Bhawana Somaaya

It is that time of the year when Enlighten Film Society brings special festivals to the members and film buffs. This month’s festival focuses on biographies of great directors, who made moviemaking possible. Five masterpieces in their own right include Nine, The Aviator, Harishchandrachi Factory, Chaplin and Jaquot De Nantes.

Nine is a musical romantic film by Rob Marshall based on Federico Fellini’s semi-autobiographical film 8½. In a way, the film is a reinterpretation of Fellini’s inner world drawing from the original 1963 masterpiece. The film is unapologetically brash and erotic depicting the Italian director’s fantasies.

The Aviator is a great example of one mastermind paying tribute to another. Here the greatest living director Martin Scorsese depicts the life of an industrialist, philanthropist and above all a great director Howard Hughes. Both actor Leonardo Di Caprio and
director Martin Scorsese are at their peak creating a spectacular film about a great artiste unable to deal with his demons. The film was nominated for 11 Academy
Awards.

Harishchandrachi Factory is a gem of a film by Paresh Mokashi depicting the life of Dadasaheb Phalke father of Indian cinema. Unlike most biopic that tends to become verbose this one is an amusing look at one man’s passion which finally resulted in
the world’s largest film industry. Highly acclaimed by critics, it was also India’s entry to Oscars.

Richard Attenborough who made Gandhi in 1982 directed Charlie Chaplin in 1992 film. Robert Downey Jr. gave the performance of a lifetime in enacting the life of most famous tramp on this planet. An endearing homage and a film to cherish, it’s all about Attenborough’s tribute to a great legend.

Jaquot De Nantes is a documentary on French director Jacques Demy by the director’s wife Agnès Varda. A loving account of Demy’s childhood and his lifelong love of theatre and cinema, the film dissolve the ideal and the real in a magical creation.

When I was growing up many summers ago, my school friends and I only read Enid Blyton books. We were familiar with every character in her novel and in the summer holidays played detective games unraveling stories of residents in the building. Those days she was the only writer of children books and we impatiently waited for her new edition. My older siblings’ well versed with authors introduced us first to the Secret seven series, then Famous Five and finally Five Find outers. My favourite character in the last series was the brave and spunky Georgina who the boys in the gang referred to as George.

The publisher of Enid Blyton after all these years is revisiting the series. Hodder is “sensitively and carefully” revising Blyton’s stories after researching with children and parents. Hodder will publish 10 contemporary Famous Five books starting with Five on a Treasure Island, originally published in 1942. Tony Summerfield, who runs the Enid Blyton Society opposes the changes in the author’s work and believes we must not underestimate the intelligence of children.

I agree with Tony. Enid Blyton has been an inspiration for a generation of children like me and it is undermining her talent to be edited or altered when other authors from the same era are still appealing to the readers. It makes me wonder that perhaps these things would never happen in India. Can you ever imagine somebody tweaking the works of Sarat Chandra or Premchand Munshi? It would be blasphemy. I read some where that playwright Mujeeb Khan has been adapting a Premchand story into a play every week for five years now. Actors at his Ideal Drama and Entertainment Academy (IDEA) spend five days rehearsing the play, perform it on the sixth day and move to the next story at the end of the week. Maybe somebody ought to do that with Enid Blyton stories as well. May be Shailey Sathyu champion of children theatre can conceptualize a production and prove that sometimes, young is golden too.

Before I sign off I have to share an extremely polite mail from a young filmmaker whose name I forget. He says that while animation is still in a nascent stage in India, and so far never been a success at the box office, new directors like him venture into it whole heartedly. He says Lava Kusa is not only India’s most expensive animated film costing 20 CR but will be the biggest release-more than 200 screens across India. It is the first time live music instruments are used for the background score in Indian animation films and the sound recording done at AR Rehman’s studio, Chennai.

It seems like it is going to be a year of animation films. Ketan Mehta’s dazzling Ramayana worked at Maya Animation Films, Abhimanyu Singh’s Warrior based on the life of Arjuna and Iskcon’s ambitious project Krishna worked at Anil Ambani Animation films.

Bhawana Somaaya
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