A quick search of the Internet Movie Database gives me 41 films titled MacBeth, and another 21 with “MacBeth” in the title. While the play isn’t quite as popular as Hamlet,
the play has been adapted for film in a plethora of languages, set
everywhere from feudal Japan to a fast food restaurant in Pennsylvania
to the German rave scene. With all these MacBeths around, and given
Bollywood’s Shakespearean roots and penchant for borrowing and
“Indianizing” other stories, a version set in Mumbai’s underworld seems
almost inevitable.
The characters in Maqbool (2003) are lifted almost directly from the Shakespearean original. MacBeth becomes Miyan Maqbool (Irfan Khan), loyal henchman of Abbaji (Pankaj Kapur), Mumbai’s crime lord. Lady MacBeth is Nimmi (Tabu), Abbaji’s mistress. (Yes, Abbaji’s. I’ll get to that in a minute.) Banquo becomes Kaka (Piyush Mishra), Miyan’s fellow gangster. MacDuff becomes Devsare (Murli Sharma, who played Khan, the thinking man’s terrorist, in Main Hoon Na), one of the few honest cops in the city. And the three witches are transformed into two corrupt cops (Om Puri and Naseeruddin Shah), one of whom is a compulsive astrologer.
While the characters are lifted from MacBeth, the relationships are sometimes very different. Most notably, Nimmi is Abbaji’s mistress rather than Miyan’s wife, which gives the pair an actual motive beyond “King, huh? Sounds like fun.” Shakespeare’s Duncan is practically a saint, and the MacBeths kill him because they suddenly realize that they can. Nimmi and Miyan, on the other hand, love each other in a twisted sort of way, and can’t be together without getting rid of Abbaji. Which is not to say that the pair are motivated purely by love; there’s a certain amount of enlightened self interest here. Abbaji is eyeing a new potential mistress, and his daughter Sameera (Masumi Makhiji) is engaged to Kaka’s annoying son Guddu (Ajay Gehi), making Guddu the heir to Abbaji’s empire. Still, the “romance” is the heart of the film. As she descends into madness, Nimmi asks, “Was our love pure?” She doesn’t get an answer. Still, pure or no, the love is there.
The problem is that neither Nimmi nor Miyan know how to love another person. Nimmi is used to sex as a transaction, and Miyan is clearly uncomfortable with any form of human interaction that doesn’t involve killing someone. As a result, the love scenes are beautifully stilted; the emotion is there, but they clearly don’t know what they’re doing.
As you can probably guess from the subject matter, Maqbool is not a cheerful film. Puri and Shah provide some humor, but it’s very black. There are songs, but they’re either very solemn or merely there to provide dramatic irony. It’s also a very violent film; there’s a lot of gunplay, of the “I shoot you in the head and you die” variety rather than Woo-styled acrobatics.
Maqbool is well written, well directed, and features a fine cast. Tabu is the standout, though. As an actress she displays a sort of quiet strength that would be rare in any film industry, let alone the often over-the-top world of Bollywood. Irfan Khan’s performance is also good, but Lady MacBeth has always been a much better part.
The characters in Maqbool (2003) are lifted almost directly from the Shakespearean original. MacBeth becomes Miyan Maqbool (Irfan Khan), loyal henchman of Abbaji (Pankaj Kapur), Mumbai’s crime lord. Lady MacBeth is Nimmi (Tabu), Abbaji’s mistress. (Yes, Abbaji’s. I’ll get to that in a minute.) Banquo becomes Kaka (Piyush Mishra), Miyan’s fellow gangster. MacDuff becomes Devsare (Murli Sharma, who played Khan, the thinking man’s terrorist, in Main Hoon Na), one of the few honest cops in the city. And the three witches are transformed into two corrupt cops (Om Puri and Naseeruddin Shah), one of whom is a compulsive astrologer.
While the characters are lifted from MacBeth, the relationships are sometimes very different. Most notably, Nimmi is Abbaji’s mistress rather than Miyan’s wife, which gives the pair an actual motive beyond “King, huh? Sounds like fun.” Shakespeare’s Duncan is practically a saint, and the MacBeths kill him because they suddenly realize that they can. Nimmi and Miyan, on the other hand, love each other in a twisted sort of way, and can’t be together without getting rid of Abbaji. Which is not to say that the pair are motivated purely by love; there’s a certain amount of enlightened self interest here. Abbaji is eyeing a new potential mistress, and his daughter Sameera (Masumi Makhiji) is engaged to Kaka’s annoying son Guddu (Ajay Gehi), making Guddu the heir to Abbaji’s empire. Still, the “romance” is the heart of the film. As she descends into madness, Nimmi asks, “Was our love pure?” She doesn’t get an answer. Still, pure or no, the love is there.
The problem is that neither Nimmi nor Miyan know how to love another person. Nimmi is used to sex as a transaction, and Miyan is clearly uncomfortable with any form of human interaction that doesn’t involve killing someone. As a result, the love scenes are beautifully stilted; the emotion is there, but they clearly don’t know what they’re doing.
As you can probably guess from the subject matter, Maqbool is not a cheerful film. Puri and Shah provide some humor, but it’s very black. There are songs, but they’re either very solemn or merely there to provide dramatic irony. It’s also a very violent film; there’s a lot of gunplay, of the “I shoot you in the head and you die” variety rather than Woo-styled acrobatics.
Maqbool is well written, well directed, and features a fine cast. Tabu is the standout, though. As an actress she displays a sort of quiet strength that would be rare in any film industry, let alone the often over-the-top world of Bollywood. Irfan Khan’s performance is also good, but Lady MacBeth has always been a much better part.
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