By Faizal Khan

Interview: Tarsem Singh, filmmaker

Tarsem Singh watched Hindi movies growing up in the ’70s and often felt bad about not knowing anything about Indian cinema that came after. Except for Lagaan, which Aamir Khan once asked him to watch. Singh, the much-acclaimed Indian-origin filmmaker, who lives between Los Angeles, London and Montreal, loved Lagaan, which he calls the ‘Eleven Samurai’ of cricket. 

After making music videos that won him the Grammy and feature films like The Cell, Immortals, Mirror Mirror and The Fall with actors like Julia Roberts and Jennifer Lopez, the Jalandhar-born Singh arrived in his native state last year to make his first film in India. Dear Jassi, based on the true story of a young woman’s murder in Punjab 23 years ago, won the Toronto International Film Festival’s coveted Platform Prize last September. 

A love story, Dear Jassi is about the kidnapping and brutal killing of Indian-Canadian Jaswinder Kaur ordered by her family in Punjab for marrying Sukhwinder Singh, a farm labourer in Punjab, she met during a visit to her native village. While Dear Jassi is expecting theatrical release in India later this year, a 4K director’s cut of his 2006 fantasy film, The Fall, will be screened at next month’s Locarno Film Festival in Switzerland. Singh speaks with Faizal Khan about the ‘wonderful experience’ of his first film production in India and his plans for more projects in the country in the future. Excerpts from an interview:

Why did it take you so long to make a movie in India?

It was the subject matter I was really interested in. I was working all the time, doing movies, commercials and music videos. This was a perfect pause during Covid-19 and I remembered the story and pitched it to the guys and they just said they are in and I said, yes, let’s go do it. 

Also the subject matter—the murder of Indian-Canadian Jaswinder Kaur by her family in Canada for marrying a village boy in Punjab—happened near Jalandhar, my hometown, and kind of my place in Canada and similar to the place when I first came to the United States. So I kind of knew what realism in that place was. I could smell what the gobar smelled like in Punjab. I could smell the mushroom farms. I was familiar with the two worlds—Punjab and Canada—and thought this is something I should grab.

When was the first time you came across the tragic true love story of the young couple?

When it happened, the image struck in my mind. It happened 23 years ago. When I first heard about it, I told my brother this looks like something really I could put my teeth into. I told him I could even write it right now. And the reason we waited was I ended up going to Hollywood and had a lot of projects. I said if we make it right now, we can’t finish it in two or three years. 

We make it now or wait for two decades when it becomes retro. Suddenly two decades later somebody called me and said you want to do something and I said there is this subject matter in the back of my head. It happened immediately. So I wouldn’t say I was prepping it, preparing for it. I thought the time was right. 

You must have certainly had several other ideas for your first Indian film. What made you choose this story?

There was just something in it that was unique. I wish it wasn’t called ‘honour killing’ in English which is a horrible word. It doesn’t exist in any language. You take a horrendous homicide by families that murder their own children and siblings and call it ‘honour killing’ as if it is a leg you stand on. 

I wish the subject was unique enough, but it is not. However, what is unique about this was that I heard there was a telephone call. The mother of the young woman was given a call by her kidnappers, trying to give her another chance. She could have done something, but the words she used, of course, you can take it with a grain of salt because the mother denied it, it was so shockingly authentic. I thought if this is true, and it could be, in what world is this even believable that a mother would utter such a word. So I had to create a world where, it is like, we will buy it. That is what started the whole thing. 

I backtracked the whole movie. It is reverse engineered from that conversation. Unfortunately you think that is where the matter ends, but it actually became much worse. But I was not interested in telling the rest of the story.

There are many references in the film to the violence in Punjab in the ’80s that scarred the lives of the youth. Very subtle references, but it is almost like you are looking back to these times through the murder of this innocent young Punjabi woman.

It is. But like you say, it is subtle. It is the backdrop. For me, I was interested in the love story. I am telling a Romeo and Juliet story. We all know what happened in the ’90s. I wasn’t interested in the political background of it. I was more interested in talking about people migrating to other countries because I find they become at least two decades more behind the place that they leave. When you go away, no matter you forget the horrors of the place you were living, you tend to romanticise it. You are singing songs about the place you just wanted to get the hell out of. The place back home has moved on. They might have become more liberal, they might not be on the side that you are on. You have no connection. That is why always in history the people who leave start supporting causes that look quite outdated back home.

How did you prepare for this period drama set in the ’90s?

I went to the border right by Pakistan to find the village that was stuck in time. I wasn’t interested in spending money in any art direction to make it, period. We shot the film there.

What about filming the other side of the story in Canada where the young woman and her family lived?

I shot the film in the real place where the girl and her family lived. I actually wanted to film in her house, but we couldn’t get it. We thought the house had been sold.

I didn’t want to approach either side of the families. I shot ten stops away from where she worked in Canada. We shot for six weeks early last year in India. It was one of the loveliest, easiest shoots I have ever done. The cast and the people were amazing. 

What was the process of casting?

The leads—the young couple—were very difficult to find. After weeks and weeks of looking, I finally asked the team to go to a kabaddi ground and come back with the lead actor. They came back with two people and I picked one. He was a kabbadi player. I lost the girl in Canada who was supposed to play the role of the young woman. Later, out of the blue I called some of my cousins in Canada and asked if they knew anybody who was a bhangra dancer. One of the four bhangra dance groups I talked to said they knew a girl who wanted to act in movies.

I talked to her. She was 20, the exact age of her character. I told her, you are a girl. Later I found out that she had actually auditioned for the part and I hadn’t received her video. She was born in India and grew up in Vancouver where she arrived with her parents as a six-year-old. She had the right background for the role.

You didn’t write the script yourself.

The writer, Amit Rai (OMG2, Road to Sangam) was amazing, he wrote the structure brilliantly. I only had one conversation with him and told him this is the story and it ends here. He is a very spiritual person. I am not. I have been an atheist since I was a child. He went to some hotel and he said the young girl’s spirit kind of possessed him and wrote it in one go. 

When he sent it to me it was at least half-an-hour longer than I wanted. So I said I need to cut out the childhood and didn’t want to deal with the political problem. I speak Punjabi very fluently, but I can’t read it. It was a wonderful experience to work with these people, who would read out the script, which is in Punjabi, to me. 

What is the release plan for India?

I expect the film will be released soon in India and it reaches the eyeballs of the committee that selects the country’s Oscar entry for the Best International Film for this year. It doesn’t have to be a big commercial release. I have been running around the globe trying to do the festivals with the film. 

You have worked with major stars and bands in the world of cinema and music like Deep Forest and R.E.M. One of your last music videos was Lady Gaga: 911 released in 2020.

I have been doing music videos for 28 years from right out of college. I am very particular with music. I like classical and folk music. I don’t charge a fee for music videos and it takes me a long time to come up with an idea. When Gaga sent me a song, I didn’t know her music at all. I told her that and she went, oh, that is fair. The only thing was I knew exactly what to do with this song. I told that and she cried and said you make me a list of what we can do. 

Would you be working more in India in the future?

I have a couple of projects that I want to do also in India. I don’t know, they are very expensive and unless things lined up it could happen like Dear Jassi. We waited for 23 years and the first person I talked to, we made it in two months. There are a couple of commercial ideas, but I don’t know how long it would take to come together. If it happens, I will make it immediately and if it doesn’t, yeah. 

Faizal Khan is a freelancer