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Contemporary, yet historical
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A period film about urgent current issues is being shot in Hampi. GOWRI RAMNARAYAN tries to find out something more about "Anaahat" on the sets.
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Enthused abouth their roles...: Sonali Bendre and Anant Nag
"An incredible dream!" said the Italian tourist who visited Hampi in February 2003. "From the top of the Malyavanta hill, I saw the magnificent ruins of a vast empire stretching before me. I came down and, in a pillared hall within the temple, the emperor stood in regal splendour — a queenly woman beside him — caught in a moment of deep crisis. For a split second I wondered if I had entered time past... The rolling camera and the shooting crew brought me down to the present!"
It is difficult not to get temporally disoriented in Hampi. Huge courtyards, colonnaded marketplaces, domed stables, palace remnants, and darksome, bat-haunted temple halls echo with the history of wealth and glory coming to a savage, iconoclastic end in Talikota 1565, when the Bahmani Sultans decimated the Vijayanagara empire. To stumble upon a period film shoot in such an exotic setting can be an awesome experience. And you can hardly recognise Anant Nag, Deepti Naval and Sonali Bendre in swishing silks and gleaming gold, making their first film in Marathi, directed by Amol Palekar.
For seasoned Naval, this is another opportunity to stretch herself. For Nag, who has worked in 175 commercial ventures in his career (in order to be able to accept the 25 good ones!), "Anaahat" is "very profound, multi-shaded, trickily nuanced, a real challenge..." He adds with a hearty laugh, "Not many men would like to play this role!" Why? Nag will reveal nothing.
Trailing flops from masala films, Bendre hopes that "Anaahat" will help her (and the industry) discover her potential as an actress, perhaps change her image. "I will be proud of having done this film."
The story remains a secret. The press release merely informs you that the film is a "stylised presentation set in the epic tradition with a period ambience". The director adds that it deals with urgent contemporary issues. Ask him to be more specific and he will choose his words in habitual unhurriedness, "All the dilemmas, self doubts, the struggles and the search of a responsible citizen." He adds with a kind smile, "Isn't it fascinating to do a period film dealing with contemporary issues?" All of which leaves us exactly where we were.
Deepti Naval and Sonali Bendre
You try another track. Recalling Palekar's TV serial "Mriganayani" which used the fort and the music of the Gwalior region, you say that "Anaahat" seems more rigorous in confining itself to the rudra vina (Bahauddin Dagar), voice (Uday Bharalkar) and pakhawaj (Manik Munde) to render the ancient dhrupad style of music. "I don't want to talk about that because music is not a tag on, it is contained in the script, as articulate as the script itself," says Palekar. Palekar gets animated over the location. "Hampi offers tremendous variety, with the pre-Islamic architecture essential for my story. The balance is right, a splendour that is not too decorative." The initial exploratory visit not only inspired, but helped Gokhale and Sameer Kulkarni fine-tune their script. Palekar obtained special permission from the Archaelogical Survey of India to shoot in the interiors of the shrines, by day and by night.
The entire film unit has stayed together in Hampi through the month, sharing comforts and discomforts, enjoying impromptu get-togethers with Anant Nag singing Purandaradasa bhajans. Debu Deodhar (camera) always gives that "extra" something to a Palekar film, while Nitin Desai (art direction) says he will be there whenever Palekar wants him, and Jayoo Patwardhan has done the tasteful costumes.
Was their longstanding friendship a reason for casting Anant Nag instead of a Mumbai actor? "Show me one actor who is as good, fit and handsome as Anant even at this age," the actor-turned-film maker challenges you. "I don't think of language but of the actor's capacity and personality in casting. Nor will you be able to tell the professional actor from the non-professional in any of my films whether `Dhyas Parva' or `Bangarwadi'. I think it is wonderful for Marathi cinema to have stars like Anant Nag and Deepti Naval." No, Sonali Bendre was not chosen for her glamour. She did have the sensuousness required for the role, but more important was the "vulnerability that she has retained in spite of all the stupid roles she has done so far. Sonali has given a tremendous performance. It will be tough for others now, they will have to see her in a wholly different light after this," he chuckles.
The 90-minute film slated for a July release, has taken over a year to complete. The budget? "Mira Nair once said that she made her films on peanuts. My film has been made in one-tenth of her peanuts. I am proud of having achieved the grandeur you will see on less than peanuts."
Actor-turned-filmmaker Amol Palekar directing the two stars.
Many of Palekar's nine films have bagged state, national and international honours. But he still has people asking why he makes a different kind of cinema.
"With 90 per cent of the formula films crashing at the box office don't I stand a better chance with non-formula films?" he asks. He doesn't have to be apologetic about the technical quality of his films either; meticulous planning has achieved fine results on low budgets.
"People are fed up with seeing the same kind of film. There was a time when an Amitabh Bachchan-Manmohan Desai film and an Amol Palekar-Hrishikesh Mukherji film ran to packed houses at the same time, and a Dara Singh too found his followers. Now it looks as if people are going to get that kind of choice again. After all, variety is the greatest strength of Indian cinema."
Finally Palekar has something to say about an objection you raised the day before — a Marathi film set in a period when that language hadn't come into full-fledged existence...? "I found out that Marathi's origins go far beyond the 10th century. Anyway, the issue is not about language, but about life and its eternal struggles."
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