Q & Ray

Vi segnalo l'intervista concessa dal regista Q a Sankhayan Ghosh, pubblicata da Film Companion il 23 gennaio 2021. Q & Ray:

'It's scary to talk to Q - you don't know when you might rub him the wrong way. Besides, is there anything he likes? (...) Or is there anyone who likes his films? Even though 'like' is hardly a word you use when you talk about Q, whose works are designed to make you uncomfortable. (...) This power to offend extends beyond Q's cinema, to his views, one of which is his utter dislike for Satyajit Ray. (...) Now in a twist stranger than meta-fiction, Q is playing Ray. In (...) Abhijaan, a film about the life and work of Soumitra Chatterjee, Ray's favourite leading man, (...) we see Q as Ray, letting his future Apu know that he is too tall to be in Aparajito. He is wearing white pajama-punjabi - something Ray would often wear, and Q never - holding a cigarette and striking that pose as a framed photograph of Tagore hangs in the background. Has there been a more seamless merging of icon and iconoclast? (...) Q (...) lives in Goa, where he's (...) part of the alternative scene. (...) 

Your dislike for Ray is well-known. What's really interesting is that now you are playing Ray, in what must be the first time anybody is playing him on screen.

Well, the first person who told me about the resemblance was Rituparno Ghosh. And it was a very lively chat that we'd had after that, (...) about the resemblance and the general perceptions about image, since we were both image makers. He was also very interested in alternative image making, because, obviously, he is a precursor of all this. So while for instance I never liked Rituparno Ghosh's films, I am sure he didn't like mine. He was very clear at the beginning of the meeting that we are not going to talk about that. And then we proceeded to having a very nice chat.

I would've liked to be a fly on the wall during that chat.

It was a really insane chat because we were (...) hanging out in gay bars in Munich and stuff like that. It was a really cool chat. (...) Like everyone else, I grew up with Satyajit Ray and one of the key things I like about him is his calligraphy. I mean, as a designer I feel he did a lot of work that is far beyond his cinema. That's my perspective. My dislike or my problem is with his films. And he would have the same for mine. Because we are coming from totally different spaces in terms of filmmaking, or making visual narrative. (...) There was an occasion 4-5 years back when someone else had asked me to play Ray in a movie. That movie never got made. But I was in character for a month. And I took that quite seriously. These kind of opportunities are very interesting because you're thinking of image and what it could do. Alternative thoughts, or alternatives. They had some look tests and stuff. Few people who were also on that team got in the production team of the new film as well. And this was something that might have prompted them to think of me. (...)

Were you able to put your dislike aside while playing the character?

Yeah yeah, absolutely. Because then I am an actor (...) not Q the director. When I'm rapping I'm not Q the director. (...) Now I'm Satyajit Ray. An actor has a great advantage that they can hop characters like that. Performers have the best job actually and I'm always trying to, like an imposter, get in and do something - with music, with acting, whenever I can. For instance I've done a fairly major character in a Bejoy Nambiar film, (...) as a villain who was beating up Dulquer Salmaan. Because Bejoy knew I could do some shit like that. But no casting director will cast me, obviously, because they don't know me. Everyone assumes I have a certain kind of character based on a public persona, whatever that might be. (Laughs). And that's constantly being manipulated by me. 

What was your approach to playing Ray? Did you pick up mannerisms and body language and style of smoking and things like that?

Totally. Because it was a period piece, a biopic, I had to. I got myself into that mode. Because otherwise we are extreme polar opposites in terms of how we speak, hold ourselves, and it was a different time. So people used to behave different physically. So that was great fun. I love that process, that I can be someone else.

What are the things you picked up from Ray's persona?

One of the major problems was cigarettes, because I don't smoke cigarettes. So I was continuously smoking and smokers are different people. They hold their hands very differently. When you smoke joints you don't do that. So that and the fact that I would be in those costumes for a long time and trying to be comfortable even in the jangia (underwear). (...)

What's the kind of material you looked into?

I didn't have to, thankfully, watch all his films. I had to watch films made on him. And whatever footage I could get. I surrounded myself with those images. That's the kind of route I took, not the emotional part. The thing was to place the sense of humour, because he had a keen sense of humour. (...)

Is this you trying to be more open? Would you have done it 10 years ago?

Yeah yeah. (...) I don't think the point is that. I am anti his films, and that time, and how that time influences us right now as Bengalis. And is limiting us severely. That's what I dislike. (...) Satyajit Ray (...) is a bourgeoise upper class filmmaker. My politics doesn't allow me to appreciate his films. (...)

Do you not find anything to appreciate in his films?

Films take up a long time. You have to give it 2-3 hours of your life. I would rather watch something made by somebody I like'.

