maqbool

Most of us remember that Vishal Bharadwaj made his name as the music director of ‘Maachis’, a remarkably sensitive portrayal(directed by Gulzar) of a family torn asunder during the counter-terrorist purges of Operation Night Dominance in the late 1980s Punjab. Vishal has come a long way since. His latest film, ‘Omkara’ has been hailed as a work of rare talent. I feel tempted to ask though, why didn’t ‘Maqbool’ receive the same attention three years ago when it was released. Star power, my friend, star power is the answer.

Maqbool was an adaptation of Shakespeare’s Macbeth brought into the context of the Mumbai underworld. There have been quite a few movies about the Mumbai gangs, one of the most famous being ‘Company’. This was Ajay Devgan’s vehicle to superstardom; the movie in which he played the character of a laconic, intense don to perfection. However, Maqbool was a completely different animal. Everyone knows that Shakespeare was the original ‘masala’ playwright. Sure, sure, the great bard and all that, but he wrote and thought for the ‘janata’ better than everyone before him, and better than most of his successors. Macbeth was written in the context of the accession to the throne of James I (of Scotland) in let me see.. 1603? The entire play contains within itself the continuous application of ‘predestiny’. There is a feeling of hurtling towards an end that is utterly ruinous, towards absolute damnation, and that there is nothing we can do about it. The way the supernatural is woven into the plot (Banquo’s ghost, the witches) adds to this feeling. All of this was captured to perfection by Vishal. Maqbool had our protagonist, played by Irfan Khan assassinating his mentor (Pankaj Kapoor). The events which follow lead to the inexorable unraveling of everything around Maqbool and his eventual downfall. The role of the witches is magnificently captured by two of our legendary thespians, Om Puri and Naseeruddin Shah as a couple of corrupt cops. The role of Lady Macbeth is played by Tabbu, who, quite coincidentally, came of age as an accomplished actress in Maachis. All told, Maqbool is the best possible adaptation of Macbeth I could have imagined, exceeding by far ‘The Throne of Blood’ by the great Kurosawa himself. When I have time, I will finish this article with something about Omkara.


Meanwhile, read this review: http://telegraphindia.com/1060831/asp/opinion/story_6678659.asp