Your films might be dark at the end, but beneath that don't you think a lot of them are essentially romantic themes? The central conceit is romantic, in its own right.
Yeah well, Hazaaron [Khwaishein Aisi] was. I don't know, a lot of people see that film in various ways, a cynical political film, a nostalgia trip. Hazaaron is a film about the remnants of a life, when you live your life and carry the dust of your life. It is also perceived as a love story. There are relationships in all our lives, and there is that idea, of course, even in my films. Maybe a more Sufi idea of love than the Mills & Boon kind of love, I'd say.
But I also know that love is a four-letter word. A very commercial word, irretrievably misused.
Most critics declared Hazaaron to be your best film, while simultaneously saying that it was very unlike 'a Sudhir Mishra film.' How do you respond to comments like that?
Well, there's a definite connection between my first film, Yeh Voh Manzil To Nahin and Hazaaron. Dharavi is a bit harder, but in the last scene of the taxi the characters have another idea, so it's lost but not lost. It could be seen as sad, because hell, the guy has to go through this life again, or maybe his life will come out better this time, you know?
Chameli is not my idea, but I had to make it my film, and the result is soft and romantic and actually a fairytale. The critique of Chameli often is that the man who made Dharavi made Chameli, but I wasn't making a realistic film about a whore, I was making a film about a 'what if' situation, an impossible situation.
Khoya Khoya Chand is, I think, made by the same guy who made Hazaaron. I think so, but others will have to decide. People tell me what they find most striking about Hazaaron is the irony, and this is also a pretty ironic film.
Before winding up, I'll just ask you to name your favourite films about film.
8 1/2, as you mentioned. And then [French director Francois Truffaut's] Day For Night. These are two films which are stunning. And honestly Kaagaz Ke Phool has its moments, you know. If you look at individual scenes and the way Guru Dutt gives an amazing rhythm to the film. There must be many other films, but the first two I mentioned are something special.
Also Read: Hazaaron Khwaishein is overwhelming!
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