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15 of 16 found the following review helpful:
 Excellent movie, awful DVDApr 22, 2005
By M. Desai
This is one of the most disappointing releases I have ever had the misfortune to come across. The movie is very beautiful, with masterful performances by all concerned. The music is sublime, one of the best in a long while in Hindi/Urdu cinema. Enough has been written about the movie by previous reviewers, I agree with most of the comments.
So here's the reason for the low rating: the DVD is just awful. The widescreen transfer is alright - not the sharpest nor with really good colors. But the bad part is that it's Letterboxed widescreen, NOT Anamorphic as specified here on Amazon. That means on widescreen TV's you need to watch it in zoom-mode (or equivalent). And that brings us to the next problem - the subtitles CANNOT be turned off. That not only means you have the irritation of having English subtitles always there, but also that the lower portion of the subtitles get cut off in the zoom mode.
The sound is also just Mono (not Stereo, let alone 5.1) - the music is therefore just wasted. It makes the whole experience just not worth it.
All in all, NOT a DVD I was expecting from the Merchant-Ivory Collection. Certainly not worth having the Criterion name associated with the DVD.
10 of 10 found the following review helpful:
 Disregard Maltin - this is well worth seeing.Aug 02, 1999
While it's a little slow moving at times, this film is beautifully written and has a wonderful cast. There's a lot of gentle humor and some wonderful scenes such as the poetry concert, and Om Puri's hapless attempts at recording Shashi Kapoor. Kapoor has really put on the pounds, but he's quite a presence in this. Stick with it and it will reward you with a very moving ending. This was one of my favourite films the year it came out and I've seen it a couple of items since then.
9 of 9 found the following review helpful:
An excellent film -- disregard Leonard MaltinJan 02, 2000
This film tells a simple, at times poignant tale with gentle humor, and without needless melodrama. The acting by Shashi Kapoor, Om Puri and Shabana Azmi is superlative. I just wish that the director had shown us more of the atmosphere of Bhopal, where the film is set.I would highly recommend this movie.
7 of 7 found the following review helpful:
om puri should get an oscar just for being om puriNov 18, 1999
the viewer is right disregard leonard, who has given 4 stars to too many mediocre movies in the past and seems to be judgeing movies without watching them. watch this movie, it is excellant, but only if you like drama. om puri, the greatest actor India has ever produced, and who was robbed of an oscar nomination for CITY OF JOY, is sensational once again, the movie overall is very enjoyable and moving and also quite fun.DO WATCH IT.
5 of 5 found the following review helpful:
"...where Urdu is still chaste..."Apr 27, 2004
By Rebecca Whiting
"In Custody" is an excellent movie about disappointment and mortality. Om Puri, with his trademark dour dignity, plays a lover of Urdu. In spite of his love, when he was a young man he became responsible for a wife and then a child, so he had to take the post of teacher of Hindi. Urdu uses a Farsi-Arabic script, and Hindi is supposedly the official language of India and the tension between them is tough -- to go deeper into that bucket of worms is a labor I do not relish. The story of a man devoted to Urdu who teaches Hindi is your first hint of what direction this movie shall take. I won't provide a synopsis, as that has been done already, but will share impressions. The camera shots are just as compact, beautiful, and definitive as poems. Oxcarts, courtyards, and rivers are all presented to us as individual wonders. The poems recited in this movie are magnificent creatures which come from the mouth of a jaded and corpulent old man. Our poor poet, the author of such marvels, is so fat he can hardly move. The part where the group of *admiring* vultures push the massive man on a garlanded swing as part of their drunk revels is just unbearable to watch. This is the creator of beauty: he later collapses and vomits in his wife's quarters. She is wife number two, very prettily sculpted of the most bitter wormwood. Yet she achieves household status because she has borne a son. When you see Wife No.2 sing a ghazal, you will understand how easy it would be to fall in love with the angel-faced harpy, even as she twists the knife deeper. Wife No.1 is a materialistic matron who has a very cold eye for reality. Neither wife is a very sympathetic companion. And the glorious recital of poems by the great poet takes place in a hot, reeking brothel. One realizes that this recital is indeed the poet's swansong. One would think the scenario no more than pathetic: yet it is truly dignified by the beauty of the poems. The movie ends with a gutted palace, due to be completely demolished. All physical things pass. But poems, the work of man, transcend man's own fate. It is a comfort amidst the melancholy.
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