‘Umrao Jaan' director Muzaffar Ali: ‘The film has aged gracefully. It's timeless but fresh too'
Among the beneficiaries of the recent trend of older films being re-released in cinemas is Umrao Jaan. Muzaffar Ali's celebrated period drama from 1981, starring Rekha in one of her most well-regarded roles, is not available on any streaming platforms. This makes its re-emergence special, the director told Scroll.
Umrao Jaan 's rights are held by the son of the original producer of the film, Ali said. 'Had he sold the film to a streaming channel, it would have lost its mystery,' the director added. 'There is still a craving for the film since people want to see it in its better form.'
The movie, which has been 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, Shahray'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).
Ali adapted Umrao Jaan from Mirza Hadi Ruswa's historical fiction Umrao Jaan Adaa, about the courtesan Amiran. 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.
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', Ali said.
'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 I belonged.'
Umrao Jaan grew out of Ali's own heritage as a descendant of Awadh's Kotwara principality. Before Umrao Jaan, Ali had directed Gaman (1978), 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.'
The film was meant as a 'journey in celluloid which would embody the frail and ephemeral beauty of Awadh', Ali writes.
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,' he said. 'Some people who watch Umrao Jaan and go to Lucknow might get a shock.'
Zikr details the challenges Ali faced in ensuring authenticity in the film's look, music and manners of nineteenth-century Awadh. 'The whole film was made in something like 29 lakhs at the time,' Ali told Scroll. 'Everything was cobbled together with artistic sensibility, not extravagance. The costumes have the richness of textiles that have come from cupboards, not shops or designer labels.'
He attributes the popularity of the film to its poetic realism. 'You can't create poetry without a proper narrative or a context,' Ali said. 'Poetry doesn't make sense unless there's life behind it.'
In the film, Rekha's Amiran is the embodiment of Lucknow's poetic impulses. Ali cast the iconic actor after seeing her photo in a magazine.
'Rekha breathed life into the character, and she is still living it, in a sense,' Ali said. 'The film touched a chord of truth within her. The film's enigmatic journey, which was sublimated in the flesh-and-blood character played by Rekha. It doesn't happen by giving her lines, creating a set and saying action. There is a kind of subconscious design about getting into that time in life.'
The film's recreation of a long-vanished ethos infected playback singer Asha Bhosle and choreographer Kumudini Lakhia too, Ali recalled.
'Asha Bhosle is a miracle of this century in terms of her voice and the kind of feelings she evokes,' he said. 'She too wanted to go into the character and become Umrao Jaan. The kathak bhavas by Kumudini Lakhia are highly underplayed. Each person brought so much grace to the film that I was overwhelmed by gratitude.'
Alongside the theatrical re-release, Ali is bringing out a book of 250-odd photographs from Umrao Jaan in collaboration with Mapin Publishing. 'During the process of digitising the film, I grabbed frames and created prints out of them,' Ali said.
The surviving copy of Umrao Jaan was in poor condition, with the first 15 minutes in black and white and 15 more minutes missing, he recalled. 'Fortunately, the National Film Archive of India restored the film frame the frame – had they not stepped in, it would have been a lost cause.' The state-run archive is restoring Gaman too.
While re-watching Umrao Jaan as it was being restored, Ali was struck by how a movie about a nostalgia for a bygone era has endured.
'The film is like the unveiling of time – it's aged very gracefully,' Ali said. 'It's equally fresh now, but it's also got a timeless feel, which is quite gratifying. You are looking back on yourself through a film that has already reached millions of people over 44 years through different zones, generations and imaginations.'
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