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Mughal-e-azam
Jan. 14th, 2009 01:19 pmLast night I saw Mughal-e-azam on DVD.
It's a 1960 classic Bollywood epic that was originally released in black-and-white and then, in the 2000s, re-released in a specially-funded colourized version. It's a historical melodrama, set in the time of the Mughal emperors, and it's about the illicit love affair of the Emperor's son with a lowly slave maiden from the palace.
The set is out of this world. It's mostly studio-constructed and transports you to a kind of hallucinatory dreamworld of stuccoed finials, mirror-sparkling chandeliers, gem-encrusted windows and balustrades, carved screens, marbled floors and outré baldachinos. After a while, the over-elaborate decor becomes almost oppressive in its horror vacui splendour, and this is apt because the film is full of foreboding until ( the spoilerish climax ) And this is why the elaborate mise-en-scène makes sense, because there is a narrative and emotional and symbolic reason behind the over-investment in the setting and the architecture.
Also: there is a fantastic battle scenes in the desert. It has thousands of extras and the Emperor atop an elephant and a sword-fight between father and son (and that is strong stuff, always in Hindi cinema but also in world terms, I think: the conflict between parent and child).
Lata Mangeshkar who has been singing in Bollywood films since the mid-1940s does much of the singing here, and her ethereal voice works well with the traditional, Islam-inspired music.
I was quite intrigued by what could perhaps be Bollywood's equivalent of Hollywood's Orientalism, a kind of Orientalism of the past (because India is, of course, itself already the Orient).
The film stars Madhubala and Dilip Kumar.
( pics )
It's a 1960 classic Bollywood epic that was originally released in black-and-white and then, in the 2000s, re-released in a specially-funded colourized version. It's a historical melodrama, set in the time of the Mughal emperors, and it's about the illicit love affair of the Emperor's son with a lowly slave maiden from the palace.
The set is out of this world. It's mostly studio-constructed and transports you to a kind of hallucinatory dreamworld of stuccoed finials, mirror-sparkling chandeliers, gem-encrusted windows and balustrades, carved screens, marbled floors and outré baldachinos. After a while, the over-elaborate decor becomes almost oppressive in its horror vacui splendour, and this is apt because the film is full of foreboding until ( the spoilerish climax ) And this is why the elaborate mise-en-scène makes sense, because there is a narrative and emotional and symbolic reason behind the over-investment in the setting and the architecture.
Also: there is a fantastic battle scenes in the desert. It has thousands of extras and the Emperor atop an elephant and a sword-fight between father and son (and that is strong stuff, always in Hindi cinema but also in world terms, I think: the conflict between parent and child).
Lata Mangeshkar who has been singing in Bollywood films since the mid-1940s does much of the singing here, and her ethereal voice works well with the traditional, Islam-inspired music.
I was quite intrigued by what could perhaps be Bollywood's equivalent of Hollywood's Orientalism, a kind of Orientalism of the past (because India is, of course, itself already the Orient).
The film stars Madhubala and Dilip Kumar.
( pics )