In Custody

This fantastic film is a courageous message which I.M. has dared to give to the world, which sadly no one in the whole Bollwood mega industry has had the guts to....death of a language. Over the years we have seen the demise of Urdu as a language and it's steady take over by hindi in mainstream cinema and life in the subcontinent as a whole. Urud originated as mixture of various languages anyway, but eventually developed it's own culture and became the voice of millions of people in the subcontinent as the detault means of communication. Sadly the movies coming out from Bollywood have drifted from urdu to a heavy mixture of hindi due primarily to the presence of non-urdu/south indian film makers and actors in the movie making business. And urdu is experiencing a painful death as it is passed from one to the next generation with a further mix of hindi and english. Compare the urdu spoken in Original Umrao Jaan and the new incarnation and see how bad accent Ashwayria and some other actors have, comparing to the beautiful urdu which we heard in the original film. It is so sad to see Gulzar who is a beautiful urdu poet writing more songs in street languages and less in pure urdu, just because of the demand...This beautiful film shows urdu on its last breath in the form of an elderly urdu poet who in his last years been left to alcoholism, family fueds and a bunch of good-for-nothing well wishers who just come to taste his rum and biryani...and the genuine attempt of a hindi professor who loves urdu to get the juice out of this dying legend is confronted with a heap of hurdles with little obtained in the end excpet for a last few collections from the poet, and no one seemed to be interested in all what he got. It is all very symbolic, technology taking over the written text, commercial plazas taking place of old hawailies and people with the love of the language being shunted away. It is beautifully and truthfully depicted with a beautiful glimpse of inner city India with its colourful characters where this language is slowly dying. This film may seem slow and uninspiring to many, with no apparant story development, but the emphasis is on the gradual decay of a legendary poet and the frustrations of a lover of urdu poetry who is trying to salavage as much as he can. The lovers of urdu poetry and real art films will however love it, so did I. A real gem of an effort by Ismael M into the sad demise of a language which at one time was the pride of India...

Lots of stories blended into a good movie.

Typical Merchant Ivory production. Fantastic and realistic portrayal of the characters and their lives. People into serious and art cinema will love this movie.

good serious movie

based on anita desai book

bollywood celeberity star cast

This is one of the the two good films Ismail Merchant directed (the other being Cotton Mary), which is more than can be said was achieved by any other film producer.

It is a very special film indeed as it sits between Western and Indian cinema in both form and content.

Truly remarkable and universally well liked.