Red: le riprese in Italia

Lo scorso febbraio la troupe di Red era in Italia (Firenze, Viareggio, Toscana, lago di Garda, Dolomiti) per effettuare alcune riprese. Red, diretto da Kishore Tirumala e interpretato da Ram Pothineni e Malvika Sharma, è il remake in lingua telugu della pellicola tamil Thadam del 2019. Video dei brani Nuvve Nuvve e Mounanga Unna.

Firenze

Extraction: locandina e trailer

A partire dal prossimo 24 aprile Netflix proporrà il film d'azione Extraction, con Chris Hemsworth. Nel cast anche Randeep Hooda e Pankaj Tripathi. La versione italiana si intitola Tyler Rake. Trailer in italiano.

Family

Anche l'India è in lockdown. Ma non disperiamo: vi segnalo Family, un genialissimo cortometraggio interpretato - rigorosamente da casa - da un cast a dir poco stellare: Amitabh Bachchan, Rajinikanth, Mohanlal, Mammootty, Prosenjit Chatterjee, Chiranjeevi, Priyanka Chopra, Alia Bhatt, Ranbir Kapoor, Diljit Dosanjh.

Amitav Ghosh: "E adesso in India sprechiamo come qui da voi"

Vi segnalo l'intervista concessa da Amitav Ghosh a Edoardo Vigna, pubblicata dal Corriere della Sera il 30 marzo 2020. Amitav Ghosh: «E adesso in India sprechiamo come qui da voi»:

'Ora l’acqua alta non c’è più, e nessuno sembra interessato al problema per trovare una soluzione strutturale. Passata l’ansia, ci si gira dall’altra parte... Forse è umano, ed è un po’ ciò che succede con la crisi climatica. (...) Venezia, in particolare, dovrà accettare di convivere con l’acqua alta e le sue drammatiche conseguenze a lungo termine?

«Non è vero che nessuno parla dell’acqua alta, qui a Venezia. L’altra sera ero a cena in una trattoria, nel sestriere del Castello, e il proprietario mi ha portato a vedere fin dove è arrivata l’acqua a novembre. Per lui, e per tanti altri, è stata una catastrofe, anche dal punto di vista economico. Ma Venezia purtroppo, rappresenta in modo più ampio ciò che chiamo il “derangement”, lo sconvolgimento, il disordine del nostro tempo».

Cosa intende?

«Tutti sappiamo che questa città è una delle vittime potenziali del riscaldamento globale, se non riusciremo a fermarlo. Allo stesso tempo Venezia attira e vuole sempre più turisti, che rappresentano business e lavoro, e permette a gigantesche navi da crociera di arrivare fin nel cuore della città - cosa che considero terrificante per i danni che provoca alla laguna e all’intero ecosistema. Tutto ciò per me va al di là dell’immaginazione. Gli ecosistemi sono fragilissimi, e noi ormai lo sappiamo bene, eppure sembriamo non tenerne conto. Venezia cattura il “derangement” del nostro tempo anche in questo senso. Stavo poi passeggiando vicino alla basilica di Santa Maria della Salute, che è di fatto il più grande memoriale di una catastrofe che esista al mondo...».

Un ex voto alla Madonna eretto nel Seicento dai veneziani per la liberazione dalla peste che aveva decimato la popolazione nel 1630-31...

«Esatto. E pensavo: nessuno mai ha ipotizzato un ex voto contro l’acqua alta. Non siamo neppure capaci di realizzare quale tipo di disastro sta avvenendo al pianeta e a tutti noi. E una delle ragioni per cui accade è che nessuno può attribuirlo a un’entità superiore esterna a noi, a una astratta “Natura”. Siamo noi che lo stiamo causando, noi che lo stiamo facendo a noi stessi».

Lei ha scritto che gli alberi, come altri esseri non umani, parlano. Se la Terra potesse farlo, cosa ci direbbe? (...)

