Movie Review: Jaanisaar is a failed Umrao Jaan reboot

In Jaanisaar, a drama set in the mid-nineteenth century, director Muzaffar Ali gets the period right but not much else

Jaanisaar is set 20 years after the First War of Independence in 1857, and has all the trappings of Muzaffar Ali’s finest film, albeit without any of its substance. The 1981 cult hit had Rekha as the captivating heroine, Farooq Sheikh as her royal paramour, their eternal love story set to Khayyam’s beautiful music, Shahryar’s lilting lyrics and Subhashini  Ali’s stellar costume design. In Jaanisaar too, there is the dancing courtesan, her nawab beau, the Oudh setting and the pre-Independence historical backdrop. Ali has even written the screenplay with long-time collaborators Shama Zaidi and Javed Siddiqi.

Unfortunately, that is where the similarities end. The only area his latest offering manages to replicate is in its high production values. The narrative is frustratingly clumsy, and devolves further when made to rely on two completely incompetent leads: Imran Abbas, the Pakistani actor who made his Bollywood debut last year with Creature 3D, and stylist Pernia Qureshi, who makes her acting debut here as Noor.

The skinny-legged, Tarzan-faced Abbas plays Ameer Haider, a vilayat-returned nawab who calls paan ki gilori as glory. Qureshi is a heavily dolled-up tawaif, who sings and dances with some conviction, and acts and fights with none. Her affected mannerisms appear even more glaring when one realises that even her voice is not synced properly. They obviously fall in love over an endless song that has a horse ride, an elephant ride and a boat ride. “Kya aap hum se mohabbat karti hai?” Haider asks Noor in a husky voice. “Khud se zyada, par Oudh se kam,” she responds coyly. Under her spell, Ameer’s love for his dear Queen, (“The Britishers are so civilised, they never lie”), soon begins to waver. The film randomly jumps from Noor’s kotha to Ameer’s mahal, and then to the British villain, a devious and psychopathic Mr. Cavendish. The music, composed by Ali and Shaqfat Ali Khan, is extremely average, and so are the cheesy dialogues. (The last time I heard so much lagaan was in Lagaan.)

The song-dance scenes are shot well-enough, and probably the only time Qureshi even tries to hold her own. Ali had earlier told Business Standard how Qureshi is a better dancer than Rekha. While some may choose to contest that statement, we can now safely say her face can’t hold a candle to Rekha’s, who can hold attention entirely with just her eyes. It’s a pity that there isn’t even a single memorable mujra sequence, especially since dance legends Kumudini Lakhia and Birju Maharaj have choreographed the film.  Qureshi might be a trained classical dancer but she lacks the kind of screen presence required for such a role, so I suppose one can’t really hold them accountable.

Ali’s designer wife Meera has done the costumes, and I would have really preferred to be reviewing the beautiful Anarkalis and kundans than the film itself. The costumes, jewellery and sets are resplendent, and the cinematography is quite realistic. The story as well as its telling, on the other hand, is an unholy mess. Ali is the director, co-writer, composer and also appears in the film as a revolutionary. There are a host of other random characters as well, but there’s never any clarity on their significance. You end up caring neither about the Independence struggle nor about the lead pair’s fate. The editing leaves one with little sense of time and space, and all I can feel after the rather self-indulgent as well as anti-climactic end is a weary sense of relief.