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Journalism of Courage
Director Anusha Rizvi isnt concerned about the box office collections of Peepli Live; she wants it to reach out to people in the farthest corners of the country
Did you earlier consider making Peepli Live a documentary since that had been your forte?
Documentary filmmaking is my first love but such a story had to use a fictional narrative backbone. However,there is a documentary element to the film as well. Take for example the camera,which takes on a very non-intrusive character. Or the fact that there is no high drama in it in terms of emotion.
The way the characters and storyline evolved,it could have been made in no other way. When you juxtapose routine observations in the larger picture,a different image evolves where we find us laughing at ourselves. This is an Indian specialty.
But Indians are not known for their ability to laugh at themselves.
Our image of India has become clouded with what we see in a few metro cities,where we live uprooted lives that lack cultural humour. But rural India is culturally rooted,which is reflected in their language.
To write with inherent cultural humour,one has to know the language as well as the dialect.
Initially,the script was being written with the idea that we will shoot the film in Uttar Pradesh. But we realised that UP wasnt suitable since the film was to be shot in sync sound. So we shifted base to Madhya Pradeshs Bhadwai,and realised well have to switch to the Bundelkhandi dialect. Mahmood Farooqui,the co-director of the film,then had a series of interviews with people from the region,dividing them on basis of age,sex,class and religion. We also realised that in the same dialect,the religion decides the accent of a person because the pronunciation of syllables will vary.
The casting looks like a strong point in the making of the film.
Mahmood and I met many artistes in Mumbai who though good were regular parallel cinema actors. But we were clear we wanted people to look real in their role,so Mahmood had to take over the casting. We could not have cast city-dwellers because they have a distinct body language. The auditioning process lasted over four months with Mahmood auditioning almost 900 people. Even the smallest character in the film has been auditioned and we have not used extras.
How did you manage to get an interesting mélange of musicians for the soundtrack?
It took all of six years for the movie to take shape. I first heard Des Mera in 2004. The song stayed with me throughout. I heard Chola Maati being sung by Nageen Tanvir at an event,and approached her to be a part of the soundtrack as well. The song by Indian Ocean is actually a poem we wanted for the film because it talks about fear of life. We recited it to Indian Ocean as an experiment,but they agreed to do it.
A film like yours has a potential audience in small towns too. Why then is the film having a limited release?
Its a marketing standthe producers decided to first distribute 300 prints and increase the number based on the demand. We are already up to 600 now. I agree that the film will find audience in rural centres and it is very important that they see Peepli Liveif not on August 13 then in the next five years. Im not concerned about the box office numbers but with the number of people who watch it. The kind of dialogue it raises is important. I dont want this film to be an entertainer which is watched and forgotten because the next blockbuster is on its way.
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