Shakespeare Wallah Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.0
Audio		3.5
Extras		2.5
Overall		4.0

Shakespeare Wallah Blu-ray Movie Review

All the world's a stage.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman April 12, 2018

Mention the now iconic name of Merchant Ivory Productions, and chances are a lot of film fans will instantly think of films like A Room with a View, Howards End and/or The Remains of the Day, three films that married elegant production attributes with literary qualities that, in the case of A Room With a View and Howards End, were culled from the writing of iconic British author E.M. Forster. (Perusers of credits will know that another Merchant Ivory production, 1987’s Maurice, is also based on a Forster opus.) Another kinda sorta iconic British author, some guy by the name of Shakespeare, provides a bit of the subtext for an early Merchant Ivory film that even fans of the production entity may not be overly familiar with, let alone have seen. Shakespeare Wallah is a fascinating blend, as many of the Merchant Ivory outings are, of a British sensibility with an Indian cultural context, and it has the further distinction of being based at least in part on the real life experiences of a family of actors who portray “versions” of themselves in the film.

It’s kind of fun (and perhaps even instructive in terms of their partnership relationship) to see James Ivory arguing with Ismail Merchant in a supplementary interview included on this Blu-ray about the meaning of “wallah” (one might assume the Indian born polyglot Merchant might know what he’s talking about), but the upshot is the film’s unusual title means “Shakespeare salesman” or perhaps more generically “Shakespeare expert”. The film seems to put the lie to “stiff upper lip” British qualities with an opening that is decidedly odd, even silly in an almost Monty Python's Flying Circus way, with a powdered wig assemblage of Brits hamming it up pretty spectacularly by what I assume is the Ganges (standing in for the Thames, so to speak) in front of a large outdoor Indian audience. That soon segues to the actual introduction of a theatrical troupe headed by Tony Buckingham (Geoffrey Kendal, whose diaries of his own theatrical tours in India provided at least a spark of inspiration for screenwriter Ruth Prawer Jhabvala). Buckingham works with his wife Carla (Laura Liddell, Kendal’s real life spouse) and daughter Lizzie (Felicity Kendal, Geoffrey and Laura’s real life child, here in her first feature film and looking rather amazingly like Jennifer Lawrence at times).

Buckingham has been touring India for untold years, providing a bit of iconic British culture for a post-colonial India, but as the story unfolds, it becomes apparent that times are changing, and there’s less of an audience now for live theatrical experiences of any kind, let alone something as “heady” as Shakespeare. The Buckingham family’s peripatetic life is fraught with various trials, including a lack of consistent income and little obstacles like cars that break down. It is in fact a car problem that introduces the family to Sanju (Shashi Kapoor), a well to do Indian who rescues the group when they’re stranded on a wayside. Sanju and Lizzie obviously have eyes for each other, though as things progress, it’s revealed that Sanju also has eyes for a Bollywood film actress named Manjula (Madhur Jaffrey, who won the Silver Bear for Best Actress at Berlin’s Film Festival that year).

There’s an undeniably elegiac quality to Shakespeare Wallah, one that hints at traditions being dispensed with, or at least reevaluated, and that gives the entire undertaking a kind of melancholic tone. Lizzie’s starcrossed (sorry, couldn’t resist) love affair with Sanju also struggles to get to a happy ending, but here the film is kind of prescient in a way, documenting a “shiny new object” in the form of Manjula, a home grown attraction as it were, replacing the arguably imposed allure of Shakespeare as personified by Lizzie and her family.

Shakespeare Wallah doesn’t quite have the stately authority of later Merchant Ivory productions, and in fact one can almost feel James Ivory feeling his way as a director throughout the film. There are a few less than artful framings, and the early part of the film seems to depend too much on a verité ambience that the later part of the film, which becomes more dreamily romantic if also overheated emotionally, tends to drift away from. Still, this is a fascinating early exhibit in what has almost become a Merchant Ivory specialty, the examination of the intersection of India and England.

Shakespeare Wallah Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Shakespeare Wallah is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Cohen Film Collection with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.84:1. Cohen is touting a 2K restoration without specifying the source, though a little internet sleuthing suggests a 35mm fine grain master held by the George Eastman Museum was used. This is a very organic looking presentation, with a nicely resolved grain field and generally quite pleasing detail levels. Some minor issues like dirt baked into opticals (there are quite a few dissolves in the film) and other minor damage does still show up, despite whatever restorative measures were taken. There is also some recurrent if very minor damage toward the right side of the frame that's especially noticeable in some nighttime scenes. But the biggest issue for me personally was what is some inconsistent brightness and contrast. Large parts of this transfer boast nicely deep black levels and nicely modulated gray scale, but there are other moments that I can only describe as having a kind of slate gray appearance, something that tends to make black levels look slightly milky and the entire palette almost look like some of the film's day for night or mist laden sequences, even when those elements aren't actually in play. One of the interesting things I noticed is that the trailers included on this release do not exhibit these variances even when (admittedly brief) snippets of the same footage is duplicated. I've tried to provide a range of screenshots to demonstrate some of the variances at play. All in all, this is a very enjoyable transfer that should be enjoyed by fans.

Shakespeare Wallah Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Shakespeare Wallah features an LPCM 2.0 mono track in English (with a few moments in what I presume is Hindi or Urdu). There's some minor if noticeable distortion in the upper midrange which can be noticed in the first cue, which combines what I assume is an ethnic Indian instrument that sounds a bit like the western Medieval instrument the shawm, but you can even hear some of the same slight buzzing or rattling quality in some speaking voices when they hit just the right timbre. This is a very minor niggling issue that some listeners may not even be overly aware of, and otherwise the track provides good fluidity and decent fidelity. Dialogue is always clearly presented and the score by Satyajit Ray is quite evocative.

Shakespeare Wallah Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Conversations from the Quad with James Ivory and Madhur Jaffrey (1080p; 47:30) is a nice in depth interview conducted by Mallika Rao from the Village Voice.


• Conversations with the Filmmakers (480i; 24:14) features Merchant and Ivory together, along with Felicity Kendal and Shashi Kapoor each shot separately in some fun reminiscences (this is the supplement where Ivory kind of hilariously goes after Merchant's definition of "wallah").


• Original Trailer (1080p; 00:50)


• 2017 Re-release Trailer (1080p; 1:51)

Shakespeare Wallah Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Shakespeare Wallah's underpinnings are undeniably fascinating, but the film arguably has a few structural issues that prevent it from consistently providing emotions that are obviously being aimed for. The performances in the film are superb all around, despite folks like Felicity Kendal and Madhur Jaffrey being relative newcomers to the medium. Ivory is still obviously feeling his way in this piece, but he already has a firm take on the delicate and sometimes exasperating relationship between Indians and the British. Technical merits are generally strong (though I personally advise those interested to parse the screenshots included with this review), and the supplementary package is excellent. Recommended.