Le prime del 20 novembre 2015: X. Past is Present

X. Past is Present è un prodotto davvero singolare. Narra un'unica storia, ma alla macchina da presa si avvicendano ben 11 registi (di cui due di sesso femminile) - provenienti da industrie cinematografiche in lingue diverse, dalla scena sia popolare che d'autore - fra i quali cito Q, il temuto critico cinematografico Raja Sen al suo debutto alla regia, Anu Menon, Suparn Varma e Rajshree Ojha. E come se non bastasse, l'attore-regista Rajat Kapoor è il protagonista del film, affiancato dal giovane Anshuman Jha, e attorniato da dodici fanciulle, fra cui Huma Qureshi, Rii Sen, Swara Bhasker e Radhika Apte. Ciascun regista si è impegnato a realizzare il proprio segmento in due giorni. E Rajshree Ojha ha anche minimizzato i costi girando nel suo appartamento. Produce il lanciatissimo Manish Mundra. La pellicola è principalmente in inglese e in hindi - con dialoghi anche in bengali e in tamil - e vanta un'invidiabile schiera di tecnici, fra direttori della fotografia e quant'altro. Trailer.

Festival Internazionale del Film di Roma 2012

L'edizione 2012 del Festival Internazionale del Film di Roma si svolge dal 9 al 17 novembre. Unico lungometraggio indiano in cartellone: Tasher Desh di Q (alias Qaushik Mukherjee), in concorso nella sezione CINEMAXXI.

Aggiornamento del 21 novembre 2012: vi segnalo di seguito alcune recensioni.

- CineClandestino: 'Tasher Desh irrompe (...) con la deflagrante potenza distruttrice di un ordigno nucleare: (...) il film di Q è una delle materializzazioni possibili dell'idea stessa di kermesse propugnata da Marco Müller, quella che vede il festival come un luogo che accorpi nella stessa anima ricerca e intrattenimento, sperimentazione visiva e racconto popolare, innovazione e classicità. (...) La classe registica di Q, in grado di lavorare sulle geometrie della messa in scena e su un utilizzo quanto mai fertile e creativo della scenografia (la natura dello Sri Lanka, dove il film è stato girato, si mescola alla perfezione con la particolare ricreazione dello spazio voluta dal regista), si abbandona fin dall'incipit in bianco e nero (...) a una furibonda apocalisse visiva. Il montaggio sincopato, la narrazione ellittica e sconnessa, la recitazione urlata, le inquadrature sghembe fanno di The Land of Cards un elogio della frenesia e del caos che evidenzia, prima ancora che lo faccia il testo in sé e per sé, l'anima profondamente libertaria e antifascista del film. Una scheggia impazzita che attraversa la prassi cinematografica missando al proprio interno la cultura occidentale e quella indiana. (...) Q pone la firma in calce a un'opera orgogliosamente post-punk, in cui anche il colore è utilizzato in modo eversivo (...) e un incontro di ping pong dalla brevissima durata può essere risolto registicamente con otto inquadrature diverse. Spiazzante ed esaltante allo stesso tempo, The Land of Cards rammenta a coloro che ne avessero smarrito la memoria quanto il cinema possa essere rivoluzionario nell'utilizzo stesso delle tecniche e degli stili'.

- CineFatti: 'Tasher Desh è un capolavoro di rara bellezza e raffinatezza (...): Q può diventare il regista simbolo del cinema del XXI secolo, con le sue idee, con la sua fusione di stili e con i brividi di grande cinematografia classica inseriti in un vortice d’innovazione. (...) Sono uomini e donne, attori eccezionali che recitano come fossero in un'opera di teatro contemporaneo. È la regia di Q a rendere tutto diverso, movimentato, emozione pura, Cinema. (...) Gioia per uno dei film migliori visti fino ad oggi qui al Festival Internazionale del Film di Roma, il migliore della sezione CinemaXXI in cui concorre. Duro da sopportare, difficile da digerire in molti momenti, ma le vere sfide vengono dai lavori difficili se si ha voglia di capirli e viverli per quello che vogliono essere. Momenti di puro cinema, cinema del futuro, quello che vorremmo vedere prevalere, simbolo del nuovo che tanto farebbe bisogno al mondo intero, perché si deve capire che le barriere vanno abbattute e spazio va lasciato alle nuove possibilità e ricerche'.

Area del profilo Facebook di Q dedicata alle fotografie scattate a Roma.

Aggiornamenti del 23 agosto 2013 - A partire da oggi, Tasher Desh viene finalmente distribuito in alcune aree in India in sale selezionate. Nell'intervista concessa da Q a Box Office India, pubblicata il 17 agosto 2013, si legge:

'The film travelled to the Rome Film Festival. How was it received there?

I was very happy with the response there. It was screened in a section called Cinema 21 and that was brilliant since I was in competition with people who I have looked up to all my life. My life was made that day. More importantly, I was happy knowing that critics were watching those films, which were not really cinema but playing with form. They were not looking for narrative, so I was overwhelmed. 90 per cent of them liked my film and equated it with an art installation project with lines and music. The narrative was always a problem so I was criticised there. But everybody who loved it also hated the fact the narrative was not joined'.

