startedsaving pocket money from that day onwards..the second and the primereason for this feat was Aishwarya Rai.. well today its kinda coolamong intellectual circles to not like Aishwarya and call her beauty asplastic, her smile as fake, her talk as diplomatic..intellectualcirciles are only meant to defy public opinion...as soon as the screenis hit by some light frequencies perfectly waltzing to create a beautycalled aishwarya..u can see the pride of the screen... like tisexistence has been defined once and for all.. she looks at herself inthe mirror and though everyone arnd including r screen is mesmerisedshe realises that there shud be some light in the room.. she puts on adiya and the screen transforms from the cool to the warm colourscheme... as a viewer of my types u feel u have achieved that somethingwhich cant be explained... and I am sure almost all those unnecessaryplastic surgeons of aishwarya rai think of giving up their careers...
guysplzz give me some more time to talk abt aishwarya rai... she has beenpresented as an old and mellow lady always behind the curtain talkingabt her story... there is a moment when half the screen is pitch blackand the other half is dulled by her white parda... me and my mom gaveeach other a glance and both of us understood what that momentmeant!!...(and deviating slightly since I can never silence my hatredfor geeks at ne moment.. for the geek that moment was an idealwallpaper for the desktop..the black part cud occupy ur my computersand recycle bins..) the first mujhra of Aishwarya Rai actually made meand a few other die hards clapalmost instinctively.. her dancing waspurrfect!!.. her mudras were obvious to ppl like me who just know thatthey are called mudras.. her expressions made me want to be at thatKotha wearing a gajra arnd my wrist and being labelled a bad guy doingbad business and worshipping bad stuff!!.. the Salaam number mite notbe a comparison to "in aankhon ki masti ke"... but it sure has its owncharm... Aishwarya Rai naked wud make me feel slightly uncomfortable...so I want to appreciate those costume designers of hers... whoever theyare(i am sorry I am referring to them as whoever, but I am sure they rone of those few ppl who wudnt mind it) have done a brilliant job...and the true beauty of Aishwarya Rai's eyes are apparent when her eyescamouflage with the color of her lehengas... her dances in the mujhrasinterspersed in the movie as her only way of emoting takes ur breadthaway... the movie forced me to concentrate on the lyrics of the music..though to tuff to understand in urdu.. her expressions made it easyto ignore the langugae..
now getting to the movie... I guess talkingabt the movie doesnt make sense... its the story!!.. and only thestory!!.. the story made muzaffar ali a one film wonder!!..i wud hatedisclosing nething abt the story in here.. but strong characters havealways been my turn on for ne movie.. so were the characters of thismovie.. Abhishek Bachhan wid his trademark Adaab signalling and hisnawabi look was brilliantly significant in Ash Arena... the nawabis ofthose times make u wish u lived in that era when precious stones weregiven away as tohfas... beautiful silks cuddled u!!...the brit tookaway all of that... and though it is pointless in this article itnevertheless makes us feel how low r self esteem is today when we visitbuckhingham palace and click snaps outside and caption them as "i washere"...!!..
now the other cast!!.. divya dutta and ayesha jhulka asher sisters did their jobs well... though I feel the emotion ofjealousy which was to be potrayed by divya was left a lot too much tothe audience imagination... Shabana Azmi playing the role her motherShaukat Azmi played in the first Umrao Jaan was slightly not of hercalliber.. maybe she was just too humbled to be doing her best!!.. mindit best here doesnt stand the same meaning in her context!!.. Oneperson that has always been my favourite actor is KulbhushanKharbanda.. the dad of amir khan in jo jeeta wohi sikander... the kingin lagaan... I still remember the one scene in lagaan where he almostis on the verge of taking his necklace off in praise of the local teamand stops short.. this movie is filled with such moments... I love thisoldie!!.. puru raajkumar has done well in his crimes and so has Sunilshetty..he is tolerable just for that amount of run length...
in theend Umrao Jaan is a story that one must read once in their lifetimes..this is a movie that one must watch even if they hate songs anddances...she concludes her story with a highly simplistic verse whichmeant that "if u feel u r very unfortunate, think of my example, readmy story"...not to make u feel more fortunate, but something else whichcant be explained but got expressed by my tear drop!!..
am sorryJPDutta u dont have nething to do in this movie except for the factthat u made it..and am grateful for ur selection of a foolish musicdirector, no gr8 lensmen, not too much of art direction and maybe notabiding by the strict lucknowi tehzeeb, coz I am afraid the certainhuman element wud have got distracted by it!!.. Thank You!!..
