Amrapali (1966)

1966

Directed by: Lekh Tandon

Music: Shankar-Jaikishen

Lyrics: Shaliendra, Hasrat Jaipuri

Starring: Vyjayanthimala, Sunil Dutt, Premnath, Premnath, 

KN Singh, Bipin Gupta, Gajanan Jagirdar

I love period films, I love the pageantry involved. I will happily lap up the beautiful princess/handsome prince/devious minion films, especially if they have lovely songs and dances, with a few swashbuckling fights thrown in. So, an especially well-made historical is right up my alley. Especially when it is based on a story that I have read before. Amrapali fits the bill, though this is not a tale of star-crossed lovers, but a tale of a clash of ideologies. And what a riveting tale it is.

Ajatashatru, Emperor of Magadha, is livid. The empire's might has been unable to humble the neighbouring kingdom of Vaishali. His commander-in chief, Veer (Premnath) cautions him - the Magadhan army is weary of battles. The soldiers haven't had a moment's respite, and cannot fight the Lichchavis. His court astrologer warns him that the stars are not favourable; the rajmata is against a war that can only lead to bloodshed and misery. She warns him that the Lichchavi army has never been defeated; the people of Vaishali do not fight for their king's throne; they fight for freedom, for self-respect.

Ajatashatru pays no heed. His senapati is weak; his mother must remember that though she was a Lichchavi princess, she is now the queen mother of Magadha. He is determined to bring Vaishali under the Magadhan yoke, whether they like it or not.

In Vaishali, the town herald proclaims the news of the proposed invasion, and every able-bodied man in Vaishali readies for war. A tense battle ensues on the banks of the Ganga. The Magadhan army is routed and Ajatashatru is wounded. Senapati Veer manages to rescue his emperor and escape from the battle field.

Wounded and weary, Ajatashatru disguises himself in the armour of a wounded Lichchavi soldier, and manages to stumble into the temple precincts before he collapses. Ironically, it is from him that Amrapali learns of Vaishali's victory. She's beyond herself with joy, but spares a thought for the wounded soldier of her realm, as she thinks him.

As she pulls out the arrowhead, she asks him his name. 'Sainik', he says. He spends the night in a feverish doze, and wakes up thinking himself back in his palace, much to Amrapali's amusement.

Ajatashatru cannot bear to hear the happy voices outside celebrating his defeat. But he has an ally in the enemy stronghold -- Badbhadrasen (KN Singh), the commander-in-chief of Vaishali's army. Ajatashatru and he plot to weaken the Lichchavi army from within. Then, Magadha will attack.

Meanwhile, outside, the celebrations are continuing. There is dancing, an effigy of the Magadhan emperor is burnt, there is an announcement that the new court dancer of Vaishali will be chosen at the public sabha  that same night. The contenders for the court dancer's position begin their performance, and Amrapali, who is in the audience, points out a mistake. Now she has to prove it was a mistake. Amrapali rises to the challenge. With the position of court dancer at stake, the other dancer (Madhvi) does not give in. Then begins a competition that decides the contest in favour of Amrapali. She is proclaimed the court danseuse.

It is the night of Amrapali's first performance as the rajnartaki. She is sure that her 'Sainik' will come. When she doesn't see him, she is distraught, much to the discomfiture of her guru and her friends. Sainik fights his way through the guards who block his way, and comes in at the end of her dance. She introduces him to the king as the soldier who pursued Ajatashatru to the banks of the Ganga, and who saved her life the next day. She doesn't know his name, but she has given her heart and soul to him.

He is not immune to her either. However, just as he is about to declare his affections, Veer stops him. The emperor has duties to fulfil; he cannot allow himself to be entangled in the love of a danseuse. Ajatashatru is confident that his Amrapali will learn to love Magadha as much as he does, as much as Veer does. The latter is not that confident. As a patriot, the safety of the kingdom is paramount, and for that, Amrapali must die.

Before that, however, the Rajmata of Magadha will die; and Som, who has overheard the conversation between Veer and Ajatashatru, will unveil the truth.

Will Amrapali be able to bear the truth? In the conflict between her love and her duty, what will she choose? The girl who proclaimed proudly, in open court, that Vaishali is her mother, and her father - will Vaishali treat her as a daughter? What about Veer? And Ajatashatru, himself?

Amrapali was Vyjayanthimala's tour de force. She was the epitome of beauty and sensuality; one can believe that the noblemen of the various clans would fight over her. Her confidence, her independence, her beauty, her power - oh, she knows it, and she uses it. When Ajatashatru is warned by Badbhadrasen to keep away from everybody including Amrapali, it is she who goes in search of him. When he warns her that she is playing with fire, she retorts - "If I was scared of fire, would I have brushed social norms aside to come here?"

And the film doesn't shy away from the intimacy that follows. It is reiterated later when Veer begs her to reconsider her stance. Vyjayanthimala is a wonderful actress, and switches like quicksilver between the proud danseuse with the world at her feet, the lovelorn young damsel, and the patriot who agonises over her Vaishali's fate. And lord, she can dance!

Sunil Dutt provided perfect foil. One has to admire the man for agreeing to play second lead to heroines in so many  films. He makes a good Ajatashatru, arrogant and cruel at one point, softened by love at another, though his idea of love is to grab at what he sees as his happiness. He is also perfectly capable of seeing only what he wants to see. How does he think that the girl who celebrates his defeat by burning his effigy is going to stand aside while he destroys her country?

