Stills from "The Indian Partner".
More and more Indian films have been released in the mainland film market, and Indian films have almost become the second largest imported film genre besides Hollywood, and the box office performance has returned to calm, and the average box office has fallen back to about 100 million. In general, in addition to the opening year's "Mysterious Superstar" with a box office performance of 750 million, once again proved the ability of Indian films to absorb money in the Chinese market, and then the Indian films released in the mainland have suffered a cliff-like decline in the box office, "Little Lolita and Uncle Monkey God" over 200 million, "Hiccup Teacher" over 100 million, "Toilet Hero", "Baahubali King 2", "Sultan", "Daddy 102 Years Old" have not been able to exceed 100 million.
Despite this, this December Indian film is not absent, including R. Barki, starring Akshe Kumar, Radika Apt and other inspirational entrepreneurial films about women's hygiene products, "Indian Partner", which also hits the year-end shuttle and is scheduled to be released on December 14. The film has gained extraordinary word-of-mouth after being released in India, the United States and other countries, with an IMDB score of 8.4 points and a Douban score of 7.6 points.
Like "Toilet Hero" and "Hiccup Teacher", "Indian Partner" is still based on real events, the title was originally "Pad Man", later renamed "Indian Partner", the film was originally scheduled for May this year, after the change of file finally released at the end of the year. The Beijing News interviewed the film director to reveal the film's viewing points.
plot
90% authentic + 10% entertaining
From the earliest hit "WrestleMania! "Daddy", "Mysterious Superstar", "Starting Line", and "Hiccup Teacher", which were introduced at the beginning of the year, are full of bitter criticism of Indian society, and domestic audiences are also increasingly aware of the complexity and unfairness of Indian society.
For example, in the eyes of Chinese, the extremely normal menstrual period is a nightmare for Indian women. In the traditional Custom of India, women are grounded during menstruation, cannot go out, and can only put a dirty cloth under them if they want to avoid soiling their clothes. In addition, in the early years, ordinary families in India could not afford the consumption of sanitary pads, the normal channel price of a pack of sanitary napkins in the film was about 55 rupees (converted to about 5.3 yuan according to the latest exchange rate), and the male protagonist's homemade sanitary napkins were only sold for 2 rupees, equivalent to less than 2 cents.
The protagonist is archetype Arunacharam.
The protagonist is based on indian entrepreneur Arunachara, who invented a low-cost sanitary napkin production machine, which brought about a revolution in the concept of menstrual hygiene in rural India. After experiencing all kinds of incomprehension and ridicule, his wife and mother also left him, and the failure and rebellion did not make the man give up. The low-cost sanitary napkins he produced improved the physical health of Indian women and became the "father of sanitary napkins" that everyone admired.
Around the end of 2016, director Barki saw Arunachara's speech in an online open class, met the entrepreneur through a friend's introduction, and was impressed by his deeds, he decided to make a movie about women's products that had never been put on the screen, "Arunacharam did not resent his story on the screen, gave me great trust." I didn't even show him the script, and he said he believed I could make his story right. Barki said that according to the original idea, 90% of the stories are based on the truth. There are also 10% innovations, "basically in line with the real, there is a very important machine for making sanitary napkins, and he also sent us a real machine to study." ”
role
Indian "Jackie Chan" incarnated as "Friend of Women"
In Barki's view, no one is more suitable for this role than Kumar, for Chinese audiences, this year's summer onshore "Toilet Hero" is also Kumar as the protagonist, as a Bollywood "labor model" representative, Kumar reached an average of four "high production" a year, although because of the shooting of a large number of action movies known as "India Jackie Chan", but he has made great contributions in changing the social status of Indian women, known by local audiences as "Friends of Indian Women".
Barki said, "Kumar has done a lot of different types of films, and when casting, I thought he was the most perfect and suitable person for this movie, and on the set he could create a lot of surprises and act like anything." ”
Barki mentioned that the scene that he remembers most vividly is Kumar's speech at the United Nations at the end of the film, "We actually shot in New York for only three days, we thought it was very nervous, and I was full of worries about the shooting, the whole speech was almost 13 minutes, but he surprised us with a very natural performance, and the last three machines were shot in an hour." ”
He also mentioned that Kumar will also bring a lot of "unexpected" to the scene, "there is a scene that requires him to walk up the stairs, but at that time he suddenly wanted to climb the ladder, and some of these details will make his play more expressive." The most incisive thing is that as a man he goes to wear sanitary napkin underwear, what kind of scene this is, we never preset anything. But he had been thinking about what kind of state the boys were wearing sanitary napkin underwear, so the natural performance at that time was very successful after only two shots. ”
【Exclusive Dialogue】
Beijing News: Compared with the previous Indian films, the comedy color of "Indian Partner" has weakened a lot, how do you think about the evaluation of the outside world?
Barki: Discussing feminine hygiene products can seem sensitive and unnatural, and we're not afraid of who says we're gimmicks, but rather wants to spark discussion, a discussion of change and hope for society. The whole movie is not only talking about sanitary napkins, but also about family getting along, talking about love, just like many girls want to find a similar husband after watching the movie, and I think it is good to have these discussions.
Beijing News: There are not many works of your director, but the ratings of the films are very high, how does it feel to create a film in two years this time?
Barki: My standard for filming is that the subjects I shoot must be interesting, so that I have a steady stream of energy and effort into the film, so that I don't feel that two years is a long time, because there is always a continuous interest in the project, it doesn't matter whether the film is prolific or not, and like this shooting, we don't have to go on the alarm clock almost every day, because the morning prayers at 4:30 in the morning will wake us up, and I think this project and the shooting experience are natural things.
Beijing News reporter Zhou Huixiaowan Editor Xu Qiaoyang Proofreading Xue Jingning The picture is provided by the film