Shakespeare-Wallah

Frankly, I caught this early Merchant-Ivory flic to see Felicity Kendal in her debut movie. I was disappointed-- her cuteness works much better as a nearly 60 year old detective in the Rosemary and Thyme BBC series, than as a teen-aged actress, where it makes her just too unserious.

The movie concerns a small troupe of Shakepearean actors, some English and some Indian, but anchored by the Buckingham family, touring India to ever diminishing audiences. An Indian playboy, already involved with a Bollywood actress, sees young Lizzie Buckingham, and the usual romantic conflicts arise.

The movie has the normal pacing of a Merchant-Ivory. Black and white. For me the background bits of Indian and ex-pat life were more interesting than the movie itself. The actors playing Felicity Kendal's character's parents were her real life parents.

Lizzie Buckingham (Felicity Kendal) is the teen-aged daughter of a roving acting couple (played by her real life parents, Geoffrey Kendal and Laura Liddell) in India during the 1960s. Lizzie falls in love with Sanju (Shashi Kapoor) who seems to reciprocate her feelings, but he is also having an affair with the jealous actress Manjula (Madhur Jaffrey).

Loosely based on the true life of the Kendal family, this second collaboration of Merchant, Ivory, and Jhabvala is perfection. The cast is talented and natural, the plot believable and beautifully written, the film-work graceful and personal. The Shakespeare references may be problematic for some, but regardless, I recommend this movie whole-heartedly.

"Shakespeare-Wallah" is a rather wistful view of the last remaining vestiges of British India. The film is set less than two decades after the independence of India and follows a small company of British expatriates who travel this huge nation putting on Shakespearean productions. The problem is that with the British Empire a thing of the past, interest in India in Shakespeare has clearly waned and the new king of entertainment, Bollywood, is contrasted in the film. It's all a bit sad for some to look at these people desperately trying to hold on to the past--though others, such as modern Indians, might look at things VERY differently. As for this American, it's a strange film as you are looking at a movie that glamorizes the past--a past folks in my country cannot relate to nor appreciate. My guess is that this film (directly, oddly, by an American, James Ivory) would be much greater appreciated by older Brits who can remember when India was the crown jewel, so they said, of the Empire.

As for the quality of the film, the acting and direction are good though the pace and subject matter of the film left me flat. Not a bad film but a far cry from the beautiful Merchant-Ivory productions to come. I did notice that the style of the film and focus on more ordinary folks was reminiscent of the films of Satyajit Ray and not like the more contemporary Indian musical we've come to expect from this nation.

The earlier merchant ivory films are set in india, as that is where producer ismail merchant lived at the time. Theoretically, this story is based on the lives of (lead actress) felicity kendal and her family. In fact, felicity's own parents actually play her parents, the buckinghams. In a traveling troupe of theater players, the group experiences dinners with kings, breakdowns on the roads. The daughter falls for a young man of status. But of course, he has his own secrets. It's okay. It doesn't really have the polish and budget of the later "costume" films. The picture and sound quality aren't too good. Quite often, the voice recognition can't understand what the actors are saying, so frequently, there are no captions. The story was actually pretty accurate for its time, as the kingdom (and the kings) had recently divided into two very separate lands... india and muslim pakistan. India itself had just recently become an independent country, dropping the british rule. About halfway through, dad laments how times are changing. The audiences, and even the actors themselves are not the happy-go-lucky people they once were. We grow. And change. Directed by jim ivory.

I have watched Merchant-Ivory productions in the cinemas of my native country and was impressed by the fine evocations of the times they presented added obviously by a considerable budget for costumes and technical apparatuses. This situation does not exist in this movie which is poorer but still very fine. The relationship between English and Indians as well the antithesis between the quality theatre and the emerging native movie industry exemplified in the the feud between the English girl and the Indian movie star vying for the heart of the male character was impressive, although being neither English or Indian I could not escape the conclusion that the English were associated with quality theatre while the Indians with popular movies and this equation obviously had a qualitative element in it. The version I saw did not contain subtitles therefore I had some difficulty apprehending the Shakeaspearian performances which are interspersed in the movie. Nevertheless it is a movie I recommend since what I like most was the general impression it conveyed.