Summary: After
Prem Sanyas and some German films, Osten returned to India for his second collaboration with Rai, a historical romance set in the Mughal Empire, subtitled, like
Prapancha Pash (1929), A Romance of
India. Selima (Enakshi) is a princess-foundling raised by a potter and loved by her brother, Shiraz (Rai). She is abducted and sold as a slave to Prince Khurram, later Emperor Shahjehan (Roy), who also falls for her, to the chagrin of the wily Dalia (Seeta Devi). When Selima is caught with Shiraz, the young man is condemned to be trampled to death by an elephant. A pendant reveals Selima's royal status and she saves her brother, marries the prince and becomes Empress Mumtaz Mahal while Dalb is banned for her machinations against Selima. When Selima dies (1629), the emperor builds her a monument to the design of the now old and blind Shiraz, the Taj Mahal. The film contains a number of passionate kissing scenes. The cinematography received favourable comment, introducing a baroque camera style that became inescapably linked with the genre of Mughal romances (e.g. Charu Roy's
Loves of a Mughal Prince and Choudhury's
Anarkali, both also 1928). The art direction was by Promode Nath. The German release had a music score by Arthur Guttmann. It was a slightly shorter version, at 8402 ft. The US release credited the assistant director V. Peers as co-director of an 80' version in 1929. The surviving print at the NFAI is
7778 ft.
Suresh Chabria writes: ‘Osten, Rai and Pal tackle another great Indian story–the building of the Taj Mahal–and the result is a truly beautiful work of filmic atmosphere and emotion. Hassan, a potter living in the Persian desert finds Selima, a princess, and raises her along with his son, Shiraz. Under his benign gaze they mature into young sweethearts.
But Selima is abducted by slave traders and sold to the Mughal prince Khurram who falls in love with her. This upsets the wily court lady Dalia’s plans of becoming empress and she arranges a secret meeting between the lovelorn Shiraz and Selima. The two are seen by Khurram, who condemns Shiraz to be trampled by an elephant.
Selima successfully pleads for mercy, and Shiraz reveals the pendant which signifies her royal descent. Selima and Khurram marry, leaving Shiraz to keep a ceaseless vigil outside the palace gate. Selima is given the title Mumtaz Mahal when Khurram succeeds to the throne as Emperor Shahjahan.
When the empress dies eighteen years later, Shahjahan orders that a monument is built in her memory such as the world has never seen. The design chosen by the emperor is that of Shiraz who is now blind but has rendered his ‘memories into stone.’ The film ends in the gardens of the Taj Mahal with the bereaved emperor and the blind architect consoled by the fact that the monument has immortalised the woman they both loved.
Shiraz is perhaps even more orientalist and exotic than Prem Sanyas and Prapancha Pasha and fully exploits the Mughal-style architecture and costumes in lustrous images that evoke the grandeur of the Great Mughals. This theme has been repeatedly filmed in both the silent and talkie eras, but rarely with such aplomb. The German reviewers were once again enthusiastic, but in India its thunder was stolen by quickly-made rival productions based on similar stories–Charu Roy’s Loves of a Mughal Prince and R.C. Choudhary’s Anarkali–both made in 1928’. From Suresh Chabria ed. Light of Asia: Indian Silent Cinema 1912-1934, New Delhi: Niyogi Books/Pune: National Film Archive of India, 2013, pg 72.
