It takes veteran actor Anupam Kher a few weeks to read a script. But when debutant director Neeraj Pandey?s Wednesday landed on his desk, courtesy UTV, he read the script in two hours. ?I had a meeting with Neeraj,? recalls Kher, ?and like all actors, I tried to give him some suggestions, at which Neeraj clearly told me that the script was closed. He spoke with such conviction that I went along and I think it?s one of the 10 best films I have ever worked in.?
Call it the New Wave or by whatever name, but it?s a fact that over the last few years or so the film industry has been infused ? happily ? by a huge dose of fresh talent. For every Anurag Kashyap (Black Friday, No Smoking) and Anurag Basu (Life in a? Metro), Dibakar Banerjee (Khosla Ka Ghosla) and Saket Chaudhary (Pyar Ke Side Effects), there is a new bunch of directors debuting in Bollywood.
Think Navdeep Singh (Manorama Six Feet Under), Manish Tiwary (Dil Dosti Etc), Neeraj Pandey (Wednesday), Imtiaz Ali (Jab We Met), Manish Acharya (Loins of Punjab Presents), Ajit Pal (Victory).
?The new writers and directors are amazingly gifted,? concedes Kher. ?The most important thing that has happened in the industry is that these directors are not writing for a formula. With the formula being demolished by the audience, it?s a great phase of creativity in Bollywood.? That?s evident in the sheer variety of content on display ? as Sagar Ballary, whose Bheja Fry sizzled at the box-office, put it: ?Dancing around trees is a strict no-no.?
So, don?t be surprised that Pandey?s Wednesday, a cop-and-terrorist tale set in real time over four hours, is songless. ?It?s about a Mumbai police commissioner (played by Kher) about to retire thinking back on his most interesting case,? says Pandey, who has done standalone programming for TV in the past. ?When Naseeruddin Shah and Kher read the script, they liked it and came on board.? With Wednesday set for a December release, Pandey is already on to his next project 3 Large, 1 Small, a ?romantic drama/comedy?.
For UN-returned Tiwary, whose Dil Dosti Etc has been declared a sleeper hit, it was imperative that if he made a film he would somehow fit in Satyajit Ray?s Apu character, from the trilogy (Pather Panchali, Aparajito and Apur Sansar). ?I have been through an intense Ray phase and I wanted to see how the Apu character would develop in today?s world.? So, Apurv (played by Imaad Shah), rich and a so-called liberal, searches for meaning in his life even as he flits through the Delhi University campus.
?I am from Bihar,? says Tiwary, ?so I am also aware of the other India? hence the Sanjay Mishra character played by Shreyas Talpade.? The film is a tussle between the new/liberal and the old/conservative. While the mixed reviews to the film hurt Tiwary, the audience reaction has been an overwhelming experience. He is in talks with a big production house for his next venture, a Mumbai-based story. Tiwary says though it?s not getting easy, there?s a big churning happening in the industry, which is going through an interesting phase.
?The best thing is that many people are trying out new things,? says Kher. For instance, Imtiaz Ali wanted to do a film about meeting people in journeys ? ?in-transit relationships?. So, he made Geet (Kareena Kapoor) and Aditya (Shahid Kapoor) take a whirlwind trip of India from Rajasthan to Punjab, Shimla to the highway to Leh, Mumbai and so forth. He shot it in real locations, ?because you never have the splendour of the real thing if we put up sets.? The cast and crew, therefore, travelled all over for three months, shot in extreme temperatures, and Ali is happy that Jab We Met ?has the smell of the country?. He himself is from everywhere ? ?I?m actually from Jamshedpur, studied in Delhi and am now based in Mumbai? ? and that is integral to how he views his film-making.
For ad filmmaker Navdeep Singh, making his first feature Manorama? was quite a different experience. ?First, I had to learn to live with it much longer, unlike an ad film which gets over in 30 seconds flat. It took me a while to come to grips with the different format of story-telling.?
And while the response to the film has been largely very positive, Singh admits that some people ?found it slow?. So, for his next film, he is likely to make the length shorter ? ?because a film has to be commercially viable so that you can make the next one? ? without changing the pace.
Ask him whether it?s easier to tell the stories one wants to in Bollywood now, and he laughs: ?It?s definitely easier, but you still can?t make a big-budget alternative film.? No, mindsets have to change more for that to happen.