If getting to direct actors of the likes of Jim Broadbent and Charlotte Rampling wasn’t enough, >Ritesh Batra is now soaking up the fact that his second feature film, The Sense of an Ending , has already sold its worldwide rights even as he is busy with editing and post-production work on it in London. CBS Films picked up the U.S. distribution rights while FilmNation Entertainment recently completed international sales for it at Berlin’s European Film Market.
From the excitement that is already surrounding the film, it would seem that Batra could well be sitting pretty on a future international success story, but he prefers to play it down for now. “The fact that it has been sold everywhere means it will be watched all around, which is great for everyone involved with the film,” he tells The Hindu from London. It’s sweeter news that PVR Pictures has picked it up for India. “I am doubly pleased that people back home will also see it,” says Batra.
There is a lot that is on top of his mind right now. “The film is a huge undertaking for me and I am more focussed on getting through work each day,” he says. The film has production companies such as Origin Pictures, FilmNation, BBC Films and LipSync behind it. Adapted by award-winning playwright Nick Payne from Julian Barnes’ 2011 Booker prize-winning novel, The Sense of an Ending stars Broadbent as Tony Webster, the recluse who is forced to revisit his past only to find things turning murky.
Journey abroad
Batra does not know how this prestigious project came his way. He had loved the Barnes novel and knew that a script by Payne was in progress. Then one fine day he got a call and negotiations began leading up to an offer to direct it. That was in early 2015. He moved to London in May last year to begin preparation; shooting began in September.
Though there are many directors of Indian descent working abroad, Batra’s journey into international filmmaking is similar to Shekhar Kapur’s. Riding on the international acclaim for the Bandit Queen , Kapur was roped in to direct Elizabeth and, later, The Four Feathers and Elizabeth: The Golden Age . For Batra too, it was the global success of his debut film The Lunchbox that opened the doors to The Sense of an Ending . The critically acclaimed hit, starring Irrfan Khan and Nimrat Kaur, was nominated at the BAFTA, won the Viewers’ Choice Award at the 2014 Cannes Festival, and was one of the highest earning foreign films in the U.S. in 2014.
Apparently, The Lunchbox touch is visible in The Sense of an Ending too. “It’s not conscious, but the mise-en-scene, how I compose on screen, could be similar. My editor for both the films, John F. Lyons, pointed out how a scene in The Sense of an Ending reminded him of a shot of Irrfan and Nawaz framed between cabinets in >The Lunchbox . It’s the same person but directing two very different movies,” says Batra of himself.
Both films have themes that interest Batra: the bittersweet stories of older people. The Lunchbox was a seemingly simple but profound story of urban loneliness; a film that made you smile through its sadness. The Sense of an Ending is likely to have a similar emotional appeal. It is said that the screening of a promo of the film struck a strong emotional chord with buyers in Berlin, the reason why the rights were grabbed so fast. “After the wonder that was The Lunchbox , Ritesh has made an exceptional film that is truly touching,” says Tara Erer, FilmNation’s vice president, International Sales.
But the emotional connect aside, it must have been very different directing Broadbent from an Irrfan or Nawaz and Rampling from a Nimrat? Not quite, he says, as actors are similar everywhere and as involved with their work. “It was a privilege working with them,” he says.
Challenges It wasn’t directing a foreign film or working with talent like Broadbent or Rampling that was a challenge for Batra; it was directing someone else’s script, a first for him. He had, till then, worked on his own scripts. “It’s much harder than working on your own original script. It’s a unique experience separating the writer in you from the director,” he says. There was also a huge responsibility involved in adapting a great novel to screen, dealing with someone else’s characters. “How far can you move away yet retain the essence of the novel? It requires a lot of work,” he says. Barnes himself came to the shoot for a couple of days to see what was being done on the sets. It helped then that someone of the calibre of Payne did the script. “He is very gifted, always correct. We have worked on the film in close collaboration. We still talk everyday about it,” says Batra.
Now that the work is almost done, what lies ahead? Will he also be claimed by the West like Ang Lee was? Or will he continue to keep one foot in India like >Shekhar Kapur ? Batra feels these are lofty comparisons. “I take it as a compliment but an unfair one. I am barely finding my way in the West,” he says. Will it mean no more films in India? Pat comes the reply: No. In fact, he is planning his next in India. “I want to keep going in and out. It’s not the language but the story and what I bring to it which has been and will always be of importance to me,” he says.
He also firmly believes that it is only a matter of time before Indian stories with Indian actors also travel around the world as much as English-language cinema does.
He continues to remain rooted in Mumbai; he can’t imagine living anywhere else even in India let alone in the world. What he looks forward to the most at the moment is to return home and spend time with his family.
namrata.joshi@thehindu.co.in
