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| Barbara Mori |
What is the status of your film Kites?
The shooting is over. I am into post-production and hope to finish by May. I am not sure about the release date. Maybe Diwali... it’s up to Mr Rakesh Roshan and Reliance to decide.
Are you having to dub the film as well?
The film does not depend on language. There will be a lot of Spanish and a lot of Hindi which will remain in the English version as well. It will be subtitled. It is a love story which if you see the film you will know ties up well with the flying of kites. It is about an Indian boy called Jay who lives in Las Vegas. He falls in love with a Mexican girl who doesn’t know either Hindi or English.
But the firang leading ladies who acted in Lagaan and Rang De Basanti in recent times have all spoken accented Hindi...
Yes, but this girl doesn’t even try to. She speaks a bit of broken English. That is natural.
How did you land a bombshell like Barbara Mori?
I had wanted a Spanish-speaking heroine.
The buzz is you had approached Penelope Cruz as well...
Ogulo bajarer-i khobor. In Hollywood it is easy to find out who is free when. Penelope’s dates are booked till end-2009. We had three names who would be free during our shooting time. Caterina Morino, Paz Vega and Barbara Mori. I had seen Barbara in My Brother’s Wife and wanted to sign her. I had thought she would be hard to get. But she agreed soon.
What was the biggest moment of the shoot?
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| Anurag Basu |
We shot the film in Mexico, Las Vegas and Los Angeles. In Las Vegas, a group of people walked in asking us to clear the make-up room. We had no idea what it was about. Those were actually Michael Jackson’s bodyguards. He had come over to see the place where we were shooting and heard about an Indian movie being shot here. Hrithik was the most excited among us all. They had a chat in his make-up room and we all posed for pictures with him.
One hears that there are some steamy scenes of Hrithik with Barbara in the film?
People would be disappointed if they go in expecting that. Baba film-er producer, chheler scene koto aar steamy korbo? (When the father is the producer of the film, how steamy can I make his son’s scenes?) It is not a story of lust. Maybe it is because of my Gangster image that people expect this from me.
The UTV World Movies channel is showing some films you have selected through the Fridays this month. What have you chosen and why?
Next Friday, you will see Paradise Now. The story could have been taken to be set anywhere if one did not hear the sound of bombing and rocket launchers in the background. I remember reading that the line producer was kidnapped and a blast happened 100m away from the shooting spot. Yet they carried on. Hats off to the unit. I could not have done the film in such circumstances. I have also picked Takeshi Kitano’s Kikujiro. I had the choice between two of (Krzysztof) Kieslowski’s films — A Short Film About Love and his Colours Trilogy. I chose the former because this had a greater impact on me. This film is on the last 36 hours of a suicide bomber. This was meant for a TV series. But he later converted it into a film and it is the sixth episode in his Decalogue. As I also started out in TV and moved on to films I wanted to see how he had made the transformation back. Kieslowski takes an emotion and takes it by the horn. That is the kind of love story I also like to make. I am inspired a lot by him.
And the last film?
It’s called Lights in the Dusk (Aki Kaurismäki). I like this Finnish director’s work as his heroes are always losers. They never win in the end. It may disappoint the viewer but that’s the way it is in real life. Here the hero is a security guard who gets framed.
