More masala than sweet! Continuing our section which gets into the filmmaker’s mind Director Anurag Basu reveals that his forthcoming film is a pure commercial entertainer

More masala than sweet!

Continuing our section which gets into the filmmaker’s mind

Director Anurag Basu reveals that his forthcoming film is a pure commercial entertainer

Love, passion, adultery, murder — Anurag Basu has tackled all these themes with great success in movies like Murder, Gangster and Life...in a Metro. His last outing Kites, however, was more talked about for his creative differences with producer Rakesh Roshan and ended up tanking at the box-office. But Basu insists that the film is dear to him. However, the movie closest to his heart is Barfi!, which he says is purely a commercial fare and not ‘hatke’ as people perceive… After the debacle of Kites, one would have expected you to make a typical masala film... Barfi! is a masala film. It’s a nice romantic triangle. A mish mash of genres, it has drama, thrill, comedy and romance. When I started making it, many people felt that I should make a safe film, specailly since Kites didn’t do well at the BO. But I knew Barfi! is a commercial film from day one. When you see the promo visuals of the film, the perception of the film being ‘hatke’ will go from audience’s mind. You seem to be consciously attempting different genres of film though you met maximum success with gangster films… My intention always was to make different films. There can be some comparisons between Murder and Gangster, which are in the same dark zone. But yes, it’s very scary when you walk into a strange area, but that’s the fun of filmmaking. We usually don’t try different stuff because we don’t feel comfortable and are insecure. As a result we fall into a trap and start repeating ourselves. But it becomes boring, so to make my life more interesting, spicy and edgy I attempt different genres. Why was Barfi! delayed? I know people are saying it was in the making for a long time. But considering that the first schedule was in June and it’s releasing in September, I think that’s fast by Bollywood standards. Yes, we didn’t start the schedule when we were supposed to because of various reasons. Rockstar got postponed and my shoot got delayed by four months. It had a snowball effect and I had to re-cordinate the dates of all my actors. The film was supposed to release in July but I couldn’t meet the deadline. There was a gap of a month because I had to work on the post-production and background, as it has a lot of sound effects. After the Kites experience, are you open to directing a film for another filmmaker? Though the film didn’t do well, it is dear to me, despite and because of creative differences. However, after Kites I realised that I don’t fit into a kind of set up where four-five people sit together and make a film. I am a strong headed bull, a Taurean and don’t perform well in such scenarios. What are your thoughts about the changes in the industry? Well, this decade will go down as the golden era as some special work is coming out. But my worry is that we are not making our presence on the global map. Also, the BO collections of Hollywood films are eating into our business, which is alarming because one day we are going to be thrown out of our own industry. Now we are afraid of clashing our film with a Hollywood release. Hollywood has finished all the film industries across the world. So, like Korean films we have to increase our audiences worldwide. Anurag Kashyap is perhaps the only one trying hard to push the envelope and widen the exposure for our films globally.