Cannes 2010

Udaan Udaan

“Udaan” - New Indian cinema in Cannes

 

by Joanna Tachmintzis

 

It was encouraging to see new Indian cinema represented in the Official Selection in Cannes in 2010 after a 7-year absence,  with the Hindi-language  “Udaan” ('The Flight'), the first feature film of  director and screenwriter  Vikramaditya Motwane.  Screened in the 'Un Certain Regard' section of the festival (where also Murali Nair's “ Arimpara” was last screened in 2003), it was an exciting, high-profile  film debut for the unknown 34-year old Mumbai-based director, and his equally unknown and talented young actor Rajat Barmecha in the leading role of Rohan. It was not, however, Motwane's first visit to Cannes. As a long-time assistant to Bollywood director Sanjay Leela Bhansali, he accompanied him to Cannes in 2002 for the première of “Devdas”, which was officially screened but 'Out of Competition '. 

 

Set, and filmed ,in the industrial town of Jamshedpur in Bihar, “Udaan” shows Indian family life and values in the process of change. Family fragmentation, alienation, paternal role and authority, violence and cruelty, resentment and adolescent rebellion, and the generation gap, are all themes  intelligently presented  through the development of the story of a family and the coming-of-age of an adolescent. The difficult  father-son relationship, and its evolution through the film, is sensitively treated and well acted.

 

The protagonist, Rohan,  is a teenager  who, following his mother's death, has been  abandoned by his father in a boarding school for eight years, and is suddenly forced through circumstances to leave school and go back to live with a father he resents and who resents him. He discovers that his father is a  bitter, violent  and authoritarian man of another age and mentality, who mistreats and abuses him and a younger half-brother (the offspring  of a second broken-down marriage of which he was not aware).There is no paternal affection – only rigid rules and requirement of absolute obedience. The father is a cruel and selfish tyrant, and yet himself believes that he is a good father doing the best for his children. Rohan is a talented poet and writer and wants to study literature but his father is a small factory owner contemptuous of culture who believes in the values of hard physical work and money, and forces him to work in the factory and study engineering. Rohan is a thinking, sensible  young man, who justifiably finds his father's behaviour totally unacceptable but has no choice but accept it, until the father goes too far, and he decides to run away, taking  his young brother with him. The father doesn't care enough to stop them and is only too pleased to be free to make his own life with a new wife. 

 

The  director, Vikramaditya Motwane, started working on this film in 2003 and spent a long time seeking financing. In the end he made the film on a $ 725.000 budget. He co-authored the screenplay with the film's producer, Anurag Kashyap, another emerging director of new Indian cinema. The inspiration for the film came from observing the life of friends and his own experiences (his parents were divorced, he wanted to be an engineer and work in the family factory) but it is not autobiographical. Though set in Indian society and traditions, many of the issues touched upon  are of  relevance in other societies, and I believe the film can appeal to much wider audiences concerned about social questions. It is a film  worth seeing, made by a director worth  watching  out for in the future.

 

Indian cinema   was also honoured this year in Cannes by the nomination of director Shekhar Kapur on the Film Festival Jury. After a successful career in Bollywood, he is the only Indian director to have also been successful in Hollywood. I would not be surprised to see Vikramaditya Motwane follow in his path in a couple of decades.