Experience

3rd I Film Festival brings Bollywood to the Bard in "Maqbool"

By Robert Avila

Unshakable standing at the peak of Western literature would be enough for some, but Shakespeare has gone on to be, in a definite sense, the greatest screenwriter too: as prolific (roughly 400 features) and posthumous (roughly 400 years) as they come. Even so, like his fellow toilers in a notoriously thankless field, the Bard has had to accept that what he originally conceived might bear strikingly little resemblance to what appears on the screen, even if the results are inspired on their own terms. 2003’s Bardian-Bollywood mash-up, Maqbool, a highlight of this year’s 3rd I Film Festival, qualifies as a fairly unexpected and intriguing re-imagining of Macbeth, featuring quite a bit of the essential story, if none of the language. But does that make it Shakespeare? The question may be beside the point.

There’s no doubt Macbeth provides a more than serviceable basis for writer-director-composer Vishal Bhardwaj’s underworld crime drama, set in present-day Mumbai. Bhardwaj’s adaptation cleverly melds Shakespeare’s grim and spooky story with de rigueur local tropes—from gangster machismo and thoroughgoing political corruption to unabashed romance and stylish song and dance segments—while claiming something of a unique status for itself halfway between South Asian mainstream and art cinema (signaled by the wry incorporation of Bollywood itself in the mafia plot)]. The film’s cool and sultry tone is downbeat enough to make it a significant and rather bold departure from typical genre fair. In fact, its the movie’s uncharacteristic bleakness was blamed for a poor showing at the box office back home. But abroad (presumably for the same reasons) Maqbool meets appreciative audiences and critics, and while its charms are inconsistent they’re still noteworthy (making it small wonder Bhardwaj went back for seconds with Omkara, his 2006 gangster flick based on Othello.) Even so, the collaboration is a bit one-sided: Shakespeare’s contributions to Maqbool fall short of true tragedy, even as they propel some virile and moody melodrama.

Bhardwaj’s success with this melodrama rests not only on a resourceful screenplay (adapted from Shakespeare with the help of co-writer Abbas Tyrewala) but shrewd casting in the principal roles, beginning with Irfan Khan. Khan (a familiar face to Western audiences of The Warrior and The Namesake) is the titular Miyan Maqbool, the handsome, tough, taciturn and fiercely loyal right hand of mafia don Abbaji (played with menacing, glassy-eyed minimalism by the fine veteran actor Pankaj Kapur). The prediction of Maqbool’s rise to “king of kings,” and his inevitable downfall, comes from a single, male soothsayer, one of a pair of corrupt cops in Abbaji’s employ (well played by two more Indian mainstream and art-house veterans, Om Puri and Naseeruddin Shah). Together they sub for, while expanding on, the motive role of Macbeth’s three witches.

Power, however, is not the central temptation for this Macbeth. Abbaji is cast as a beloved father figure for Maqbool, a bastard child of an inter-caste affair. Maqbool is instead undone by desire for Abbaji’s mistress, Nimmi (played by the outstanding Tabu). Nimmi’s love for and seduction of Maqbool, and their increasingly sadistic courtship, gives rise to two well integrated musical sequences (composed by the director with lyrics by longtime collaborator Gulzar) and a plot to murder Abbaji in his bed (a deed that unfolds as a stylishly fevered sequence of scenes).

Khan’s Maqbool is the quintessence of manly cool at the center of a tangled web of gangland intrigue, an overseas smuggling caper, widespread state corruption and an attempt at a political coup d’etat—but so emotionally reserved that we might lose interest in him were it not for the fine counterbalancing force of Tabu’s Nimmi, a dynamic and vital Lady Macbeth and easily the most complex and moving character in the film. Tabu manages the role with enough dramatic conviction to even slip at moments from the vice-grip of genre. As a result, Bhardwaj’s expansion and foregrounding of this relationship works surprisingly well. A generally compelling visual scheme (backed by Hemant Chaturvedi’s nicely atmospheric camera work) works wonders too, despite some rough edges. In the end, the inspiration both visual and dramatic that Bhardwaj draws from Macbeth supports Maqbool’s own modest claim to a realm of edgier, more nuanced Bollywood drama—even if all the sound and fury signifies little more than a good time at the movies.

11.13.2008