For many in India, this is a film famous for its haunting songs. To some, it was a film that brought an average, good-looking actress a dream role that fetched her a national best actress award.
"Umrao Jaan" did not create ripples among most critics when it was made because the story line revolving around a singer/dancer who sells her body was old hat for most Hindi/Urdu film-goers.
What made "Umrao Jaan" stand out? It was the director Muzaffar Ali's flash-in-the-pan directorial effort. His earlier film "Gaman" lends poor comparison to "Umrao Jaan." Ali was able to get superb performances from the ensemble of Bollywood actresses to whom subtlety is still a foreign concept. Rekha is quite restrained (wish she were more), so is Prema Narayan in this film. The effect is stunning. Some of the Indian actors could do so well, if only they were well directed!
But good direction does not come merely in dealing with actors. Each and every shot of cameraman Pravin Bhatt could have been mistaken for the work of Sven Nykvist in the early Bergman movies. The composition of each frame, taking three objects in perspective (faces, chandeliers, minarets, etc..) and juggling with the one, two, or three objects for composition within the frame brought a maturity to Indian cinematography rarely seen. This is a film to be enjoyed by sight and sound--not merely at the level of the story. This is probably why twenty years after it was made the film attracts audiences as it did before. It has stood the test of time. It was unfortunate that Indian critics by and large grouped it with commercial cinema churned out from Mumbai merely because of its song and dance component and its all too familiar theme for Indian audiences.
The screenplay was well written and mature in comparison to most Urdu/Hindi films. Melodrama was reigned in, yet music and song held sway. The melancholic thread in the film is developed right up to the dried leaves in the final scenes knitting together a very feminist tragedy by a male director. In many respects, this film was a major movie from India in the Eighties, on par with the efforts of some of the more notable directors like Satyajit Ray, Mrinal Sen and Adoor Gopalakrishnan.
For Ali, this was his swansong--he never made a film that flashed his brilliance after this effort. Probably he knew he could not improve upon this effort....