«La Terra ci sta già parlando, e in modo chiaro. Non è solo l’acqua alta, penso agli uragani, ai tornado... Voi dovreste saperlo più di altri. L’Italia è uno dei Paesi più colpiti al mondo dalla crisi climatica. Il vostro ecosistema è estremamente fragile. Guardi la Sicilia: uno degli effetti dei ribaltamenti climatici è che il deserto del Sahara si sta espandendo verso Nord, e forme di siccità colpiscono la vostra isola. L’acqua manca ormai anche nelle città, in più momenti durante la settimana. Ma nessuno ne parla: forse la Sicilia e i suoi problemi sono finiti ai margini del discorso pubblico italiano ed europeo. (...) È avvenuto di nuovo nel 2018 e nel 2019. Penso ai recenti incendi in Australia. In Italia è accaduto lo stesso: sono stato da poco in Puglia, a Lecce ho visto la distruzione degli ulivi per la Xylella. So che non è effetto diretto del climate change, ma in realtà c’è un collegamento. (...) Con l’Illuminismo abbiamo cominciato a pensare alle risorse del pianeta come a cose che usiamo e controlliamo. Oggi è chiaro che non controlliamo noi i combustibili fossili, sono loro che ci controllano: così profondamente connessi con la nostra vita ci manipolano. Nella storia, nella mitologia greca come in quella indiana, l’umanità ha sempre temuto il “drago sotto terra”: ecco cosa sono gli idrocarburi. E quando si sveglia il drago... Da questo deriva il caos in cui ci troviamo».

Lei ha distinto un approccio alle catastrofi climatiche “occidentale” e uno “orientale”.

«Sì, all’inizio del secolo scorso, c’era una differenza sostanziale nell’uso delle risorse naturali, nella gestione dell’economia, nel modo di affrontare i cataclismi. Un esempio per tutti: Gandhi si opponeva strenuamente all’economia industriale. Ma oggi quella distinzione non c’è più. Chi va in India, in Cina o in Estremo Oriente vede l’assoluta convergenza verso il consumismo e lo sfruttamento delle risorse come sono concepiti in Occidente. Il vostro pensiero è dominante in ogni senso. Questo è ciò che più di ogni cosa mi disturba».

In concreto cosa significa?

«Quando ero un bambino, a Calcutta, mi è stato insegnato a non sprecare mai niente. Non potevo uscire da una stanza senza spegnere la luce o il ventilatore. Mai. Sarei stato punito! Era una cosa davvero importante. Ora non c’è niente più di questo. È tutto finito. Gli indiani sprecano proprio come fate voi in Occidente. Elettricità, acqua... tutto. Mi ricordo la prima volta che sono andato in America, 33 anni fa, vedevo tutte quelle macchine per strada, ognuna con una sola persona dentro. Allora, in India era impensabile: in ogni auto c’erano almeno tre, quattro persone! (...) Ingenuamente pensavo: l’India non sarà mai così! Ma se va in qualsiasi città indiana vedrà che sono diventate come quelle americane».

Cosa è accaduto?

«Di base, con la caduta del Muro di Berlino, c’è stato il trionfo del neoliberalismo. E l’ideologia ha pervaso e convertito tutto e tutti. Ha conquistato le menti. Mi correggo: in India come in Cina c’è una parte della popolazione, contadini e fattori, coloro che hanno a che fare con la terra, che ancora hanno un approccio diverso al mondo, e questo vale anche in Italia e altrove. Sono le élites globali che la pensano diversamente. “Il popolo di Davos”. (...) Sono stato invitato a Davos due volte, una quindicina d’anni fa. Ci sono andato soprattutto per curiosità. Mi sono reso conto che le élites del mondo vanno davvero lì per dare un’occhiata nel futuro, cercare di capire i problemi, e stringere mani, perpetuando il proprio ruolo di élite. Ma lì ho capito che davvero non comprendono la vera portata di questo problema. Lo dissi, la seconda volta che ci andai. Non mi invitarono più... (...) La gente che va lì, i supermanager, i tycoon, i primi ministri, hanno una e una sola religione: la “crescita. Non conoscono nulla all’infuori di questa».

E non esiste nessuna possibilità di mettere insieme “crescita” e “ambiente”? (...)