Vi segnalo anche la recensione di Raja Sen (giudizio 3,5), pubblicata oggi da Rediff, recensione che, nella versione integrale, include inaspettatamente più di un riferimento a David Bowie:

'The thing about building a house of cards - indeed, a country of cards - is that its very existence is rooted in caprice. With Tasher Desh, radical filmmaker Q takes on Rabindranath Tagore’s play and interprets a familiar text with much vim and great style, and yet the fact that the end results are uneven - and uneven they certainly are - seems as much an inevitability as a matter of choice. Discordance was always, well, on the cards. (...) This is a bizarre film, one that unapologetically meanders through most of its first hour, giving us a hint of its characters while soaking us in a psychedelic cauldron of ennui. It’s the same one Q’s protagonists sip from. On one hand is a bespectacled writer who wants to mount a production of Tasher Desh, but is overwhelmed by the relentlessness of the world around him. He escapes into the pages, where we meet the play’s hero, a restless Prince weary of his luxurious cage. And as the story flip-flops between these two, the teller and the doer, the film’s visuals take over our heads. (...) The surreal, madcap imagery is captivating, and many an image remains lodged in my head. Even a few that I found tiresome at the time. A primary reason for the tenacity of these strong, strange images - an Oracle with David Bowie cheekbones, a toddler prince with a sword larger than himself, clockwork squirrels going around in circles - is how violently they’re juxtaposed, not just against each other in immediate contrast, but along with the music. The soundtrack takes the songs from Tagore’s original musical and keeps the lyrics the same, and while the music is edgy and eclectic and defiantly modern, it is the classic lyrical heft that propels the film’s narrative. The filmmakers have done an artful job of subtitling these words, often sacrificing literality for inferred meaning, which helps greatly in grasping the film. This happens with dialogue too, when characters repeat the same lines and words over and over but the subtitles ascribe different meanings, or emphasise different parts of the translated line. (...) Clearly influenced by Lewis Carroll, Tagore conjured up a fascistic nation of people dressing up as playing cards, giving his musical its name. Q revels in this opportunity for structured mayhem, and his uniformed card soldiers (who come this close to actual goose-stepping) are a work of art, with their faces painted white and a tiny logo, of the suit they belong to, on their lips. The effect is striking - more Terry Gilliam than Tim Burton, thankfully - and with this highly theatrical approach, the film takes on a comic-book appearance. The colours pop, the subtitles are more stylised, and the cards yell out Bengali chopped into staccato syllables. “Progress?” is translated as “égobo?” but screamed “É!”, “Go!” and “Bo!”. (...) The Prince and his friend, cornered by gun-toting cards for having the temerity to laugh, come up with a delicious origin story and begin to sow seeds of revolution by appealing to the card-women. Good move, that. Suggestions of liberty from the outsiders intrigue the women in the ranks, and soon there is a full-blown sexual revolution. And here it is that the film becomes a highly erotic one, throbbing with abstract yet earthy sensuality. (...) Meanwhile, over on the other side of reality, the Writer too is grappling with matters of sexual urgency. “If it’s a riot you want...”, promises a queen ominously, her Bangla obfuscated and rendered exotic by a strange accent. There is a mighty mish-mash of tongues and nationalities amid the cards, hidden by white paint. It is a clever trick, in a film where the cast is mostly impressive. Rii Sen is a striking heroine, Tillotama Shome is evocative as the Prince’s mother, and all the cards get it very right indeed. Anubrata Basu (the hero of Q’s last film, Gandu) is well-suited to the part of the friend, even pulling off a Che Guevara look quite deftly in one scene, and Soumyak Kanti De Biswas is highly compelling as the Prince, especially when he looks fourth-wall-searingly through the camera. Tagore’s 1932 play is a remarkably progressive one, and Q’s adaptation starts off slow and visceral and then - after they land on the island halfway through the film - changes gears to become a racy, lucid, sexy adventure. This gamble doesn’t entirely pay off - the first half has several boring stretches; the film exasperatingly ends just when it hits its most enjoyable stride - but the film is staggeringly original, and far too much of it stays back in the head. To haunt and to enchant. The music plays a huge part, and the critical decision to use Tagore’s original songs - with Q singing on many of the tracks - is one that makes this effort magical, even when it misfires. But who’s to say any of the misfires were unintentional? Tasher Desh is more experience than film, more blank verse than story, and more poetry than anything else'.

Vedi anche:

- Anurag Kashyap produrrà il nuovo film di Q

- Kolkata extreme | Down and dirty in Kolkata, 30 luglio 2022

Q - Roma, 2012

Q - Roma, 2012