'Begum Jaan' Vs. 'Rajkahini'

'Begum Jaan' Vs. 'Rajkahini'

Saw ‘Begum Jaan’ yesterday. It is Srijit Mukherjee’s Hindi remake of his own Bengali film ‘Rajkahini’. Taken on its own merit on a standalone basis, ‘Begum Jaan’ is definitely an excellent, intensely emotionally moving film. However when compared to the original ‘Rajkahini’, it just pales out into insignificance. To me, ‘Rajkahini’ is one of the all time greatest films that I have ever seen, period and it can hold its own against any Hollywood movie. Some comparison points:

1) Rituparna Sengupta’s portrayal of Begum Jaan in ‘Rajkahini’ is exceptionally brilliant and national award winning level material; the personality she portrayed was raw and visceral. Vidya Balan’s portrayal of Begum Jaan is, in comparison, very low key and insipid.

2) Jisshu U Sengupta’s portrayal of the villain Kabir in ‘Rajkahini’ is his lifetime best acting performance till date and is a sheer genius level portrayal of villainy, that can make your skin crawl in revulsion. In comparison Chunky Pandey’s portrayal of Kabir in ‘Begum Jaan’ is so so at best.

3) Both ‘Rajkahini’ and ‘Begum Jaan’ are ensemble acting pieces; everyone of the actors and actresses put in brilliant performances and the films rest on the shoulders of the entire cast. Both the films have a lot of scenes where the kothiwali raandis scream and fight/argue amongst themselves. However, in ‘Rajkahini’, the Bengali actresses put in very controlled, subdued performances during those kind of sequences and deliver their lines with dignity without sounding shrill; in comparison, in ‘Begum Jaan’ everyone of such sequences degenerate into loud shrieking screechfests, with the girls sounding like Banshees.

4) The dadi character(Kamala Dida, played by Lily Chakraborty) in ‘Rajkahini’ reads out stories from Abanindranath Tagore’s book ‘Rajkahini’ to the little girl Buchki and none of stories are picturised. This gives it a certain dignity. However, in ‘Begum Jaan’ when the dadi (Amma, played by Ila Arun) tells little Laadli, tales about Ahilyabai, Rani Lakshimbai of Jhansi, Razia Sultana and Rani Padmavati of Mewar, the stories are actually shown picturized in cartoony sequences, which look very stupid.

5) The original ‘Rajkahini’ is a 160 minutes long film and hence it allowed a lot of room for character development and showing the backgrounds of the main characters. Since ‘Begum Jaan’ is 119 minutes long, there is not much option of background character development.