«Ci sono stati molti tentativi di costruire una “crescita green”, ma nessuno mi sembra convincente. L’idea della “decrescita” è più facile da rendere compatibile, ma non vedo come i politici possano prenderla in considerazione. (...) In India come in Italia, un politico che si presentasse a dire: abbiamo avuto tanto, ora accontentiamoci per il bene del Pianeta, verrebbe bocciato». (...)

In fondo, se è già difficile portare i temi ambientali anche solo al cuore della letteratura...

«Molti scrittori l’hanno fatto. Il vero problema è che i loro lavori non vengono considerati come letteratura. Vengono bollati come fantascienza, come un genere a parte, mai come narrativa seria».

Lei perché ha deciso di farlo?

«Non avevo un piano... Il libro è partito come di solito fanno i libri. Ho attinto a tante cose che non avevo mai considerato, la storia è arrivata».'

Kabir Bedi: messaggi per l'Italia

Nelle scorse settimane Kabir Bedi ha postato nei suoi profili Twitter e Facebook diversi messaggi di solidarietà dedicati all'Italia. Ve ne segnalo solo alcuni: video del 23 marzo 2020, video del 03 aprile 2020, video dell'8 aprile 2020.

Kay Kay Menon: I come from the believable school of performances

Vi segnalo l'intervista concessa da Kay Kay Menon a Priyanka Roy, pubblicata da The Telegraph il 31 marzo 2020. I come from the believable school of performances: Kay Kay Menon:

'Special OPS is unanimously being praised for its plot and performances, even being hailed as a landmark in the Indian web space. Are you hearing similar things?

I can’t really recall anything specific, simply because the response has been so huge and so overwhelming. To pinpoint one is very, very difficult (laughs). The quantity of accolades has been too much. Overall, I am very humbled by the response. We knew that we had made a good series, but this kind of a response was unexpected. It’s a very pleasant feeling.

Himmat Singh is a great character to play in the way he’s written, flawed yet upright and invested with so many layers. Was there a trigger point that made you certain that you wanted to do the part?

I think the trigger point was Neeraj (Pandey) coming up with a series like this. We have known each other for a long time now... 16 years. So when Neeraj told me that he was doing Special OPS and wanted me to play the lead, I had no qualms in saying ‘yes’. It’s more of a trust thing, you know. After that, of course, I read the script entirely. I began from the first episode and I simply couldn’t put down the script till I finished it. I realised that this was tremendous writing, a tremendous screenplay, and all we needed to do was to execute it well.

You have played shades of Himmat Singh in various other characters in your films. What was the biggest challenge of playing a man whose gut and intentions are scrutinised and doubted at every step?

I don’t look at parts as challenges... I categorise them as interesting and uninteresting. The thing is that I play people, I don’t play roles. No two individuals are the same, but two roles can end up being the same. So, say I play Mahesh the cop and Suresh the cop, I will play Mahesh and Suresh as people and not as cops. In Special OPS, I played Himmat Singh, who is, as a person, different from Rakesh Maria (the real-life Mumbai top cop that Kay Kay played in Anurag Kashyap’s Black Friday). The institutional values are perhaps the same, but the individuals are different. I look at roles as being very limited and, of course, limiting. There are perhaps only about 25,000 roles... lawyer, cop, doctor, terrorist... whereas the kinds of people out there are limitless. For me, Himmat Singh was a person who not only had to maintain a balance between his home and work, but his real character comes through in how he handles himself and his professional life during the inquiry. He had to put across his point without disrespecting his seniors who are conducting the inquiry and that, for me, was interesting because one stands the danger of becoming slightly heroic in nature and then losing it all. That balance was tenuous but interesting for me as an actor.

When you play a person, do your core values have to resonate with that of the man you play or as an actor, are you open to being every kind of man on screen, even if their values are different from yours?

