Bornila Chatterjee's 'The Hungry' poses a gut-wrenching question

The Hungry, Bornila Chatterjee’s second feature, may leave some viewers queasy from all the gore, blood and raw violence in it. But this is actually a toned down version of its source material, as the director noted during an interview at the recent Toronto International Film Festival, or TIFF, where the film had its world premiere. The original story, from which The Hungry has been adapted, is the play Titus Andronicus, believed to be William Shakespeare’s first tragedy. 

The film came about as a result of a contest inviting scripts that were adaptations of Shakespeare’s work set in an Indian context. Indian production company Cinestaan had partnered with Film London for the event in 2015 to celebrate 400 years of Shakespeare. For Chatterjee and her co-writers, Tanaji Dasgupta and Kurban Kassam, Titus was an easy choice. 

“It’s so unknown, and its relative obscurity really made us want to sink our teeth into it,” said Chatterjee, adding, “Also, it’s one of the first things Shakespeare wrote and he’s thought to have been between 24 and 27 (years old), and so that youthfulness is there. It’s sort of a no-holds-barred, uninhibited dissection of violence, and honestly, the wild, over-the-top nature of the play got us very excited about turning it into something relevant to contemporary India.”

Shakespeare’s royal Romans were rewritten into wealthy business families in north India. Landing Naseeruddin Shah as the villainous patriarch, Tathagat Ahuja, was clearly a coup for the low-budget production. It nearly didn’t happen, said Chatterjee, recalling the team’s first pitch to Shah: “He told us two things. A, ‘I hate this play, why did you choose it?’ And then B, he was like, ‘I don’t know if I really want to make a movie right now’. Four hours later, he messaged Tana to say, ‘I love that script, let’s do it’.”

Tisca Chopra plays the film’s protagonist, Tulsi, who is getting married to Ahuja’s son, Sunny, and who is also out to avenge the death of her own son, Ankur, early in the film. Ankur is played by Suraj Sharma, who was earlier seen in Ang Lee’s Life of Pi. Neeraj Kabi, Arjun Gupta, Sayani and Antonio Aakeel are some of the supporting actors. 

The nuptials of Tulsi and Sunny are the setting for The Hungry, as it racks up the body count in possibly the bloodiest Indian wedding on screen. Ankur’s death is the trigger for events that spiral out of control. TIFF’s Artistic Director Cameron Bailey, who brought the film to Toronto, said, “It’s very much a family drama, but a family drama that gets very much disturbing and increasingly violent as it goes on. It goes well beyond realism into the realm of allegory.”

The violence in the film may be graphic, but none of it is gratuitous, says Chatterjee. “The question I hope stays with audiences is, ‘What is the price I have to pay for giving in to those base instincts?’”

The Hungry is heading to the Jio MAMI Mumbai Film Festival in October. Chatterjee said her dream is to release the film in Indian theatres, but is unsure about the response of the censor board. As she said, “It will be really interesting to see what’s left when all the violence is taken out.”