In Custody

Another recent DVD through the Merchant & Ivory Collection. A fair movie at best with some notable talent from a fine actor, Om Puri. The comedy picks up towards the end of the movie which is a god send since the rest of the movie is pure farce. Sadly, age has not been kind to Shashi Kapoor or Shabana Azmi and their roles are two dimensional and uninspiring. India yet again steals the show with the beauty of its architecture, glorious sunsets, and colorful people. The direction works well, and the camera seems to capture the mood eloquently. The poetry in Urdu is glorious to listen to even of delivered by Shashi Kapoor. Maybe good for a rainy day when you wish to be alone with a beer.

For a certain niche group of cinephiles ever since the release of a film called "Shakespeare Wallah" in 1965, the "Merchant-Ivory" label has become synonymous with high-class rarified taste in cinema in some way associated with India ("A Passage to India", "Heat and Dust"), or, in the later collaborations of this producer-director team, with ultra refined literary adaptations set in Victorian England such as "The Remains of the Day", and "Howard's end". To be brutally frank, since "Merchant-Ivory" productions were never exactly my cup of tea cinematically speaking, (although I made valiant efforts to sit through a number of their films), I never paid enough attention to discern who did exactly what, whether they were both Indian or half-Indian or what -- and merely assumed that they were in some sense co-directors something like their polar opposites, the Coen brothers in the frozen wastes of Minnesota.

From a fascinating 1994 documentary screened here entitled "In Ismail's Custody" by Englishman Derrick Santini, which is basically a biopic about Mr. Merchant, and a takeoff on the name of the one film Merchant directed solo, IN CUSTODY, much of this cloudiness was cleared up. Ivory was a gay American Anglophile based in England and Merchant was an authentic Indian from Bombay. In general Ivory Directed their films and Merchant was the producer. However, "In Custody", is the one and only M&I production where Merchant for once took over the reins actually directing himself and is, for my money at least, the best picture in the entire M&I repertory.

The subject of the film, based on the novel my Anita Desai, is the decline of the Urdu language in India after partition when Urdu became the official language of Pakistan but, as the idiom of the Indian Muslims, began to be looked upon with a baleful eye in India proper.

For the record the plot of "In Custody runs like this: A literary editor asks Deven (Om Puri), a teacher who loves Urdu poetry, to interview a famous Urdu poet, Nur Shahjehanabadi, (Shashi Kapoor) an aging, fumbling,alcoholic, whale of a man not far from death's door. Deven goes to Bhopal from Mirpur to meet the cantankerous Nur, of whom he is in absolute awe. He finds him living with two feuding wives, and constantly visited by sycophants who drink his whisky and eat his food. Deven desperately wants to record Nur for posterity and manages to scrape up the funds to buy an aged tape recorder, to bribe Safiya, the elder wife, to get Nur into a room at a brothel for a week for the recording, and to feed Nur's pals who, whenever they show up, disrupt the recording sessions with their drunken carousing. Moreover, Deven's young technical assistant is an irresponsible deadbeat who feels he is being overworked for a pointless project and keeps messing up the tapes or failing to turn the machine on when the drunken poet finally gets around to reciting from his works. Meanwhile Nur's beautiful second wife, Imtiaz (Shabana Azmi), wants to be taken seriously as a poetess herself, but Dever dismisses her offhandedly while ignoring his own wife and child much as Nur does. In the end, hardly any of the precious recitations by Nur have been preserved as he drinks himself into the grave. In the course of the film, however, much of the melodious Urdu verses recited by Kapoor are actually heard in this boisterous requiem for a dying language. The three principals, Om with his heavily pitted but oh so soulful face, Kapoor with his massive extroverted personality, and Azmi, with her striking beauty, are all memorable as are the numerous supporting actors, particularly a very withered old woman in white whose occasional appearances punctuate the proceedings. Since Urdu was Bombay born Merchant's native language it is clear that he had a special feeling for the subject matter at hand and therefore wanted to do this picture himself. The result is a remarkably moving film which makes one wonder why he didn't do more directing. In fact, based on this one directorial effort I could not escape the feeling that some of the Ivory directed sleeperoos might have been a lot more lively if Jim and Ismail had just switched roles every now and then.

Alex, River to River Indian Film Festival, Florence: Dec. 17, 2005

This movie showcases the decline of a language and its effect on a people, i.e. the Muslims of India. A great movie with many comical elements, but an all pervasive sense of loss and decline permeates every scene of the movie as an idealist teacher searches for a lost litrery treasure.

Merchant Ivory movies are often about forgotten times , forgotten cultures and forgotten people. This one is no different. The ever dependable Om Puri plays an Urdu professor who attempts to document a dying but once grand urdu poet Nur (played convincingly by an obese Shashi Kapoor). Through his rather struggling attempt the story portrays the common hurdles which the language - lack of finance, poor understanding of technology and maybe all things modern, the complete ignorance of youth of the art and not to mention the petty selfishness of untalented people trying to hang on to what may be long gone

The film as usual is beautifully art directed. The sets and settings take you right into old Muslim mohallas of a small city in MP.

The performances of almost all are wonderful including an incredible outburst by Nur's second prostitute wife who wished she could have been a poet but couldn't due to the social class that she survives on.

Its a poignant tale of subdued frustration which artists of dying arts often face.It also has some wonderful Urdu Poetry (a little like the more popular Sher o Shairi) A moving and poignant tale of decay, ambition and neglect.Highly recommended to Merchant Ivory, Om Puri and of course urdu fans

Memorable quote " These electronic things electric fans, tape recorder are no good. They only confuse man more." - Poet Nur (Shashi Kapoor)

In Custody is the adaptation of the novel by Anita Desai and revolves around a poet Nur Sahjahanabadi.

Deven(OM Puri) is a Hindi teacher and is in love with the Urdu language and poetry. He wants to take an interview of Nur Shahjehanbadi, the renowned poet. But there are several obstacles in his path. Nur is living a silent life with well wishers but not in a good condition. He refuses to give interview and says Urdu is taking its last breath. So now, what will Deven do?

The movie is an important movie for a lot of reasons. How a declining language affects people, the poet who was once an eminent poet is now almost forgotten. How the family of poet suffer and the feelings of a poet.

Shashi Kapoor as the poet Nur, is just terrific. He is completely convincing and just by looking at him we feel that we are seeing Nur Shahjehanbadi in front of us. He makes us feel that the character of Nur is so real. There is that pain and emotion that reflects on his face.

Om Puri as the college professor is just superb. Shabana Azmi as Nur's wife is terrific. She plays the part of dominating and irritating wife with perfection.

But it's Shashi Kapoor's movie all the way. He just stals the show from all the actors and dominates the screen with his voice, body language and mannerism.

Riding on amazing performance, this movie is an important movie both for cinema lovers and poetry lovers.