Film: Pakeezah - Classic romance; great music

This film remains an all-time classic of Indian popular cinema, particularly due to its much-loved songs which most people know even if they have not watched the film. But it is, above all else, an extremely elegant example of film-making - sumptuously shot with astonishing attention to detail, splendidly evocative of an era and a milieu that has now pretty much vanished, and one of the few films I can think of that create a 'mood' so perfectly and draw the viewer into it so effortlessly.Unlike most 'Bollywood' films, Pakeezah is subtle, low-key and deliberately languid in pace - like the aristocratic semi-feudal Muslim society in North India it seeks to portray. Courtesans were prized for their facility as singers and dancers and the preservers of a culture that prized refinement, artifice, and 'form'. Yet, as the opening sequences of the film make clear, for all this courtesans must continue to inhabit a world of their own, unable to ever attain 'respectability'. Kamal Amrohi never passes judgment on the lifestyle of the courtesan, as has been so common in Hindi cinema; instead, he gently exposes the hypocrisy of a society that uses their services whilst pushing them to its margins.The film is notable for its nuanced, understated dialogue, stellar soundtrack (particularly the background score replete with ghazals and thumris, semi-classical musical forms sung by courtesans) and the performance of a lifetime by tragedienne Meena Kumari, whose swan song this was, in the title role. The stunningly beautiful Meena Kumari brings an astonishing grace and dignity to this tragic role without ever descending into the maudlin. Supporting performances, particularly by Beena as Nawabjaan, are also noteworthy. The songs and dances are marvelously choreographed. But most striking of all is the way the film manages to drown one in the atmosphere of an ethos that no longer survives, and tells a dignified yet poignant love story without resorting to excessive sentimentality, clichés, or melodrama. The universe of the courtesan (a world where men are only peripheral) is beautifully evoked without a trace of condescension but equally without over-romanticising it. As a story of forbidden, often suppressed, desire, Pakeezah has few peers; as an evocation of the life, music, and social world of courtesans in turn-of-the-century India, it has none.

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