From a first glance in the spectacular-looking
trailers, Ang Lee’s latest offering, the much awaited ‘Life Of Pi’ looks like a film more in the domain of Steven
Spielberg and Peter Jackson. The entire film is focused on the travails of a
young Indian boy caught in a raft with a splendid Bengal tiger. Sure, the tiger’s roars, lunges and snarls look real
enough. But it surely looks too splendid to be real- which means that we are in
for some stunning CGI work. It helps that the film will be rendered with the
third dimension as well. The goliaths so far like Martin Scorsese, Ridley
Scott, Spielberg, Jackson and James Cameron can take a bow for Lee in his
first-ever 3D venture.
But a closer look at the scenes and a superficial
look at the story reveals something else. The cast of ‘Life Of Pi’ stars Irrfan Khan, Tabu and a young Indian boy by the
name of Suraj Sharma, on whom most
of the action centers. Then, isn’t it about a man narrating his tumultuous and
perilous adventures of the youth? Ring any bells? In an uncanny way, this sounds
more like a retread of Danny Boyle’s much-acclaimed and awarded ‘Slumdog Millionaire’.
Sure, the two films differ in tone and context.
Boyle’s film was a seriously messed-up fairytale fashioned with gritty visuals
of the dirty and dingy world of Mumbai’s slums and bylanes and set to a killer
score by AR. Rahman. Lee’s film comes off more like a fairytale in the
conventional sense. The 3D element itself suggests that we are in for some
thrilling and stunning set-pieces with the animals involved in the film and
that beautiful tiger will be worth-watching. But it is hard to say whether this
would actually make sense. ‘Life Of Pi’
essentially looks nothing less than a Spielberg production. Lee’s real touches
would possibly lie in how he builds the relationships between his characters,
both human and animal.
But there is a definite similarity. Both the films
are about characters, who have spent their youth and childhood in adventures
that normal people would not believe in. Both the films are about such people
narrating their stories to incredulous and unbelieving people and audiences. At
heart, both films serve as a pompous celebration of the ordinary person. Which
obviously means that like Boyle, Lee will be displaying some emotionally
manipulative filmmaking, while not cutting for realism unlike Boyle.
Credit would obviously go to the writers of the
stories of both films. On one hand, Yann Martel’s elegant, clever and heartfelt
prose would accompany Lee’s grandiose visuals. On the other hand, there is
noted diplomat Vikas Swarup painting a picture of India lying at the bottom of
the heap yet showering it with a fanatical Indo-nostalgic approach, showing us
a ringside of crime, films and more. This could alone mean that Lee’s wondrous
approach will be more fulfilling than Boyle’s hackneyed though impressively
grimy treatment of the convoluted and clichéd material.
But the similarity would extend beyond that. Both
films are a part of the film-making scene centering on India as a background
for exotic and real stories. There have been notable films in the past which
have centered on India but some of them have landed up in controversy. 1982’s
‘Gandhi’ and 1984’s ‘A Passage To India’ were primarily British films set in the era of the British colonialism in the
country. The former won a lot of praise and acclaim, while the latter was
warmly received by those who had pored over the eponymous E.M Forster novel.
And likes of John Huston and the Merchant-Ivory pair made films based on famous
English novels as well.
But there have been some outrageous exceptions. In
1983, the Bond film ‘Octopussy’ was shot largely in India but as critics and
Indians opined the film is ridden with stereotypes normally associated with
India- superstitions, snakes, thugs, Indian princes, elephants and palaces. In
1984, Steven Spielberg gave us the hilarious actioner ‘The Temple Of Doom’,
also with India as the backdrop but the director was forced to shift places.
The government bureaucrats refused to permit Steve as they found the script
full of clichés and ’offensive’ references to Indian culture and cuisine- for
instance, Indian princes feasting on snakes, monkey heads and bugs as well.
Such criticisms do not matter as long the film is
pure fantasy- as in both the cases. But when a film set in the real world, for
instance the rundown slums and ghettoes of Mumbai ends up being flawed and
stereotyped in its approach, hackles can be raised. This was what happened to
Boyle’s ‘Slumdog Millionaire’.
Personalities like Amitabh Bachchan, Salman Rushdie and others openly pointed
out the flaws which clearly indicate that foreign filmmakers seldom do their
homework when it comes to India. And this hurts when Boyle guns for so much
realism in his portrayal of India.
Lee himself had declared that he considers it wrong
for foreign filmmakers to miss out the realism in their films about exotic lands
like India. But Lee shares the similarity with some of the recent talent in
Hollywood. Like Boyle, Christopher Nolan, Sam Mendes and Mexican filmmakers like Guillermo Del Toro and Alfonso Cuaron, Lee is one of the crossovers from foreign nations
like UK, Mexico and Taiwan. Like them, Lee had divided his priorities between
films of his own country and films exploring the American scenario. But what
would Lee do with India? Given that the film would be fantasy, people should
not mind if they do find some stereotypes. But don’t we want foreign filmmakers
to avoid clichés and portray as the same way they do to other countries?
No comments:
Post a Comment