Review: Rekha is the life and soul of Muzaffar’s Ali’s classic ‘Umrao Jaan’
To watch the restored Umrao Jaan is to open an old chest stuffed with barely creased clothing and baubles that are still shiny. Muzaffar Ali’s movie from 1981 has been re-released in cinemas by the PVR Inox multiplex chain following a beautiful restoration by the National Film Archive of India.
The classic film about a bygone era looks as good as new. The eye can barely drink in Subhashini’s Ali’s magnificent costumes, the fashion-forward jewellery, the interior sets that evoke the cloistered world of a courtesan in Lucknow in the mid-nineteenth century. Rekha – resplendent, incandescent, one with her character – is the brightest jewel in a film about an age of beauty, refinement and Urdu poetry.
Ali’s adaptation of Mirza Hadi Ruswa’s historical fiction novel Umrao Jaan Adaa, written along with Javed Siddiqui and Shama Zaidi, is set in the 1840s. The main setting is Lucknow, which is steeped in tawaif culture but is also on the verge of losing this unique ethos.
In Satyajit Ray’s Shatranj Ke Khilari (1977), two noblemen represent the bridge between the indolent present and the uncertain future. In Umrao Jaan, that role is played by Umrao.
She is one of Lucknow’s prized tawaifs, renowned for her sensual dancing and original poetry. By writing the ghazals that she performs for her clients, Umrao is in control of her...
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