Question

Rewiew on movie satrang ke khiladi

Answer 1

Shatranj Ke Khilari”, based on a short story by Munshi Premchand, was an event to celebrate for Hindi cinema. One master had chosen from another field to weave a delightful rendering, one that captured the times of British advent in India even though Ray adds a few characters to Premchand’s tale of misplaced passion among two feudal lords of Awadh. The cast was assembled astutely but Ray it was all the way, his stamp so unmistakable, in the dialogue, direction and screenplay. Well versed with these aspects of filmmaking and it was to Ray’s credit that he managed it in a medium, Hindi, he was not familiar with.

The obsession of Mirza Sajjad Ali (Sanjeev Kumar) and Mir Roshan Ali (Saeed Jaffrey) with chess, even as the world around them crumbles, dominates the movie. Slow paced but gripping, the movie brings forth the sweetness of Urdu, so brilliantly captured by Shama Zaidi and Javed Siddiqi in association with Ray, who penned the English dialogues. As perfect as the English would. It was beautifully delivered by Richard Attenborough, in the role of General James Outram, and Tom Alter as Captain Weston. One of the highpoints is the long scene depicting these two in an engrossed conversation with the General probing the Captain on the lifestyle of Wajid Ali Shah, the last Nawab of Lucknow.