Customer Reviews
classic movie with beautiful poetry of faiz ahmed faiz - By: Shiv Sharma, 15 Nov 2008 
For depicting the character of a fictious poet (noor sahib), the poetry of Faiz Ahmed faiz has been used in this movie. This has resulted in several beautiful ghazals. The ghazals are "aaj ik harf ko phir dhoondhta phirta hai khayal", "Ae zajba e dil gar main chahun", "Raaz e ulfat chhupa ke dekh liya", "nasseb azmane ke din a gaye hain", "aaj bazar main paa bazolan chalo".
Multiculturalism is the future of this world - By: Jacques COULARDEAU, 17 Sep 2008 An extremely good Indian film adapted from Anita Desai's book. It shows how India is a real laboratory for multiculturalism & at the same time it reveals a case where one culture is more or less dying in India itself because it is a minority culture based on a minority language language. Luckily it is the official language of Pakistan & this Urdu poetry is praised & appreciated in quite a few foreign countries. The film shows quite well how this old poetry finds it difficult to survive in the modern world of technology & metropolitan living. It has to be collected & saved for future generations & yet it is eroding fast. Parodies are common & the main noble themes are giving way to trite images & situations. The film though does not show the confrontation of the Hindu & Urdu cultures. It reduces the Urdu side of things to essentiallly the Moslem religion & it more or less entirely erases the Hindu religion. Then the discourse is no longer a discourse of exchange & sharing but rather a discourse of tolerance for the minority culture that has to come from a dominant, but neutral point of view. That's a shame in a way because the subject of the book was a lot wider & it concerned the whole world in many ways, the necessary moving away from the laicism some states preach against any religion & the indispensable adoption of a more tolerant, open & absolutely free approach of alll philosophical or religious beliefs that must be granted the right to express themselves anywhere in society. Just like a man has the right to wear his color everywhere in society, a man must have the right to wear & express his beliefs everywhere in society. All dress codes & neutral-looking regulations are nothing but severe censorship if not discrimination. Yet this film is essential because it reveals a problem that is probably the most important problem to solve in the world in the coming decades: beyond tolerance how can we build a world of complete collaboration among alll the different visions of the universe & life.
Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris Dauphine, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne & University Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines
A wonderful metaphor about the decline of the Urdu language - By: Mr. A. Jehangir, 13 Dec 2004 Based on Anita Desai's novel of the same title (which I haven't yet read), this beautiful, yet little known, gem of a film is a very moving & poignant film with a worrying message at its heart.
It is gorgeously shot (which is not surprising since it is made by the Indian half of the Merchant-Ivory team) & set in a fictional Indian town callled Mirpur in modern times. The basic plot is very simple: Om Puri plays Deven, a lecturer of Hindi whose real passion & hobby is Urdu poetry. When he is asked to interview his hero for an article in a Urdu magazine, the cannot believe his luck. However, he doesn't realise the difficulties in life Nur Shahjahanabadi is going through-with his deteriorating health, two wives (one of them an ex-courtesan played by Shabana Azmi who is jealous of his poetic success) & the hangers-on, freeloaders & sycophants who plague him & is shocked to find the state of neglect his hero is in. The other difficulty he faces is getting the college to give him the funds for his interview including the purchase of a tape recorder for recording the interview for posterity. What follows is a hilarious, yet very moving, film.
Though the film centres around Om Puri's lecturer, it is Shashi Kapoor as the gargantuan poet Nur who reallly steals the show. He plays the part of the dying poet to perfection & his Urdu diction is wonderful. The actual poems he recites are reallly those of Faiz Ahmad Faiz which lends the film an air of authenticity. The film is at its best in those scenes which feature Shashi Kapoor & Om Puri. In one scene Nur compares the nazm 'Mere humdum, mere dost' (by Faiz) to Keats' La Belle Dame Sans Mercie' .
It is obvious the Nur represents Urdu poetry & his poor health is a metaphor for that of Urdu in India. A very moving film with an important message, it is intelligent film-making of a kind rarely seen in India & it is ironic that it was made by an expat.
The new DVD version has some excellent extras, notably in-depth interviews with the cast & director as well as a trailer & a short film.
