If "O' Romeo" allowed him to channel his personal angst through its hero, he will return to his poetic style of storytelling in "Lust Stories 3", says filmmaker Vishal Bhardwaj.
The 60-year-old acclaimed director, best known for films like “Maqbool”, “Omkara”, “Kaminey”, and “Haider” among others, said it was a conscious decision to transform his inner turmoil in Shahid Kapoor-starrer, “O’Romeo”.
“I’ve tried to add personal angst in it (‘O’Romeo’) for instance the people you can’t kill in real-life, so how and where do you express angst, we can’t say or do anything, so I thought of expressing my angst in cinema. ‘O’ Romeo’ gave me (the opportunity) to explore my personal angst,” Bhardwaj told PTI in an interview.
“O’ Romeo” is a fictional take on the real-life story of gangsters Sapna Didi and Hussain Ustara and inspired by a chapter of Hussain Zaidi’s “Mafia Queens of Mumbai”.
The action thriller, featuring Shahid Kapoor and Triptii Dimri, received mixed response from critics and audiences. Produced by Sajid Nadiadwala, the film released on February 13, has minted over 100 crore worldwide.
With “Lust Stories 3”, Bhardwaj said, “I’ve tried to do something new and make it as poetic as possible.” The third chapter of Netflix's popular anthology movie “Lust Stories 3” will have four stories with directors Bhardwaj, Vikramaditya Motwane, Kiran Rao and Shakun Batra exploring relationships and intimacy with their respective creative lens.
Bhardwaj was talking on the sidelines of the book launch event of Zaidi’s new book, “Mafia Queens of India”.
The filmmaker said that the portrayal of violence has always been embedded in storytelling and that it isn’t a trend or a recent shift.
“There is toxicity and hyper masculinity in society and that’s what is reflected in our films. In our country, from the time of Mahabharat, if you read it carefully in detail, you will see there’s so much gory violence, so it (violence) has come from there, it’s there in our genes. I don’t think this is a new thing (that we are showing),” he said.
Speaking of Aditya Dhar’s “Dhurandhar”, Bhardwaj said he genuinely enjoyed the first part of the film but he has some reservations about watching its sequel, which was released on March 19.
“I’ve watched the first part of ‘Dhurandhar’ and I liked it very much. I haven’t seen the second one but I have heard so much that I am afraid to even look at it,” the filmmaker said, without divulging the reason in detail.
“Dhurandhar” franchise, which has amassed over Rs. 3,000 crores, has been praised for its world building, technical brilliance, music and performances by the actors while some have criticised the gory violence and political propaganda.
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