He doesn't understand her anguish until the last moment; he doesn't understand that love has to be selfless. Sunil Dutt brought out the conflict beautifully.

They were ably supported by a whole host of others - Premnath, Mridula Rani, KN Singh, even the actors who played the guruputr, the rajpurohit, and the wounded soldier who recognises the emperor. Deftly directed, with a gripping plot, it's a shame that this film failed while others that weren't half as good, became box office successes. It hastened Vyjayanthimala's retirement, though director BR Chopra tried his best to make her change her mind.

Amrapali clocked in at two hours though the original VHS tape I saw had almost another hour. However, this is surely not a case of the DVD makers doing their usual hatchet job. My educated guess is that the DVD is the shortened version that was sent as India's official entry to the Oscars. It is intelligently edited without any 'Whaa...?' 'How...?' 'Why?...' moments. The story flows cohesively, and there are no jumps.

I do wish the song Jao re jogi hadn't been one of the casualties. Shankar-Jaikishen's music was one of the highlights of the film, with each of the four Lata solos being the perfect mix of (minimal) instrumentation and vocals. Considering the subject matter, I'm also surprised that there were only four songs. Lata sounded wonderful, making one wish more than ever that she had stopped singing by the end of the decade so we could remember her like this.

It was wonderfully shot (by cinematographer Dwarka Divecha), the colour palette ranging from the reds and yellows in the beginning to the darker colours as the story moves from the palaces to the battle fields. The sets (MR Achrekar) were beautiful in their very simplicity, even the palace settings looking rich and elegant without suffering from a surfeit of garish colour and gaudy beads.

The battle scenes were also well-taken, overlaid montages, with few scenes of hand to hand combat. They still managed to bring out the arrogance of a despotic ruler and the futility of war.

The costumes, similarly, were more authentic than usual, with a very young Bhanu Athaiyya using the Buddhist frescoes in the Ajanta Caves as her inspiration.

My *small* (very small, because the movie was so well-made I forgot about history) peeve with the film -  it went totally against recorded history. It was Bimbisara  who was Amrapali's lover, not Ajatashatru. Amrapali even gave birth to Bimbisara's son. The background as I knew it: Amrapali (or Ambepali - in fact, there are many scenes where Ajatashatru calls her 'Ambe') was so named because she was found abandoned under a  mango tree. She grew up to be so incredibly beautiful, graceful, and charming, that the noblemen of Vaishali, the capital city of the eight Lichchavi clans, began to fight amongst others for her favour. To avoid the consequences of such infighting, the king had her declared nagar vadhu, or the courtesan of the state. 

Stories of her beauty and her prowess at dance spread, and finally came to the ears of Bimbisara, the mighty ruler of the Magadha empire. He invaded Vaishali, and, wounded in battle, takes sanctuary in Amrapali's house. She does not know that he is the Magadhan emperor, the mortal enemy of her country and people. Bimbisara is an accomplished musician; during his extended convalescence, their shared love for music and dance leads to Amrapali and he falling in love. However, Bimbisara cannot remain hidden for long; Magadha is anxious about their ruler's whereabouts. Bimbisara is forced to reveal his identity to Amrapali, and the proudly patriotic danseuse bids him leave the country. 

Bimbisara leaves, but not before the people of Vaishali learn that their enemy had been living in their court dancer's house. Incensed at what they see as her treachery, she is stoned as punishment. They leave her to die of her wounds, but she is rescued by a Buddhist monk; when she recovers, she renounces her previous lifestyle and joins the Buddhist order.  

Another version states that when the Budha visited Vaishali, every nobleman in the kingdom fell over himself offering the Enlightened One hospitality. They scorn Amrapali when she expresses a wish to feed the Budha at least once. However, the Gautama follows her to her house, where he and his revenue are fed with humility and joy. He also agrees to her request to reside in her mango grove during his sojourn in Vaishali. Soon after he leaves, she renounces her position and her wealth and joins his order. 

The film deviates from this story, interchanging Bimbisara's son Ajatashatru for Bimbisara, which, if you think about it, makes the whole tale rather icky. Though I must say that that view is a more 'modern' view of relationships. Historically, I suppose it was not only possible, but, since Bimbisara was never married to her, and because she was a courtesan, it wouldn't really matter that Ajatashatru also fell in love with her. Besides, she could have been his age or just a few years older. 

The rest of the story follows the same trajectory with Ajatashatru invading Vaishali in order to teach it a lesson - the Lichchavis had excoriated Bimbisara as a coward for failing to conquer Vaishali. Considering that history records that Ajatashatru imprisoned, and later murdered his father in order to ascend the throne of Magadha, I wonder how motivated he must have been to salvage his father's reputation.

Or it could be that power-crazed as he was, he was only looking for a reason to invade Vaishali, hitherto unconquerable. (It was said of Vaishali that once the kingdom's gates were closed, not even an ant could crawl inside.) Ajatashatru razes Vaishali to the ground in his bid to win Amrapali; when she sees the devastation around her, she scorns his love and joins the Sangha.

That 'little' plot deviation aside, if you are in the mood for a well-directed, well-acted historical, with a strong plot, and good songs, and realistic don't miss this film.