Movie Review - Begum Jaan by Suhel Johar

Begum Jaan Is Flawed But Watchable.

 

Begum Jaan is the Hindi remake of National Award winning director Srijit Mukherji's Bengali film Raj Kahini, telling the story of a brothel madam through whose home the newly-drawn border line between India and East Pakistan (Bengal) runs. Begum Jaan, however, shifts the story from Bengal to Punjab. The characters are Punjabi, rather than Bengali, but the sentiment remains the same, the milieu remains the same.

Although this line was going to be in the middle of the brothel of Begum Jaan (Vidya Balan) and the officer came to ask Begum Jaan to leave the brothel. But Begum Jaan does not want to follow this order at all.  The officials from both the sides {INC leader Hariprasad (Ashish Vidyarthi) and Muslim league leader, Illyas (Rajit Kapoor)}throw every kind of obstacle in their path, to try to make them abandon the house - but these women refuse to back down. They have nowhere else to go, so they fiercely protect their own land and their own people. A stubborn Begum Jaan refuses to leave and seeks help from the local King (Naseeruddin Shah) whose patronage over Begum Jaan is the reason for her daredevil nature. Along with Begum Jaan, there are 10 more women in this brothel, as well as 2 men. So basically, the film follows the story of the struggle of these 12 people.

There are clear references from Saadat Hassan Manto’s works in the film - something that is mentioned even in the opening credits. Ironically, Srijit Mukherji though does not bother to acknowledge the fact that the basic story of the film is inspired from the Dolly Parton starrer The Best Little Whorehouse In Texas.

The film is not perfect - there are parts where the narrative fumbles and scenes which are too on -the-nose. This is a film that shows women’s fight against patriarchal subjugation, questions stigmas surrounding sex work, endorses secularism and community.

The fact that the narrative is drawn from Mukherji’s imagination and has no real place in history, the narrative is somewhat flawed and inconsistent. Srijit Mukherji also tends to over dramatise and seek the refuge of melodrama and you feel a certain void.

Nevertheless the film does have its powerful moments - some that shock you and some that awe you. In a poignant scene where government representatives come to inform them about their eviction, the feisty Begum Jaan simply laughs at them, struck by how ridiculous the drawing of these boundaries is. She then talks about how, in the brothel, no one sees any difference between caste, creed or religion - that their community of women is already so ostracized that nobody even cares about asking them whether they are Hindu or Muslim. In such light, a partition means nothing to them.

Srijit Mukherji's direction serves its purpose even though Begum Jaan moves in a languid pace in the first half trying to set up the characters and the camaraderie of Begum and her girls and gains momentum in the second half. Gopi Bhagat’ cinematography is good. Kausar Munir’s dialogues are effective.  Kausar Munir and Srijit Mukherji’s screenplay could have been better. Monisha R. Baldawa and Vivek Mishra’s editing seems to be quite scattered and needed to be crisper. Music of the film by Anu Malik and Khayyam is okay but the songs weaken the speed of the film. 

There are a lot of characters in the film and there’s not much detailing about most of them, due to which you cannot pay attention to some good characters and their performances. Vidya Balan has put in a strong performance and keeps you engrossed with her performance, though her character has rough edges. The work of artistes like Vivek Mushran, Chunky Pandey, Rajesh Sharma, Rajit Kapoor, Ashish Vidyarthi, Pallavi Sharda, Sumit Nijavan, Ila Arun, Pitobash Tripathi and Gauhar Khan is effective. Naseeruddin Shah has a small cameo which he does justice to.

On the whole, Begum Jaan is a must watch for all Vidya Balan fans.