Filmmaker Aparna Sen’s latest film, The Japanese Wife, is releasing on April 9 after being three years in the making. Sen tells Abhilasha Ojha that the story, adapted from Kunal Basu’s book by the same name, struck her as a modern-day fairy tale.
What made you select Kunal Basu’s book The Japanese Wife as a script for your film?
(Laughs) When I finished reading The Japanese Wife, I told Kunal to keep the script for me and not give it to anyone else. I assured him that I would try my damnedest to make this film because I sincerely believed in it. The absurdity of the premise of the book was charming.
I thought of it as a modern-day fairy tale. I love reading and after I had finished Kunal’s book, I knew I wanted to imagine The Japanese Wife on the big screen.
Does the film, at any point, deviate from the book?
You know, I strongly believe that every film has a mind of its own. In fact, I feel that it’s a film that decides whether it wants to be made or not. In that sense, it takes its own course, its own direction. So, even when I’m writing scripts, I try to go with the flow. No, I don’t think I’ve deviated from the book but I did notice that Sandhya’s character, for instance, was emerging as a resilient one. So there are times when you’re writing a script and some characters simply refuse to go away from your mind.
The film has been in the making for a long time. What was your reaction after you watched it?
Yes, the shooting of this film took a long time. We began shooting for it in 2007 and now it’s 2010! We shot in Sunderbans. The facilities there weren’t too great even though the place was. We wanted to capture all the seasons of Sunderbans so that naturally forced us to wait longer. The cast and crew of the film kept falling sick there. After I saw my work, I was happy. Cinema to me is about images; images, after all, take the story forward. After I saw The Japanese Wife, I felt happy about the quality of images that I managed to achieve with this film.
As an actor, you’ve worked on projects with veterans like Satyajit Ray, Mrinal Sen, Merchant Ivory Productions. Were you consciously thinking of becoming a director right from the beginning?
The likes of Satyajit Ray and Tagore are part of my childhood. Their works, I’ve always felt, are something that one has inherited; just the way one has inherited genes from parents. (Pauses) Yes, I always wanted to be a director. Even when I was acting, I used to think of shots and angles like any other director. Plus, don’t forget, actors didn’t have the sort of roles that are offered today. My daughter Koko [Konkona Sen Sharma] has many more options today. She gets offered some very interesting roles in mainstream cinema that we could never dream of in our times.
The budgets of most films are skyrocketing today. The marketing is aggressive too. How do you plan to sell The Japanese Wife in such an environment?
None of my films has ever been marketed aggressively. Be it 36, Chowringee Lane, Mr & Mrs Iyer, 15, Park Avenue or even The Japanese Wife, I can’t understand marketing gimmicks myself. I make films on a modest budget, I have a dedicated audience who will come to watch my film and I’m happy to have not compromised on my work. I don’t underestimate audiences. Yes, thanks to Facebook and Twitter, I am writing a lot about The Japanese Wife.
