Images and inspirations
RANA SIDDIQUI
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Filmmaker Mira Nair on art, making of "The Namesake", Amitabh Bachchan and more.
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Photo: Courtesy of American Museum of the Moving Image
Using subtle humour: Mira Nair.
WHAT does Mira Nair do to kill depression? What is that abiding bond between painting and her film canvas? How come she is able to infuse an element of humour into serious films? A visit to her Vasant Vihar residence in New Delhi answers many of these questions.
There is art on the wall; there is taste displayed on the mantelpiece. There are works of Jamini Roy and Vivan Sundaram. A long Cuban cloth is framed and turned into a painting. When lights and shadows in Delhi don't heal her; she rushes to Uganda, to the 18-year-old garden she has religiously maintained at her home there. Bridges, railway stations, airports, streets teeming with people of two different nations are her own ways of finding commonalities in the two countries she often shuttles between.
Rave reviews
Her latest film "The Namesake" liberally uses these images. It is running to packed theatres in the U.S., and she promises "within next month, we will have 500 prints in the U.S. because the theatres are flooded with people who are watching it repeatedly". Back home, the film has opened to rave reviews too.
For the first time Mira opens up about the repeated images in her creations. "In the early 1970s, when I saw `Shanti', portrait of a sweeper by Vivan Sundaram, I fell in love with it. Those days, I didn't have money to buy it. Honouring my condition, he kept it in his garage for 10 years, away from buyers. When I made my first documentary film on strippers and earned some money, I rushed to Vivan and bought it for Rs. 12, 000. Till date, it remains my most nostalgic piece of work," recalls Mira. This was in 1985. In 1991, she managed to buy a Jamini Roy work too. Her love for Roy also made her show Tabu in "The Namesake", making greeting cards of Roy's famous cat — the cat that adorns the wall at Mira's Delhi home!
About recurring images of green, Mira says, "I have maintained a huge garden in my home. It gives me solace. I tried to entwine it in the scene where Tabu hears of her husband's death. She rushes to the open green stretch outside her home, screams and cries uncontrollably away from gazing eyes. I always treat Nature as an absorber in my films. So, the yellow flowers, red blooms and greens and marigold flowing with ashes in the Ganga in `The Namesake' are my way of expressing the aesthetics of Nature. The season change was the best way to convey the time lapse in a film that encompasses 30 years rather than blatant white hair or creases on the faces of my characters."
Use of motifs
She continues, "Similarly, Manhattan Bridge reminds me of Howrah Bridge. Such motifs propel my stories. The memories of my childhood in Kolkata and my adulthood in New York don't leave me. Tabu wearing a Dhaka sari in the U.S., the way she adapts herself to the new environs of the country is me — my dilemma and the adjustments I made in an alien country before making it my home. When I learnt to live with it, I also learnt to laugh away things I didn't like, hence humour makes a subtle entry in all my films."
What's next?
After watching this film, Amitabh Bachchan hugged her, Karan Johar cried and Jaya Bachchan was completely besotted. So, when Mira went to the Big B with an offer to work alongside Johnny Depp in her next film "Shantaram", he said, "I trust you. I will do what you say. After watching this film, I am sure, I am in safe hands." On choosing Amitabh, she says, "I couldn't have thought of anyone more awe-inspiring than Mr. Bachchan for the role of an Afghan underworld leader in `Shantaram'. He is a mesmerising philosopher in the film. I needed a statuesque, inspiring figure and no one has it except Mr. Bachchan in Bollywood."
In case you would like to know more about this charismatic lady or the making of "The Namesake", a book of photographs called "The Namesake" has been released. It gives glimpses into what inspired her to make the film.
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