In Custody

Directed by the late Ismail Merchant, the producing half (with longtime partner and director James Ivory) of the prestigious Merchant/Ivory team that brought us such acclaimed arthouse hits as A Room With a View and Howards End, there's no doubt that 1993's In Custody is intellectually stimulating. There's also no doubt that Merchant was a better producer than a director, and this highly literate drama (Merchant's feature film directorial debut, based on the novel by Anita Desai) is a bit of a snooze. Always interested in exploring themes related to his native India, Merchant was perhaps a bit too enamored of the subject matter, which finds a meek teacher named Deven (Om Puri) traveling to meet Nur (Shashi Kapoor), India's premiere poet of the vanishing Urdu language (disappearing because of the popularity of Hindi and the shifting tides of Indian culture). Deven is disappointed to discover that the great poet is himself in decline, catered to by temperamental wives and more inclined to prodigious meals than stimulating conversation about poetry. Merchant makes points about the clash between ancient traditions and emerging modernity in poverty-stricken India, and occasional bursts of humor make In Custody worth watching for anyone drawn to the subject matter, but the film suffers from a general imbalance between rich topics and characters lacking depth. DVD extras include interviews with Merchant, Kapoor, Puri, and co-star Shabana Azmi. Optional. [Note: also newly available is Merchant's 1983 documentary The Courtesans of Bombay.] (J. Shannon)