No, I have to strongly believe in every character I play, even if he is an evil person. You cannot carry your personal ego or values into a character. I have to surrender my ego completely and be loyal to who I am playing. Only when you do that, then the person you play becomes believable for the audience... otherwise you end up faking it. If you think you are playing a villain, then you start playing a villain. I know that’s the trend, but that’s not how it’s meant to be done (laughs). That’s why I tell people that when I am playing a villain, then between ‘Action’ and ‘Cut’ don’t mess with me... because I don’t know how I will react! (Laughs) Kay Kay Menon doesn’t exist at that time, it’s only that man I am playing. Basically, I come from the believable school of performances. If you have to make things believable on screen, then you have to be that person... there is no alternative or shorthand to that. That also allows the actor in me to improvise because I am completely driven by the person I am playing. It’s not Kay Kay Menon being smart. (...)

You’ve been in the business for 25 years now. Would you say this is the most exciting time in the Indian creative space, given the wide variety of roles being written and the presence of different platforms to tell one’s story?

I think so. I come from the time where there were no such opportunities... there was no Internet and hence no digital platforms (smiles). I see the young actors of today being given so many opportunities, which we didn’t have when we started out. It feels good to see that. Now, if you are on social media, you can become a star... if you have some talent, that is (laughs). I am glad that opportunities have opened up for this generation, be it artistes, writers, singers, everybody. It’s a good time because it also ensures that the standards go up because there is competition. At the same time, there is also the danger of diluting the quality. It happened with Indian television. It started off as a wonderful medium, we spoilt it... completely! We have to be careful not to do that with the web.

Is there a difference in how you pick your roles now as opposed to how it was a few years ago?

The medium doesn’t bother me... as long as the camera is there, I am fine. Apart from that, it’s difficult to pinpoint how I choose what I choose. It’s about the moment, you know... you read something, you like it, you fall in love with it and you want to do it. It’s simply the feeling of, ‘Okay, this needs to be done’. There is no clause or rule that I follow, it’s an overall subjective feeling. It’s a lot like love, for example. It’s something that you get attracted to at that point of time and say, ‘Let’s give it a try’. And many a time, it fails also... it’s not a foolproof method. I have failed more often than not, but you need to go in with that intent and positivity. (...)

Your Twitter timeline is dominated by fans saying how much they want to see more of you on screen. Has less always been more for you?

That’s not been a conscious decision. People tend to think that I have a plethora of offers at every point of time and that I am being choosy. I am choosy, of course, but that ‘plethora’ doesn’t exist (laughs). Of what’s offered to me, I skim through and do what appeals to me. The offers are definitely not as much as people assume them to be. Sometimes, the industry works in strange ways, I really can’t comment on that. But within the limits of what’s offered to me, I sort of pick enough stuff'.

Manoj Bajpayee: Professional life, even now, doesn't bother me much

Vi segnalo l'intervista concessa da Manoj Bajpayee a Mayank Shekhar, pubblicata da Mid-Day il 7 marzo 2020. Il testo include il video dell'intervista integrale. Manoj Bajpayee: Professional life, even now, doesn't bother me much:

'In a way, the journey of Bombay cinema's transition into millennial cool, late-90s/early-2000s onwards - what with even 'indies' beginning to merge with Bollywood mainstream - starts from a street in Delhi. It's officially named Sudhir Bose Marg, where colleges of Delhi University's (DU) North Campus are lined up one after another, on either side. If you survey this street late '80s onwards, you'd find Manoj Bajpayee enrolled in Ramjas College, fresh off a train from Bihar. Bajpayee says he also used to perform in plays at the next-door Hindu College. (...) When not representing university in cricket, Vishal Bhardwaj (from Meerut) would score music for those plays. "Rekha, Vishal's girlfriend [later his wife], was learning classical music." To the right of Shishir Bose Marg is Khalsa College, where Saurabh Shukla graduated from. To the left is Hansraj College, where Shah Rukh Khan was reading economics. Few years later, Imtiaz Ali (from Jamshedpur) founded Hindu College's dramatic society. At about the same time as Anurag Kashyap (originally from Benares), who was at Hansraj. "Oh there are just way too many people [to name]," Bajpayee trails off. (...)

