28th September, 2012

Film Adaptations of Shakespeare

Maqbool
-Utkarsha Kotian

Maqbool by Vishal Bharadwaj, a modern day reinterpretation of William Shakespeares

Macbeth, is based in the backdrop of Mumbais mafia kings and is a dark and very close
retelling of the original text.
The principal characters are played by Irfan Khan, Tabu, Pankaj Kapur, Om Puri and
Naseeruddin Shah. While Bharadwaj has more or less retained the narrative of the original
play, he does move around the settings of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. Pankaj Kapur (Abbaji
- Duncan) is the reigning don of Mumbais underworld and Tabu (Nimmi - Lady Macbeth) is
his mistress who loves Kapurs right hand man Irfan Khan (Maqbool - Macbeth). Bharadwaj
has intelligently adapted the characters of the play to suit his characters and the time in which
it is set by replacing the three witches or soothsayers of the original by two corrupt
policemen with a knack for astrology, played by Om Puri (Inspector Pandit) and Naseeruddin
Shah (Inspector Purohit).
Macbeth, a story about personal ambition, has strong themes of violence, political turmoil
and guilt. These ideas are maintained by Bharadwaj to a great extent; however the change in
the characterisation of Macbeth and his Lady ensures that the overwhelming theme in the
movie is also love/passion. Shakespeares Macbeth kills Duncan purely out of ambition;
Maqbools motivations go beyond those of being the don. Maqbool out of love for Nimmi as
well as the hearsay that Abbaji may not be as good as Maqbool originally thinks he is, leads
to a scared yet determined Maqbool to end Abbajis life.
The policemen too, unlike Shakespeares witches, have an active role to play in the movie.
They time and again keep intervening to maintain balance of power as they call it, by
instigating Maqbool, letting of Boti (Macduff) so that he may join Guddu (Fleance) and by
predicting everyones fate time and again irrespective of their want to know it. Apart from the
original set of predictions made by the witches, both Pandit and Purohit make additional ones
about Abbajis daughter, who is set to marry Guddu. The last prediction that the witches make
about the forest entering the castle, is re-interpreted by Bharadwaj to suit the situation
where Maqbool is wanted by customs officials, by predicting that Maqbool would die when
the dariya (river/creek)enters the house. This prediction comes true when the Coast Guard
officials enter Maqbools house in order to arrest him.
Bharadwaj tries to place create a convincing world of Mumbais dark underside, where
people are killed routinely, but the idea of moral acts and loyalty is much appreciated. Hence,
Maqbools guilt not only has to do with the murder of Abbaji, but also the fact that his loyalty
to Abbaji transcended the bond between a don and his goons Maqbool treated Abbaji with
respect that a father is given.

28th September, 2012

Here too, Bharadwaj suitably modifies his plot by showing us the extent of Maqbools guilt,
whose hallucinations are much more frequent and de-settling than that of Nimmis. The
strongest imagery of Shakespeares Macbeth is that of his Lady washing her hands over and
over again when she believes that they still have blood over them, as a physical manifestation
of her guilt in being party to Duncans murder. Bharadwaj chooses to do away with this
crucial point and since Nimmi was in bed with Abbaji when he dies, the blood smears are
imagined by her to be on her face and subsequently on the walls of Maqbools house.
Since the use of music is possible in its screen adaptation, Bharadwaj makes sure that the
background score is foreboding and its use in crucial scenes (deaths of Abbaji, Maqbool and
Nimmi), foretells the fate of the characters to the audience. The use of very local instruments
such as the dhol, tasha and the tolling of the bells precedes all violent scenes and at every
point that the movie takes a turn in the plot, a high pitched male voice is heard.
Bharadwaj also makes good use of songs to take the narrative forward, rather than the usual
break in reality that is used in Hindi movies. Songs such as Ru-Ba-Ru that confirms
Maqbools suspicion of Guddus love interest in Sameera (Abbajis daughter) and Rone do
establishes the physical proximity of Nimmi and Maqbools relationship and acts as a
precursor to his making up his to kill Abbaji.
Bharadwaj makes ample use of all the cinematic liberty he attains by adapting the story into
his plot by juxtaposing the extent of madness, guilt and despair in Maqbool and Nimmi in the
final scenes when the camera focuses on Irfan Khan, but in the mirror behind him, we see
Tabu washing the walls in a hopeless attempt to get the blood off them.
The fact that Bharadwaj intends the movie to be one of unstable leadership and abject
violence is clear in the ease with which he treats the scenes where Abbaji offers a pan to a
politician and the effortless display of bullet marks that Abbaji flaunts on the body of his
bodyguard who is eventually accused of murdering Abbaji.
However, the overwhelming idea is that Bharadwaj also deals with the wobbly relationship
between Nimmi and Maqbool, the latter who has conflicting interests of love and loyalty.
What he will eventually choose is clear to even the uninitiated audience much before the
character himself by the long shot of him and Nimmi in each others arms while standing on
rocks at the edge of the sea. It is here that Bharadwajs Macbeth seals his destiny without
even being conscious about his decision.
The visual detailing and the intrinsic understanding of the world that Bharadwaj places his
characters in, the due attention to give it the dark premonition of sinister events and his equal
emphasis on costumes, locations and the stress on the story that he is telling, makes Maqbool
a good adaptation of Macbeth while preserving its individual standing as a movie that
recounts the story of doomed love surrounded by guilt, violence and ruthless ambition.