Loveleen Tandan: Success Comes with Focus and True Intentions
Loveleen Tandan: Success Comes with Focus and True Intentions
by Daniela Happel
A Cinema in Mainz, the bustling cultural centre on the river Rhine. The university's Film Institute has announced a "Week of the British Film" and since one focal point of the Institute's academic research is the film culture of India, two British-Indian co-productions are screened and discussed during the event, "Provoked" and "Slumdog Millionaire". This evening the cinema hall is packed, even along the walls people are sitting on the floor. Many of them are now going to see "Slumdog Millionaire" a second time and all of them are keen to see the star guest of the evening: Loveleen Tandon, the co-director of the Oscar-awarded must-see of the year and also of "Monsoon Wedding" fame. The sympathetic director has been invited to answer questions from the audience and she has also agreed on being interviewed by me.
After the university's vice-president and Ajit-Singh Sikand, who is going to moderate the questions round after the film, have given their welcome addresses and the lights in the hall go dark, we sneak out to the little bar in the foyer and climb on bar stools.
Loveleen Tandon smiles and wants to know my first name. She seems to be amused about my little notebook, and yes, there's no electric gadget, only good old-fashioned note-scribbling in this, so off we go:
Slumdog is a film which seems to have come alive. I have the impression that the characters actually stepped out of the screen and now the story goes on...
"Yes, it does indeed! And now the slum kids have finally got their own homes, I received the news only two days ago. The film has done a lot of good, it is breaking myths about slum life, the slum people are not disregarded anymore. These people inspire a lot, they have so much good will, such a determination to survive, and such a life force. It is important to show this. We also set up the "Jai Ho-Trust" for the kids."
The trust is named after the final song in the film. It provides an annual sum of money for the kids which is paid according to their school careers, and also covers the school fees. The film team made sure that the kids were enrolled in schools. They are very close to Loveleen Tandan's heart, and she was faced with a dilemma, when cast and locations were decided on.
She admits that she had asked herself what would happen to the kids after the film, how their lives would go on after having been pampered for the time of the film shoot and then turned out to the slum life again. But then, she says, "It's better to give a chance than not to give a chance" and so the matter was settled.
The reaction of parts of the public in India and parts of the film fraternity seem to be, well, miffed. And even months after the release there seems to be no end to it. Shatrugan Sinha said recently "Thanks to people like Danny Boyle today the general perception is that India is full of slums and people here are slumdogs..."
Loveleen Tandon frowns a little as I show her the Filmfare issue, and then she says candidly: "This is an actor of yesteryear. Please don't believe that it represents the entire nation."
Envy?
"No. See, India has stepped out as an important nation, so a certain generation is very self-conscious and their self-image needs to be projected in a positive manner. But it is only small thinking. There is diversity in India as in any other nation, so of course there is both poverty and wealth. And also you should never underestimate the audience."
Let's talk about the new generation, especially the female film directors in India. When I look at the films released in the last two, three years, it appears that women make more controversial films.
"What is controversy? That's something which is defined by men. So films made by females are different anyway. (laughing) I would call it a fresh and robust new outlook. Anyway, a film shouldn't be referred to as male or female or feminist, a film should be liked by the audience. The maker should engage in the story and you should hide your message in the story. It should be embedded, not preachy."
Later, when asked about the differences between the book and the film, she adds that whereas a book can narrate fifty different messages, a film can and should only tell one - and that one it should get right."
So what is the next story you are going to tell? Your next project?
"I am writing something. It is again a story of the new India, set in urban India, about a girl's point of view."
She says that everybody asks her to do co-direction now, but she thinks this can't be a career, so she will do a film on her own, without co-direction. As for plans for the future, she adds that she rather goes by her emotions than by a rational plan.
Are you also location scouting while you are here?
"Oh, I'm definitely talking about it, back home, I mean. I don't look at locations for my own project, since my locations are always in India. But I definitely do talk about it. Bollywood does well here, I think, and I am very optimistic, Germans are known to be movie-lovers in general. Our films are very dynamic and diverse, the more we reach out, the better for the industry. Our world is getting smaller and that we two are talking about these things only proves the point."
Where will the Bollywood Masala Movie go from here? Do you see certain trends?
"The masala movie will change with time. Tastes change, new generations come and watch. You constantly reinvent yourself, even in masala movies. Film is no art with a boundary, so it has to be open. We saw it with "Slumdog". We had different reactions in different audiences, Indian, NRI or western audiences. But the reactions were positive throughout."
Later, during the question round, somebody asks her why the "silly" dancing from the masala movies needed to be in her serious film and Loveleen Tandan smilingly puts him into his place.
"I have always liked Hindi film music. It has to be there. It is a celebration of Jamal's life. We have singing and dancing everywhere. This is Indian, this is us!"
It turns out that there is yet another homage to Bollywood incorporated in "Slumdog". When asked why Salim is such a negative character, Loveleen Tandon reveals that he is actually her favourite one. "Bollywood films in the seventies had this motive of the good and the bad brother - this is why Amitabh Bachchan is mentioned in the film. He used to play the bad guy
who is killed and redeemed in the end."
And the song from the film "Don"? Smiling, she says that this wasn't even planned as a referential bit, "but it simply fell into place".
How was it to work with Danny Boyle and in such a mixed team?
"It was beautiful. He is so embracing; he has such great humanity and humility. You learn a lot of him, and he still asks questions!"
What is the strongest memory that comes up in your mind when you think about the Oscar night?
Loveleen Tandan's smile is radiating. "How the stars responded to the kids of the film. Be it Meryl Streep, Angelina Jolie, Kate Winslet, or Ben Kingsley - they all went up to them to congratulate them. The kids didn't have to be introduced at all. It was wonderful!"
Was this success written, as the film suggests, by fate, the answer given at the end, asks someone after the screening.
"Well, you don't know in advance if it will win awards. It's like sitting exams, you simply don't know... and in the US it wasn't even planned for a release, it was supposed to go on DVD straightaway. "Slumdog" has a life of it's own. It created itself. I wouldn't be so bold and quote Paolo Coelho and appoint it to the universe, but it happened almost every day that chance or fate brought about solutions undreamt of, like finding an actor ten minutes before
the shoot was to start. And I experienced this in "Monsoon Wedding" too.
Linear Mode