The point for most of these DU students - who later made the move to Mumbai and cinema - wasn't quite to crack their final exam in history (Bajpayee), or zoology (Kashyap). It was firstly to gain access to the thriving theatre scene in the Capital. This is where Bajpayee co-founded the theatre company, Act One. It had, among others, Imtiaz Ali, (...) Piyush Mishra: "Shoojit Sircar used to design background music, and assist director. (...) Anubhav Sinha assisted [in direction], and was an important part of the circle." During the day Bajpayee trained under Barry John and his company Theatre Action Group (TAG), to secure a place in Delhi's National School of Drama - that ultimately rejected him four years in a row. It's at TAG that he first met Shah Rukh Khan: "No matter how talented we were, girls always flocked to Shah Rukh." Nothing's changed. "Shah Rukh (...) [era un] English theatre actor, (...) from privileged backgrounds in South Delhi," Bajpayee recalls. While everyone really made it on their own in Mumbai/Bollywood, with zero family connections, the one to scale the steepest climb is still likely to be Bajpayee. He was born into a farmer's family, with six siblings, raised in a village called Belwa in Bihar, bordering Nepal, where there wasn't even a local cinema, growing up. 

Besides, being Bihari meant a strong regional accent that he had to shed, in order to ready himself for multiple parts on stage/film: "If you're an actor, you can't be 'one type' in your real life - a Bihari, for instance. You should be able to play a Marathi, Punjabi... For many years, from my Hindi, many people couldn't figure out where I was from." What he worked on harder still is English. Which is just a language, yes, but it also denotes social access in India: "I always knew English is a tool to compete in this country; to fit in, and get your work done - even if I decide to work in the Hindi film industry. I didn't take it as a burden." It was quite common for Bihari students (nicknamed 'Harries') to land up in DU, to pursue courses in sciences and liberal arts, and take a shot at several entrance exams later - chiefly for the civil services. Bajpayee made sure he spent significantly more time with the few foreign students in his college, rather than the 'Harry gang': "The Kenyan/Nigerian guys would listen to my English, quietly, without judgment. Five hours of my day spent with them meant only speaking English, flat-out - gaining command/confidence over the language. Barry John, who took me under his wing, started giving me roles in English plays as well."

This interview is wholly in English. He's as fluent as it gets. This, he says, surprises his former flat-mates - a full-on 'English medium type' in particular, who'd make fun of him back in college. By the early '90s, having spent enough hours perfecting his diction, reading literature, watching plays, doing street theatre, exposing himself to arts and [alternate] cinema, what he calls the "best days of my life", Bajpayee began to 'belong' - to Delhi's intensely active stage scene. (...) This is the catchment area filmmaker Shekhar Kapur, along with his assistant and casting director Tigmanshu Dhulia, tapped into to cast for Bandit Queen (1994). Post its commercial success, the Bandit Queen 'alumni' pretty much migrated en masse to Mumbai. (...) "Seema Biswas got [the lead role with] Sanjay Leela Bhansali. (...) Saurabh Shukla in fact was the busiest..." And Bajpayee? Because his character Maan Singh in Bandit Queen didn't have many lines, despite strong screen presence, he remained relatively unnoticed. (...) What followed is four years of "no work, consequently no food," and life in a chawl. The primary talent he developed in these years, Bajpayee jokes, is an ability to time his entry into friends' homes - right at the moment when lunch was getting served; or a booze bottle was being cracked open! An important lesson that showbiz teaches most aspirants though, and something that Bajpayee appears to have imbibed as a personality trait, is the strength/perseverance to repeatedly face rejection, and calmly move on, before it breaks one's resolve/spirit. "I am basically dheeth [stubborn]," Bajpayee says more than once to describe himself. (...) 

