Growing up in the 90s in Vadodara, filmmaker Hardik Mehta, an ardent admirer of Hindi films, was most fascinated by “side actors” like Dan Dhanoa, Tej Sapru and Dalip Tahil, who formed a firewall around “main villains” like Amrish Puri. Years later, as an assistant director in Mumbai, Mehta was intrigued to see those now-familiar faces on sets, still playing second fiddle to the heroes. “They were always there on the posters of big action films but eventually our cinema changed and those faces were wiped out and only the hero became the poster,” says the 34-year-old filmmaker.
In his feature directorial debut, Kaamyaab , Mehta wanted to chronicle the story of one such character actor, who suddenly realises he is one film short of his 500th, and emerges from retirement to chase it. “I wanted to make a film about a guy who was always part of quantity but never quality,” says Mehta.
A still from ‘Kaamyaab’.
Indian presence
Featuring Sanjay Mishra and Deepak Dobriyal, Kaamyaab is one of five Indian films premiering at the 23rd Busan International Film Festival (BIFF, October 4-13) in The Window on Asian Cinema section. The other four are Devashish Makhija’s Bhonsle , Praveen Morchhale’s Widow of Silence , Sanjoy Nag’s Yours Truly and Dar Gai’s Indo-Ukraine production, Namdev Bhau: In Search of Silence .
Rima Das’s Bulbul Can Sing and Rahi Anil Barve’s Tumbbad , too, will have their Asian premieres, alongside the Korean premieres of Rajkumar Hirani’s Sanju and Nandita Das’ Manto.
Calling it a ‘light-hearted slice-of-life’ film, Mehta is pleasantly surprised that Kaamyaab is doing the rounds of the prestigious South Korean festival. “Last year, [the films] at Busan were very different in their art and aesthetics. Our film is more mainstream because the idea itself is the memory of mainstream,” he says.
But for Makhija, it doesn’t come as a big surprise that Bhonsle , much like his previous outing Ajji , has appealed to Korean sensibilities. The filmmaker has been influenced by Korean films from the late 90s to the late 2000s. “They don’t hold back dark emotions. If someone is feeling angry, they will amp it up and exhibit it,” he says. Makhija wants to push Indian films to similar extremes and exhibit the same emotions.
An outsider’s life
Bhonsle is about a lonely, retired Maharashtrian police constable, played by Manoj Bajpayee, who gets pulled into the political tussle between Marathi-speakers and North Indian immigrants when he grows increasingly fond of his neighbour, a Bihari woman. The film explores various facets of being an outsider, whether caste, class, region or language.
Bhonsle, along with Morchhale’s Widow of Silence , is among the nine films nominated for the Kim Jiseok Award at the festival.
Morchhale’s film chronicles a ‘half-widow’s’ struggle for the death certificate of her husband who disappeared seven years ago. It focuses on the tribulations of her family, which includes her daughter and mother-in-law, without addressing the political conflict in the Valley.
“I’m not commenting on who is right or wrong or why the situation occurred,” says the 49-year-old filmmaker. “Anywhere in the world, where there’s conflict, women and children suffer the most, because they have no control or say in what is happening around them.”
A still from ‘Widow of Silence’.
In search of love
It’s a different kind of struggle for the female protagonist in Nag’s Yours Truly . Shot in Kolkata, the film is an adaptation of a short story, ‘ The One That was Announced’, by Annie Zaidi.
A lonely middle-aged woman, Mithi (played by Soni Razdan), hears a man’s voice during her train commute. He may be a figment of her imagination but he soon becomes her confidant. “It’s a love story, a story of longing, looking for love, trying to validate love,” says Nag, whose debut feature, Memories in March (2010), competed in the festival’s New Currents section.
Finding a friend
While Nag’s protagonist looks for comfort in company, Gai’s leading man in Namdev Bhau , an exasperated Mumbai driver, wants to lead a solitary life. On his journey to a “silent valley”, he meets a chatty young boy who presents a new perspective on life.
A still from ‘Namdev Bhau’.
Gai, a Ukrainian filmmaker based in India, wrote the script keeping in mind her producer Dheer Momaya’s 65-year-old driver, Namdev Gurav, a man with “a charismatic personality and a dark sense of humour.” She insisted on casting him in the lead role and enrolled him in a month-long acting workshop. “I was fascinated by the idea of casting someone who has experienced what I am writing about in real life,” she says. Namdev Bhau will head to the BFI’s London Film Festival for its U.K. premiere next.
All five films are aiming for commercial release, in cinemas or online, after the festival circuit.
Busan gives you visibility, which indirectly translates to sales,” says Nag. But Makhija cautions: “If you’ve not made a great enough film, and get a bunch of bad reviews at festivals, then you aren’t going to do your films much service.”
As prestigious as a Busan première might be, festival rounds, at the end of the day, can be a doubt-edged sword.
kennith.rosario@thehindu.co.in
