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That was an excellent one.

Just perfect...

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

Merchant Ivory movies are often about forgotten times , forgotten cultures and forgotten people. This one is no different. The ever dependable Om Puri plays an Urdu professor who attempts to document a dying but once grand urdu poet Nur (played convincingly by an obese Shashi Kapoor). Through his rather struggling attempt the story portrays the common hurdles which the language - lack of finance, poor understanding of technology and maybe all things modern, the complete ignorance of youth of the art and not to mention the petty selfishness of untalented people trying to hang on to what may be long gone The film as usual is beautifully art directed. The sets and settings take you right into old Muslim mohallas of a small city in MP. The performances of almost all are wonderful including an incredible outburst by Nur's second prostitute wife who wished she could have been a poet but couldn't due to the social class that she survives on. Its a poignant tale of subdued frustration which artists of dying arts often face.It also has some wonderful Urdu Poetry (a little like the more popular Sher o Shairi) A moving and poignant tale of decay, ambition and neglect.Highly recommended to Merchant Ivory, Om Puri and of course urdu fansMemorable quote " These electronic things electric fans, tape recorder are no good. They only confuse man more." - Poet Nur (Shashi Kapoor)

An extremely good Indian film adapted from Anita Desai's book. It shows how India is a real laboratory for multiculturalism and at the same time it reveals a case where one culture is more or less dying in India itself because it is a minority culture based on a minority language language. Luckily it is the official language of Pakistan and this Urdu poetry is praised and appreciated in quite a few foreign countries. The film shows quite well how this old poetry finds it difficult to survive in the modern world of technology and metropolitan living. It has to be collected and saved for future generations and yet it is eroding fast. Parodies are common and the main noble themes are giving way to trite images and situations. The film though does not show the confrontation of the Hindu and Urdu cultures. It reduces the Urdu side of things to essentially the Moslem religion and it more or less entirely erases the Hindu religion. Then the discourse is no longer a discourse of exchange and sharing but rather a discourse of tolerance for the minority culture that has to come from a dominant, but neutral point of view. That's a shame in a way because the subject of the book was a lot wider and it concerned the whole world in many ways, the necessary moving away from the laicism some states preach against any religion and the indispensable adoption of a more tolerant, open and absolutely free approach of all philosophical or religious beliefs that must be granted the right to express themselves anywhere in society. Just like a man has the right to wear his color everywhere in society, a man must have the right to wear and express his beliefs everywhere in society. All dress codes and neutral-looking regulations are nothing but severe censorship if not discrimination. Yet this film is essential because it reveals a problem that is probably the most important problem to solve in the world in the coming decades: beyond tolerance how can we build a world of complete collaboration among all the different visions of the universe and life.Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris Dauphine, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne & University Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines

The Ivory-Merchant duo are known for their luxurious-looking films, the camera often caressing each fish-fork with the same love it displays for the protagonist. It's somewhat refreshing here to see Merchant without Ivory. Merchant's camera displays the same love for detail that the Ivory-Merchant duo's does, except that it is much grittier, caressing the protagonist's vomit with the same attention that it bestows upon his exquisite Jamewaar shawl. I refer to Shashi Kapoor as the protagonist, because he steals the role away from Om Puri. Om Puri plays the timid Deven, a college professor bent on interviewing his idol, the formerly grand but now-alcoholic Urdu poet, Nur. Shashi Kapoor is perfect as the obese, alcoholic, henpecked, decaying poet because his own appearance encapsulates this decay. Those who do not recognize him as the hero in scores of Bollywood films or in many early Ivory-Merchant productions will miss the subtlety of this cinematic reference, because Kapoor's own physical decay perfectly encapsulates the theme of decay that is central to the film. Shabana Azmi is as competent as ever, bringing a hint of feminism to her character's plagiarism of her husband's work, as well as highlighting the inherently masculinist nature of the poetry that confines a woman's role to the object of desire and nothing else.

This movie showcases the decline of a language and its effect on a people, i.e. the Muslims of India. A great movie with many comical elements, but an all pervasive sense of loss and decline permeates every scene of the movie as an idealist teacher searches for a lost litrery treasure.