'Yeh hai apna Hollywood'
Suparn Verma
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Such a Long Journey director Sturla Gunnarsson with Shahzneen. Click for bigger pic!
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Yeh hai apna Hollywood," says a UTV production hand, pointing to Studio No 1 at Film City, where Rohinton Mistry's critically acclaimed book Such A Long Journey is being filmed by Emmy award-winning director Sturla Gunnarsson.
Such A Long Journey is the story of Dr Gustad Noble, a middle class Parsi, whose life
takes a turn for the worse until he finally finds the courage to face his problems.
The director has his first rehearsal at a set depicting the Noble family's dining room. The elaborate sets erected by production designer Vikas Desai, are full of details from a Parsi household. The scene is the celebration of Gustad's son getting admission to IIT.
Gustad has just returned after a buying a live chicken. His wife is against plucking the chicken while his daughter, who wants to make it her pet, is heartbroken that it is to be slaughtered. Finally, when they all meet at the dinner table the power fails, plunging them into darkness.
Sturla's AD clears the sets of all unwanted personae and yodels out loud, "Silence on the sets", a line that keeps echoing in every every walkie talkie in the vicinity.
Four rehearsals later, the director is ready to start shooting. The scene is to be shot from the viewpoints of the different actors. Gunnarsson starts behaving like an irate fly, buzzing to remind the actors that there are flies on the table.
Gustad's daughter, played by eight-year-old Shazneen, isn't looking as sorry as she should when the word 'chicken' is mentioned. So Sturla christens the short-lived chicken 'Fluffy' for her. "You loved Fluffy and now they are eating it." Shazneen gets the idea.
Just as the actors on the dinner table are getting restless at the sumptuous spread before them, the lunch break is announced.
Sturla Gunnarson is the third director to be picked to direct the film, producer Paul Stevens's baby for the last five years. Deepa Mehta and Waris Hussein were the other two directors who picked, but who never got down to doing the film.
"Paul Stevens sent me the script and I really liked it. Then I read the book, which I loved. It is full of humanity and so closely observed, with such details about human behaviour... I agreed to direct the film on the basis of that," says the green-eyed director.
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Soni Razdan and other cast members. Click for bigger pic!
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Gunnarsson undertook a trip to India to see if the project was feasible "and fell in love with the place."
Gunnarsson had Indian connections already -- his film school classmate and, later, his wife, Judy Konnar, is a Canadian-born Sikh.
"I'm a son-in-law of India," says Sturla. "So when I came to India I had no romantic notions about it, because of my experience with my in-laws. You see the worst thing than having your daughter marry an outsider is having her come back to your doorstep," he laughs.
"India is like North America. It's a whole mix of so many cultures. There is no way you can generalise India. If you see Bombay its one thing; if you go to Madras, its totally different; if you go to the North its totally different.
"I was quite intimidated about understanding Indian culture, so I spoke to a lot of people and I went to a lot of places... And I realised that human conditions are more or less the same everywhere."
But understanding the rest of India didn't help Sturla understand Parsi culture.
"The novel was the best document we could get. It's not a film about a Parsi or an Indian. It's about a man trying to lead an honest life in a corrupt world, having to deal with the betrayal of his best friend, a son who is rebelling, and the death of his surrogate son. Things become universal by being particular."
Sturla knew more about Parsis than other Indians do. And much of the credit, he says, must go to novelist Rohinton Mistry and and scenarist Sooni Taraporewala. "They took me to a lot of places, I read a lot about the community."
Sturla says his film will show India in a new light. "I'm able to see India in a way others don't see it. The novel to my mind is a rememberance written by someone who has left India and is writing from outside . It is like James Joyce writing about Dublin while being exiled to Paris, or the Wim Wenders film Paris Texas where he depicts North America through his eyes.
Sturla always wanted Roshan Seth to play Noble. "Ever since I agreed on the script, I just thought of Roshan for the part... He has a very empathetic quality, a star-like quality about him.
"(Getting Roshan) was the easy part, but I had to offload a lot of baggage from the project, relics from the previous directors in this film. Actually, it is normal practice for directors to be tried out and be changed, until the right chemistry is found."
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Roshan Seth gets some make-up on. Click for bigger pic!
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The script written by Sooni Taraporewala, who has films like Salaam Bombay, Sixth Happiness and Jabbar Patel's Ambedkar to her credit, was changed with each consecutive director, though Sturla says he didn't want many changes. "The script was changed because every director had a different take on the script. But when I met Sooni, we basically saw the film the same way so there were very little change to be made. We didn't have to reinvent the story for the novel, we just had to distill the material."
Sturla's approach to shooting in India is philosophical, he takes the good with the bad and, unlike Seth, has no complaints about the bureaucracy at Film City or the lack of equipment
"I have no complaints about shooting here at all. I mean, if I wanted all the amenities of shooting in Canada then I would have remained in Canada and shot the film there. If I come to India then I should be the one adapting myself to the different work culture."
Prodded about the problems he faced, Sturla smiles and then says, "The difference was in shooting on locations in the streets. We were literally surrounded by thousands on onlookers. Which was simply amazing. Then the production here is very decentralised -- everyone here is scattered all over the city, the set designer is in Juhu, the costume designer is townside. Out there (in Canada), you have everyone under one roof.
"It was quite difficult for us Some equipment we needed wasn't available here. But the biggest difference is that in North America you have a chain of command. But out here who is in charge is a mystery," he says, adding quickly, "but we're not complaining at all."
Sturla's next project is Scorn adapted from Lisa Hobbes Gurney's book about a 16-year-old sociopath "who hires a couple of guys to murder his mom and grandmother," says the director, looking utterly delighted with the idea, as he cleans up his lunch plate. Signal that its time to get back to that dinner table.
Sturla picks up a Bisleri bottle filled with tap water, washes his hands, takes a long swallow, gurgles and spits the water out behind a tree. "See, I have become a complete Indian in this short period," he laughs.
Photographs: Jewella C Miranda
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