Looop Lapeta comes 24 years after the German thriller
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Fortunately, Bhasin, 34, remembered the original’s style and cutting-edge music from his college days and was excited to see it adapted for a contemporary Indian audience. Pannu, also 34, was especially delighted when he accepted the role as she had anticipated “tricky” casting with the actor having to set aside his ego to work in a film with a woman protagonist. This, however, was not Bhasin’s first time in a woman-centred film; his Bollywood breakthrough came as the antagonist opposite Rani Mukherjee in the thriller
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Bhatia: doing it his way
This is Bhatia’s first feature film, but he has directed several episodes of the Prime series
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The lookbook
- There was pressure on the team to design a unique look for Savi, given Lola’s iconic appearance. But in 2022, not only was Lola’s look dated, Pannu had sported red hair in Manmarziyan . Bhatia and National Award-winning costume designer Indrakshi Pattanaik therefore didn’t have it easy – especially since 90% of the film sees the characters in the same outfits. Pannu laughs that she is repeatedly in films where she is stuck in the same outfit throughout. She admits she wanted to burn her clothes by the end of the shoot of Game Over, but adds, “My vanity doesn’t matter. I have to do stuff beyond it, so be it”.
- As for Bhasin’s Satya, his nose-pin doesn’t just signify Satya’s bohemian approach to life but is also a gender-bending accessory, and a reflection of his non-judgemental attitude.
“You aren’t competing with a film of that level. You are trying to give it an homage, and you should do it in an honest way while being honest to yourself, and all the people who are involved, by making it as a fresh film,” shares Bhatia.
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Game for anything
As they recall scenes from the film, Pannu brings up an intimate sequence where she and Bhasin were lying on a log and elevated mid-air by a crane in an open-air studio with multiple crews watching. “We knew, from that day, that we are going to do things we had never imagined or were prepared for,” she says. “It’s just going to be thrown at us. After that, nothing about the intimacy felt weird, not even the camera, which was so close that I could hit my head on it.” She jokes about how the most awkward person on set was cinematographer Yash Khanna who was constantly up-close with the couple and in heated scenes between Savi and her father.
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Looop is a fast-paced, kinetic, exaggerated film, and playful in its craft. But for Pannu, Bhasin, and Bhatia, creating the intimate scenes shot over three days in a bungalow was the most beautiful part of the process. Compared to the original, Bhatia wanted viewers to become more invested in the couple’s “modern” relationship, which is at the film’s heart.
The intimate scenes contrast the rest of the film, allowing them the space to showcase their vision of a relationship of equals. For Bhasin, these moments helped slow down the film’s frantic rhythm, and gave the actors respite from the shoot’s constant physical demands.
Savi is an ex-athlete, so the multiple hours of running every day left Pannu fatigued. Luckily, she was training to play a sprinter in Rashmi Rocket . Bhasin adds that for him, holding on to Satya’s anxious, hyperactive persona through the day, for days on end, was taxing. That said, today, every new project for him feels like a pivotal moment from Looop . “You are at a crossroad, and anything can happen.”
Looop Lapeta streams on Netflix starting February 4.