SUNDAY, APRIL 09, 2017 (PAGE 4) BOLLYWOOD-BUZZ Sen and Sensibility “I fell in love with cinema when I was a kid” Aparna Sen’s new film Sonata, will be releasing any Sonata deals with different shades of female friendship Rajkumar Rao is time now. It is adapted from an English play by noted between and among three elderly women who belong to dif- currently in the Marathi playwright Mahesh Elkunchwar in 2000 whose ferent professions, different states in India and live by differ- plays and writings have been made into films. Sonata ent ideologies. They live and work in Mumbai and stay togeth- news for his work makes a strong point about female bonding between er in the same flat though one of them keeps flitting in and in Vikramaditya and among women where language, culture, education out depending on the fluctuations of her relationship with her Motwane’s sleeper and region do not count. abusive male partner. Says Aparna, who plays one of the three women, “The hit Trapped. Among Call it sisterhood or call it female bonding, Aparna Sen, the premise of Sonata is the midlife crisis of three unmarried director, has always made female bonding a strong point in friends, who are very unlike one another. This is an explo- his forthcoming many of her directorial films. “I never intend to convey any ration of the various aspects of femininity, various aspects of films is Newton message through my film. If members of my audience happen sexuality. Marriage, not being married, is being in love, being that premiered at to read a message, it is their call and I did not put it there,” she out of love, having children, not having children…. I had liked says. the play when Sohag (Sen) did it on stage.” There are hardly the Berlinale to a any male characters in the film. The four standing ovation. young producers, all men are not worried. Sonata has been produced by Dipankar Shoma A. Chatterji ‘Jojo’ Chaki, a gifted sound designer, Vin- in conversation od Lahoti, Anjan Ghosal and Aloke Vohra, under HK Studios Production. with the versatile The three women are – Dolon, a banker actor and a Bengali portrayed by Shabana Azmi, Rajkumar Rao bagged Aruna, a Brahmin from UP who teaches we were sure about the character we didn’t plan much. I the National Award within a few years of his debut for was trying to live in the moment and enact the moment Sanskrit and is also an Indologist writing a Shahid. Meanwhile, he has acted in some of the most talked book, enacted by Sen and Subhadra, a truthfully. To get the hang of it I also had to stop eating or about films in Bollywood in recent times - Kai Po Che, drinking water. I had to go through the experience Shau- Maharashtrian which Lilette Dubey has Hamari Adhuri Kahani, Ragini MMS, Aligarh, and of rya was going through in order to find the truth. performed. They live in Mumbai. Subhadra course, as the callous lover in the hit film Queen. In Your work has been extremely versatile. Why lives with her boyfriend who is extremely Trapped, a survival drama, he has only a rat for company do you think you have never been typecast? abusive and she rushes to her friends when in a locked-in flat. In all his roles Rao has imbibed some- This is probably because I am constantly challenging it becomes too much. Shabana expressed thing extra. Sonata spells out a story where sisterhood is the subject, her wish to portray the Bengali woman and Excerpts from an interview myself to do something different. Cinema is a director’s the narrative and the message all blended to make a single even sang a couple of Tagore songs herself. The film is ready You were wonderful at mimicry when you were medium and when you have directors like Hansal Mehta, film. Female characters have bonded in some of her directo- for release in mid-April. very young. Did this talent push you to choose act- Vikramaditya Motwane, Anurag Kashyap, Vikas Bahl, rial films from Parama through Paromitar Ek Din to 15, Park “I prefer not to act in the films I direct but this time, the ing as a career? Abhishek Kapoor, Dibakar Banerjee, Mira Nair, Ashviny Avenue, The Japanese Wife and Goynar Baksho in which a producers insisted that I should. Besides, the character fitted I was good at impersonations but there are other rea- Iyer, Bejoy, Mohit, Amit and other immensely talented real young girl becomes close friends with a female ghost who me as we three are around the same age-group and the char- sons too. I fell in love with cinema when I was a kid. I was ones, you know you are in safe hands and you can blindly died long ago. acters are into middle-age too so I had to agree,” adds Sen. very much like the kid in Cinema Paradiso. I thought of it trust them. 15, Park Avenue throws up a series of female bonding with- It is not always hunky dory among them. Dolon is bubbly, as a parallel universe where I wanted to reach. I did my When you got the National Award for Shahid in the same family – the strange bonding between the two sis- energetic and an extrovert. Aruna is an introvert who talks first major play in class nine and decided that this was what and the standing ovation at Berlinale for Newton, ters polarised in terms of age, mindset, education and occupa- very little, does not express her emotions and hates touching I wanted to do in life. Since then my only aim was to be an what did it feel like? tion, the two daughters and their ageing mother whose fore- and being touched. Subhadra is beautiful, looks after herself actor in films. It feels great when people recognise the hard work that head is forever creased with worry lines for her younger daugh- well but is confused about her life and her decisions. These What criteria do you apply while accepting a we put in together in a film.. Awards are very encouraging ter and for the possessive attitude of her older one, and so on. oppositions create internal tensions as they are so different. Paromitar Ek Din tackles the friendship between a moth- role? and inspiring for me. It makes my belief stronger that I am “The cosmopolitan character of Mumbai and its globalised I don’t have any set formula. I read all my scripts myself er-in-law and her younger daughter-in-law though they are society adds to their tensions and their making up too. Anoth- moving in the right direction. poles apart in background, education and upbringing. “The and if there is something which excites me as an actor, I Your characters in Shahid and Omerta are er friend, played by Sohag Sen, a noted theatre director of just say yes to it. It’s a very impulsive decision. The con- film is about the relationship between two women, Sanaka Kolkata, drops in with her boyfriend from Pune and some- poles apart. In the former, you play a terrorist- and Paromita. This mother-in-law-daughter-in-law pair find tent is of utmost importance followed by what I am doing thing cathartic happens to turn the change the entire drama turned committed lawyer defending wrongfully a strange bonding that ties them together though relations in that story, what’s my character’s contribution and who of this seemingly harmonious story,” adds Sen. imprisoned people. In Omerta, you play a terror- between Paromita and her husband are extremely strained. is making it. If there’s something which challenges me as Women are more traditionally socialised in the skills of ist yourself. How does this work for you as an actor What happens to this bonding when Paromita’s marriage to an actor I just want to jump on it. interaction than men and can thus establish links with peo- and a social being? Sanaka’s son breaks up? That forms the resolution - if you can When you have a smaller role which has nega- ple more easily. Lillian B.Rubin in Just Friends, (New York : It’s tough to portray two people who have come from call it that - of this film” says Sen. tive shades such as the ones you portray in Queen Parama glides over female friendship but makes a strong Harper & Row,1985), finds that the difference in men and and Hamari Adhuri Kahani, does this make you the same background but are poles apart in their percep- statement even with brief touches and establishes the link women's potential for friendship originates in their early tions and their ideology. I could connect with Shahid on a childhood experience of the traditional nuclear family, in feel sad, or do you take them on as challenges? with the questions the film raises about the sexist bias we personal level, I believed in his principles but in Omerta, which the mother is the primary caregiver. It is within this I’m very proud of Queen. I knew that it was Kangana’s attach to morality with different rules for men and women. It where I play a dark character, it gets tougher because you also challenges masochistic beliefs like a divorced woman is context that "children develop a sense of self and gender iden- film and she was absolutely amazing. The kind of praise always one with questionable morals, or, that a seemingly tity." For the young girl, it is difficult to establish borders I’ve got for Queen has made me happy about my decision.