"If we cannot cope with
our wives, how can we cope with the British Army?" - Meer
Two aristocrats oblivious
to what is going on around them play chess around the clock while the British
plan a takeover of a northeastern Indian kingdom. These threads are interwoven
seamlessly in Satyajit Ray's delightful comedy, The Chess Players, recently
released on a Kino DVD. The film does not spare either side from the thrust
of its gentle dagger, depicting both the apathy of the Indian upper classes
and the arrogance of the colonial masters. Like many Satyajit Ray films,
there are gorgeous dance sequences and appealing musical numbers, but unlike
most, the spoken language is Urdu not Bengali, and it is a big budget film
in Technicolor using name actors.
Based on a short story
by Prem Chand, the film is set in Lucknow, India in 1856 and is narrated
by the real Amitabh Bachchan. As the film opens, we learn that Oudh's King
Wajid Ali Shah (Amjad Khan) has financed the British East India Company
for ten years and also provided soldiers for its army. In exchange, the
Company did not interfere with Wajid's rule, even though they viewed the
king with disdain. This changed in 1856 when General Outram (Richard Attenborough)
was instructed to depose the king and take over the kingdom to add to the
British coffers. Outram, the local representative of the Company, justifies
his ambitions for more territory by denouncing the king to an aide as an
incompetent ruler and hedonist, ignoring his devotion to dance, poetry,
and music.
In another thread, two
Indian aristocrats Mirza (Sanjeev Kumar) and Meer (Saeed Jaffrey) play
chess obsessively to the dismay of their wives, Khurshid (Shabana Azmi),
and Nafisa (Fardia Jalal). Mirza's wife feeling neglected, steals and hides
the chess pieces, while Meer's wife has an affair with his nephew (Farooq
Shaikh). Unwilling to handle their domestic affairs, the two first use
fruits and vegetables as their set pieces, then seek other places to play
their game, refusing to believe that the British takeover is imminent.
One of their stops is the home of their attorney who is on his deathbed.
This doesn't stop the two from hilariously trying to sneak in a game of
chess in another room.
The two players cling
to their way of life, exchanging frivolous banter and smoking hookah pipes
while the world around them crumbles. They finally take refuge in the home
of a young boy, Kullu (Samarth Narain) who remained while others fled just
to see the red-coated British soldiers march into the city. While perhaps
not in the upper echelon of Ray's work, The Chess Players is a very entertaining
political satire that provides wry insight into human nature and our capacity
for denial. General Outram is portrayed as a well-meaning but totally condescending
individual who utterly fails to understand the lives and culture of the
people he seeks to control. Any resemblance to current U.S. Muddle-East
policies, of course, is purely accidental.
GRADE B+
Howard
Schumann