Award-winning filmmaker and cinematographer Goutam Ghose is back with his twelfth film, a joint production between India and Bangladesh. And what’s more, he tells Deepa Karmalkar that his next film may star Hollywood actor Richard Gere
It’s difficult not to be a little jealous of filmmaker Goutam Ghose’s tireless energy. Three decades and countless awards after he made his first film Mabhoomi, Ghose is ready with his twelfth film, Moner Manush. Starring Bengali superstar Prosenjit Chatterjee in the role of 19th century Sufi poet Lalon Fakir whose poetry and philosophy influenced Rabindranath Tagore greatly, the film is an Indo-Bangla production. But even before this film has hit screens, Ghose is already thinking about his next project, a film on the Narmada dam project, in which Hollywood actor Richard Gere has reportedly evinced interest.
At the moment though, the filmmaker is completely submerged in the hectic post-production schedule of Moner Manush. “I wanted to make a film on Lalon Fakir just after the Babri Masjid demolition, but things didn’t work out then,” he says. “A year ago, Sunil Ganguly wrote a novel on Lalon Fakir. I combined my earlier research with his novel to create the script of Moner Manush. In these times of political, cultural and religious intolerance, it is most relevant,” Ghose stresses.
The filmmaker is all praise for lead actor Prosenjit who shed his ‘starry ‘image for this “historic role which represents the soul of not only Bengal but India — totally liberal and truly secular”. Prosenjit shot exclusively for Moner Manush for a couple of months — growing a beard, following a strict diet and generally getting into the skin of the character. “His role traverses the whole life span of Lalon ranging from his late thirties to ninety. He is going to spring a pleasant surprise on the audience,” says Ghose. The film is set for a worldwide release on December 3.
The historical evidence of Lalon Fakir’s age is found in a sketch by Jyotirindranath Tagore, Rabindranath Tagore’s elder brother when he met Lalon, a nonagenarian at the time. It can be viewed in the local museum. Ghose elaborates,“Jyotirindranath was a scholar, proficient in Sanskrit, Persian, Portuguese and French. The basic premise of my film is the encounter between educated Bengali youth and an old man of rural wisdom.” Ghose’s research reveals that Lalon’s sect rescued abandoned women and gave them an opportunity to live.
Bangladeshi Habibur Rahman Khan and Kolkata-based Goutam Kundu are the co-producers. This joint venture is “very important” from the business point of view says Ghose. “The joint venture makes a lot of sense for Bengali cinema as there is a great Bengali diaspora the world over.” Moner Manush will be simultaneously released in the US, UK, EU, Australia and Middle East.
The additional benefit of a co-production is access to a larger talent pool. “I got young Lateef Shah from Bangladesh to record the main song of the film. He is the son of Khuda Baksh Shah, a great exponent of Lalonshahi gayaki (style of singing). This was his first recording and he rendered Lalon’s famous song about how birds escaping cages and flying out to freedom. The first time he came into the recording studio, Lateef exclaimed, ‘My god! There are cages all around (microphone, headphone), how can I sing this song.’ But soon he got used to all the new technology,” laughs Ghose.
A photojournalist turned cinematographer-filmmaker, Ghose has been making films since 1979. He remains unfettered by linguistic divides. In fact, his debut directorial venture Mabhoomi was a Telugu film depicting the Telangana peasants’ revolt of 1948 against the Nizam. His second venture Dakhal was in his native language Bengali and told the story of the life of a nomadic tribe. His later films like Antarjali Yatra, Padma Nadir Majhi, Paar, Patang, Gudia, Dekha, Abar Aranye and Yatra have been in Hindi and Bengali.
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But no matter what the language, Ghose has always addressed social issues. “Cinema is the new language of the 20th century through which you can say many things: make news, tell stories, document events or make musicals. This language becomes art only occasionally,” he says.
Asked about his penchant for rivers as a motif in his work (Paar, Padma Nadir Majhi, Antarjali Jatra and his forthcoming project), he says, “Govind Nihalani once joked that I must have been a fish in my earlier birth. As a child, I had heard riverside stories of our ancestral village, now in Bangladesh, from my grandmother. I was also fascinated by the songs of the boatmen. The river seeped into my being. And as I grew up I realised it is a fantastic metaphor for life — the ripple of the river is akin to the mind with its changing current.”
His next project, Lala, too is based on the banks of a river — the Narmada , to be precise. Lala is an Indo-Italian production about a teenaged boy displaced from the Narmada valley. “This funny, little, Chaplinesque boy Lala goes to Mumbai with a dream to make enough money to buy his father a plot of land. He meets a European writer-filmmaker who is unearthing the truth behind the Narmada dam disaster,” says Ghose.
There has been great speculation regarding the main cast of the film, especially about Richard Gere who has “evinced an interest” in the film but has yet not formalised the proceedings. Ghose met Gere once briefly in Dalhousie while shooting a film on the Dalai Lama. “It is now the producer’s prerogative to negotiate with him,” he says. Ghose plans to shoot the film in the Narmada valley, Mumbai, the Himalayas and Europe by next spring. “I need the monsoon for the film,” he reasons. Medha Patkar who helped him while he was in Narmada valley for the research, may feature in the film, “I will ask her to play a cameo or use true footage,” says Ghose.
[Deepa Karmalkar is a Mumbai-based freelance writer]
