Play it again
by: Alaka Sahani
- expressindia.com
The past is still the present. In our movies at least. If recent international releases in India, forthcoming Bollywood projects, Oscar front-runners and some of the best films screened during the recently concluded International Film Festival, Mumbai, are any indication.
Screen interpretations of past events, like The Last King of Scotland, The Queen and Marie Antoinette, bagged the golden statuette for best actor, actress and costume, respectively, at the Academy Awards this year. The film festival, organised by the MAMI, had kicked off with opulent Curse of the Golden Flower — a film about a 10th century Chinese emperor — and went on to show a dozen more historicals.
If that’s not enough, then Hollywood’s latest offering, Mel Gibson’s Apocalypto and the fabulous Spartan saga, 300, transport viewers to the 16th century Mayan civilisation and 480 BC ancient Greece, respectively.
Closely keeping pace with this trend is Bollywood. Currently, the shooting of Jodha Akbar is on in full swing on grand sets created at Karjat. This film is set for an October release, and UTV, which is producing the film with a Rs 37-crore budget, expects the Hrithik Roshan-Aishwarya Rai starrer to be a mega hit.
“Films based on historical events or personalities often have a compelling story. That serves as a pull for audiences. Besides, there is a lot to learn from such films,” says Siddharth Roy Kapoor, senior vice-president of UTV.
However, Bollywood’s history with historicals hasn’t been a successful one. Recent ventures like J P Dutta’s Umrao Jaan and Akbar Khan’s Taj Mahal are prime instances of that. But Khan seems undaunted by Taj Mahal’s dismal fate at the BO. In fact, he’s gearing up for another period drama that revolves around Genghis Khan.
He has a plausible explanation. “It is an integral part of human nature to probe into the past. Such subjects ensure lots of drama. I also find it quite thrilling to work on a large scale. The lavishness and grandeur attached to such subjects spur me on,” he confesses.
This could be the reason why Vidhu Vinod Chopra is coming up with Talisman, a film based on the novel Chandrakanta, and Ravi Chopra is planning to make Mahabharata and Mitti. Vidhu’s film and Chopra’s Mahabharata are period pieces, though not historicals in truest sense. With Mitti though, Chopra is trying to recreate the atmosphere of the Raj in 1850.
“While Mahabharata will be a Rs 100-crore budget, over Rs 40 crore will be spent on Mitti,” says Chopra, revealing mega plans. But just having a huge budget will not ensure a great period film. “To interpret history, the filmmaker should have right sensibilities and do extensive research,” he adds.
About the MAMI festival getting such films, managing trustee Govind Swaroop says: “The selection of movies is not based on their subject, but on the quality of the films. Probably only 10 per cent of the festival entries are based on wars or past events.” Then he quickly admits that many sensitive films use a war as their backdrop. Case in point: Merry Christmas, The Wind that Shakes the Barley and Sophie Scholl — The Final Days, all of which were screened by the MAMI.
Swaroop says there are two kinds of historicals — those with a purpose like Steven Spielberg’s Schindlers’ List, and those for cinematic grandeur like Curse of the Golden Flower. “Making of such films is natural, the past always has a relationship with present.”
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