UMRAO... ONCE MORE

Blowing off the dust of time that had settled on it over 44-long years paling the brilliance of its exquisitely crafted frames, NFDC-NFAI has re-released Muzaffar Ali's 1981 cinematic gem, Umrao Jaan in the theatres as part of PVR Inox's Timeless Classics initiative. As the 4K restored version of his magnum opus holds a fresh generation of cinephiles in thrall, we caught up with the octogenarian filmmaker to talk about its eternal charm

- BY ANANYA GHOSH

Watching the stunning Rekha as Umrao Jaan stare at you from the big screen with a single tear precariously shimmering, it feels like you are looking into her soul. Her crimson eyes hemmed by those long lashes are like filigreed windows that opens into an abandoned and desolate house longing for human warmth. There is pain, despair, and a resigned acceptance of fate as she sings ‘Yeh kya jagah hai doston?’ while staring at her childhood home—a symbol of her lost innocence, something she can wistfully look at but not really go back to. It brings to mind Percy Bysshe Shelley's immortal lines: “Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.”

While I have watched this Muzaffar Ali masterpiece a number of times, this was my first time watching it unfold on the big screen, that too in a digitally restored 4K avatar. “Restoration today is the need of the hour for the entire celluloid world. But the process is rather expensive. So, not all movies have the opportunity or privilege to be restored and digitised,” says filmmaker Muzaffar Ali when we meet for an interview. The 1981 magnum opus is restored by the National Film Development Corporation-National Film Archive of India under the National Film Heritage Mission and re-released as part of PVR INOX’s Timeless Classics initiative.

But it was not an easy process. “We went on to diligently supervise every frame during the process. Moreover, the negatives we had were completely congealed. So, we had to get the negatives from the film archives and use those as a basis for restoration—about 15 minutes of the film was missing. We had to find those separately,” reveals Ali, looking every bit elated seeing his labour of love finding a fresh generation of audience.