It looks that on realising that Ash is no match to Rekha in having simultaneously having smiling lips and deep anguish in eyes, Dutta changed the theme to a love story and killed the soul of Umrao Jan. Ash could match Rekha in beauty but is no where near Rekha in acting talent. The shooting of film in city palace Jaipur itself showed that Dutta has no regards for reality and dwells on grandeneur.A classic can not be remade by keeping all the markets in mind.Mr. J.P.Dutta has conceded this in his interview. With such kind of frame of mind one can make only CHOON CHOON KA MURRABBA which almost all Hindi movies are. Has any body tried to remake GONE WITH THE WIND.
RE:umrao jan
by Sandy on Nov 04, 2006 02:47 PM
HAIL !! Sir .. Sir .. U seem to had good knowledge ...I seriously dont understand y rediff pay these reviewers for writing Garbs...sum1 shud really kick of their .......umm.. ideas...
The reviewer claimed that actors mispronounced urdu, well first of all urdu is no sankrit which had specific pronounciation rules. Second the language like urdu is never governed by how you pronounce it. and one of the two actors sunil shetty anyway can hardly speak hindi properly and has not done so in around 12 years of working in hindi cinema. that can hardly be the fault of the director. and the roles they play like the dacoit and the boy next door in awadhi speaking town of faizabad should have clued the reviewer to the fact that they might not have gone to miss Anjuman's academy of chaste urdu speaking. One would assume if Sukanya Verma was the correspondent at a certain dinner hosted by Poet Puppet Zafar, one might have only heard of Mirza Ghalib the stuttering buffon from agra who mispronouced urdu. regards Pranshu B Saxena
RE:A comment on reviwer
by kayastha on Nov 06, 2006 10:13 PM
Mr.Saxena, You should have known better than to say Urdu has no specific rules of pronounciation ! Yes, the common people in Faizabad and Lucknow would have spoken Awadhi but was any awadhi spoken ? No, It was an odd mix of Brig Bhasha - spken in Western UP, ordinary Bollywood style Hindi with a few standard Urdu phrases like Tawayef and Kotha strewn in like garnishing on an insipid dish.
Well, Umrao Jaan is nothing less than a great sincere and a brilliant attempt by the master director.
The film has songs with some great lyrics and the music is done with a matured treatment worth comparable to any of the great score done in the past.The song "Bitiya Na Kijiyo" is just brilliant and moving. It has been used aptly as the background score. The music director has done an excellent job. It is another feather in his cap.
Well, Abhishek, goes waste.
Aishwarya deserves a great applause for a great performance and especially towards the end of the film when she goes back to her native place, Faizabad and here you have the performer scoring in each shot, frame, scene...
May be a scene or two could be trimmed like the one when Abhishek comes to Aishwarya after his father has disowned him and then an interaction between him and Aishwarya his insisting to sleep on the floor and repeating gulam again and again, it appears to be a lengthy scene.
But, for God's sake, kindly do not go into unreasonable comparison with the earlier film as the director had done his job with his team brilliantly and one could notice a sincere attempt in all the departments.
RE:UMRAO JAAN- A GREAT SINCERE ATTEMPT
by Marc on Nov 07, 2006 12:47 PM
anjolee, I have always found your comment pretentious and reeking of a certain hardened conviction to your supremacy. You confuse the persona with the performance. You either like a review or dislike it. The reviewer is inconseqential.
P.S: My language skills are not as good as yours, so I used the same words as you did. Hope you appreciate my plight.
Sukanya, I have always found your reviews pretentious and reeking of a certain hardened conviction to your supremacy. In this case though I will not disagree with the essence of your review..it is a disappointing film, yet what is distasteful is the lack of language skills at your disposal. You describe shabana thus 'literary background and intimidating personality'..goes on to conviction of role. This is ludicrous. You see, half baked critics like you confuse the persona with the performance. they have little or no analytical skill to relegate personal infromation to the back burner while concentrating to dissect a performance by an actor.
Skimming the surface of a film and presnting an eighth standard composition like review is a shame from rediff. This is a site highly valued.. but Sukanya verma I am sorry to state is but a rather pathetic, incompetent representative of what critial writing is all about. Shame is that she races to present the first review almost monopolisticaly. Often the paucity of educational background comes through sharply in her writing as muh as pesonal bias.
That her kowledge of this medium is elementary or downright kindergarten grade is clear.Pitiful
Umrao Jaan can be done only once and for that matter any subject done once is good enough you attempt it the second time you have an uphill struggle so I have not seen the film and I don't intend too cos remakes always disturbs me as like others I start to compare and loose the plot. But so far I have not been wrong in not seeing a remake.
it's quite a compliment to ash that despite playing a legendary like umrao and a role which was earlier made famous by rekha, she still has her own presence and doesn't look like aping rekha. she's a wonderful artiste. she's her own style. and it's no surprise that her dancing has come in for a lot of praise since she's a terrific dancer and no one else could do this role in today's era. on the flip side, devdas was criticised for being opulent but now they find umrao jaan to be not opulent enough!
Who told ash can be Umraojan. For that acting skill is required,where by she does not possess. She may be extremely beautiful, but not at all a good actor. she can be only be a plastic doll.when she looks here, it feels that she looks some where else.