The turning point in Bajpayee's career is obviously the iconic/immortalised 'Bhikhu Mhatre' from Ram Gopal Varma's Satya (1998). Varma, Bajpayee reckons, is the man who singularly altered the landscape of Lokhandwala, and indeed (mainstream) Hindi films. Varma was looking for writers for Satya. Bajpayee introduced him to Anurag Kashyap and Saurabh Shukla. Satya led to Varma's Kaun? (1999), also written by Kashyap, and a role that Bajpayee says he practically remodelled on the first day of shoot - turning Sameer Purnavale into a goofy bloke, rather than a serious fellow. Shool (1999), written by Kashyap as well, followed. Among Bajpayee's contributions to this lead part of a quiet cop, diametrically opposite to the boisterous Bhikhu, was the name Samar Pratap Singh. Samar was what Bajpayee wanted to officially change his own name to, but couldn't do paper-work for, before the release of Bandit Queen: "Everybody in Bihar is called Manoj." (...) Up until Chandraprakash Dwivedi's Pinjar (2003) that won Bajpayee his second National Award (first was for Satya), what you sense is an unlikely Bollywood star, on an enviable dream run, both at the box-office, and with critical acclaim. And then everything starts tumbling downhill thereafter - for seven frickin' years straight!

He had a fall-out with Varma, when the latter was at the top of his game: "I used to be angry, sensitive - not an easy person to deal with." Kashyap and he parted ways. He was going to both act in, and co-produce Kashyap's debut: "Anurag had mistakenly presumed that I wasn't interested in the role/film." He looks back at the fallow period, "Those weren't easy times. No work was coming [my way]. And whatever was, didn't match up to standards. Also, I was not keeping well." (...) Bajpayee's actual career graph effectively resembles a symmetrical ECG report, with extensive highs and lows, almost equally spaced out! He agrees, "I still call filmmakers for work, if I've enjoyed their recent film. The hardest part was to convince friends that I was still good enough. (...) When I reminisce [those times], I feel only I could've survived it. Because I don't take it to heart. The only thing that could break me is [upheaval on the] personal front. The professional life, even now, doesn't bother me much. Mumbai says it most beautifully, 'Yaar, load kyun leta hai [Why take stress?]'.

"TV crews that used to hound me started putting their cameras down, watching me enter events. I could hear the reporter, who wouldn't even lower his voice, instructing this to his crew. (...) And that happens with work. I was sure I was going to come back. But I needed a role. When I got Raajneeti, I knew this was it." (...) Raajneeti (2010), a major hit that Bajpayee, 51, admits resurrected his floundering résumé. (...) He earned matchless street-cred as Sardar Khan with Kashyap's masterpiece Gangs Of Wasseypur (2012). Kashyap and he are back to being friends. Of which he laughs, "Anurag is incredibly talented, but a loner. If you meet him for three days in a row, he starts hating you!" Further, his most challenging lead role in the current phase could well be as the Marathi, gay Professor Siras in Aligarh (2015): "A leading journalist had written about how actors' careers got ruined, once they played gay characters on screen. My career got made as a result." (...)

In 2019, Bajpayee stormed into mainstream web with Amazon Prime's smashing success, The Family Man, directed by Raj & DK, playing a spy Srikant Tiwari, who could be any other guy on a Mumbai street. As a basic brief, even that sounds a little lot like Bajpayee's breakout role in Satya: "Bhikhu Mhatre was the most real [gangster] that this country has ever seen on the big screen. He could be standing by a restaurant or a paan shop, and you wouldn't know he's a dreaded don. Which is true for people doing extraordinary things - they're extremely unassuming in day-to-day life. Srikant Tiwari has all the same elements, but we went a little further ahead in this realistic direction - he's even more casual, nervous, anxious [than Bhikhu]." If life/career must indeed be shaped into a circle, let's look at Bajpayee's last major film, Sonchiriya (2019) that (...) is set in the same time-frame and location (ravines of Chambal) as Bajpayee's debut, Bandit Queen. Like with his debut, Bajpayee appears as a quiet dacoit named Maan Singh. It's directed by Abhishek Chaubey (...) who, like his mentor (and Bajpayee's contemporary) Vishal Bhardwaj, went to Hindu College, from the same Sudhir Bose Marg in Delhi'.

Devi

Vi segnalo il cortometraggio Devi, diretto da Priyanka Banerjee, interpretato da Kajol, Neha Dhupia e Shruti Haasan.