Tagore film recalls glory that was Bengal

Karl Bardosh, an associate arts professor at New York University, can be very proud of his 3D film on Rabindranath Tagore, Natir Puja (The Court Dancer ), which premiered at the Arcade Cinema in Cannes last week.

This is certainly the first time I have had the surreal experience of seeing normal Calcutta street scenes, such as a tram plying or the spinning wheels of a cycle rickshaw, in 3D.

The director of photography is the distinguished cinematographer Leonard Retel Helmrich, who is known for perfecting the "single camera shot" filming style ("you can move inside an event and go with your camera to the right spot, at the right moment... trying to think of the world as a kind of clockwork").

The 92-minute film has been written and directed by Bardosh, who has sought to recreate the only movie that Tagore made in 1932 and which was subsequently lost in a studio fire.

Bardosh, who is of Hungarian origin, has made his film by way of a tribute to Tagore who arrived in Budapest for his first trip on October 26, 1926, and was rushed to hospital with a "heart murmur".

As an expression of his gratitude for the loving care that was lavished on him, Tagore planted a tree outside the hospital. The tree, under which there now stands a statue of Tagore, has become a symbol of warm Hungary-India relations.

Tagore's film, made at the invitation of a producer, B.N. Sircar, was based on a dance drama he had written in 1926 and staged at the Jorasanko Thakurbari in 1927.

It was shot in only four days in New Theatres studio's floor number 1. This is precisely where Bardosh also shot his film, using Sutapa Awon Pradhan as his principal dancer and choreographer, and Jayati Chakraborty, "a great star of Rabindra Sangeet", as playback singer.

And original music to Tagore's own voice singing has been written by Satya Hinduja, whose uncle, Prakash Hinduja, a great supporter of Bardosh's project, was in the audience.

Bardosh was remarkably eloquent when he introduced his film, which I am confident will be well received across the Indian diaspora and beyond.

"Tagore's message of religious tolerance, based on a Buddhist tale from 2,400 years ago, is as relevant today as when he made his film in 1932," Bardosh pointed out.

Guruspeak

Although Anurag Kashyap is only 43, he is already a guru, a filmmaker who appears to have cracked Cannes. Many find his films contain excessive amounts of violence - Raman Raghav 2.0 about a serial killer (Nawazuddin Siddiqui) is no exception - but he is a darling of the festival authorities at Cannes.

It was fascinating listening to him at a panel discussion at the India Pavilion, where he urged aspiring filmmakers: "Just get hold of a camera and keep on making films - you will learn from your mistakes. And if you have got into Cannes with a short film, put that behind you. Otherwise you can sink under its weight. Just use it to get meetings."

Raman Raghav 2.0, shown in the Directors' Fortnight section, got mixed reviews.

Jacques Morice of the French website Télérama's, called it "an irresistible, tense film crafted with expertise".

But the critics of the three major Cannes publications - The Hollywood Reporter, Variety and Screen Daily - were less enthusiastic. However, the fact that they reviewed his film indicates he is considered one of the big guns, possibly the biggest, from India.

Meanwhile, back at the India Pavilion, Anurag explained what success had meant to him. "The producers and distributors now come to India to watch my films - I don't have to go to them. I have already recovered the budget on Raman Raghav which will help me to make my next film. I intend to make one film a year."

The virgin

Some journalists have been coming to Cannes for 25 years - or even longer. But a first timer, such as Calcutta boy Abhiroop Basu, 22, is called a "Cannes virgin".

He has done very well to get into the short film corner with his 11-minute Afternoon with Julia. It imagines a conversation between two movie lovers, with several references to French films, among them François Truffaut's Jules et Jim; Albert Lamorisse's fantasy, The Red Balloon ; Jean Renoir's La Grande Illusion; and Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris .

Abhiroop's ambition to network got off to a great start as he bumped into Joel Egerton, the Australia-born Hollywood actor, and Pamela Anderson, of Baywatch fame, within minutes of landing at Nice airport.

"I didn't know the sky could be so blue," he marvelled. "In Calcutta there is so much pollution that you never see a sky as blue as this. It's the sort of blue we read about in Shakespeare or Wordsworth."

On his way back home, Abhiroop is spending two days in Paris, the spiritual home of real cinema lovers - "there is a huge connection between Calcutta and Paris".

The veteran

One person I am always delighted to see in the India Pavilion is Derek Malcolm, who knows more about Cannes than probably any other journalist. Now 84, Derek, long-time film critic of The Guardian and subsequently the London Evening Standard, was the one who played a major role in promoting Satyajit Ray in the UK in the 1960s.

His own life story, about a father who shot dead his wife's lover but then walked free and later turned out to be not Derek's biological father, would make a great Hollywood/Bollywood movie - except that the script would be turned down as being too fanciful.

Bolly lies

Perhaps Rima Das will be encouraged by the example of Jodie Foster, the actress-turned-director who has been in Cannes this year with Money Monster, one of the highlights of the festival.

Rima comes from Chaygaon, a small town on the south bank of the Brahmaputra river in Assam. Hoping to further her acting career, she made the journey to Bollywood where she heard a lie told repeatedly: "Everybody can be like Priyanka Chopra."

In time she was told the truth: "We prefer the fair-complexioned look, not girls like you from the Northeast."

Rima, now 36, has risen above such racism and come to the Cannes market with an imaginative feature-length movie, Antardrishti, about an elderly man whose life is transformed when he is gifted a pair of binoculars.

The curious thing is that Rima's kind of look would be much in demand in Britain in preference to glossed up Bollywood features (Aishwarya excepted) - unless the girl can act (which many cannot).

Tittle tattle

Those who attended Cannes 2016 will remember the festival for all sorts of things. Due to the security precautions, journalists going in for the screenings were relieved of water bottles and all food items, including sandwiches and even biscuits.

One American journalist could not believe it when the security girl calmly removed a bar of delicious French chocolate from his bag.

"Really!" he hissed.

I would love to know what happened to that bar of chocolate.

What I do know is that the authorities will be very relieved if Cannes ends today without incident.