Indian director Kiran Rao, who returns with a Hindi-language comic fable, 'Laapataa Ladies', after 13 years, throws the spotlight unwaveringly on women’s lives, their struggles, and shared sisterhood in her latest film.
But she’s equally keen to ensure that the men in her charming satire are well-represented.
Read the full story here: https://gulfnews.com/entertainment/bollywood/indian-director-kiran-rao-on-smashing-stereotypes-and-working-with-her-ex-husband-aamir-khan-in-laapataa-ladies-1.101290773
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But she’s equally keen to ensure that the men in her charming satire are well-represented.
Read the full story here: https://gulfnews.com/entertainment/bollywood/indian-director-kiran-rao-on-smashing-stereotypes-and-working-with-her-ex-husband-aamir-khan-in-laapataa-ladies-1.101290773
Subscribe to Gulf News on YouTube and watch more of our videos: https://www.youtube.com/user/GulfNewsTV
See more videos at https://gulfnews.com/videos
Read more Gulf News stories here: https://bit.ly/2HLJ2km
#UAEnews #KiranRao #LaapataaLadies
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NewsTranscript
00:00In fact, this film actually was made to be able to talk about many, many things.
00:05And financial independence is certainly one of the most important ones.
00:11I did not expect such a sweet movie from you, Kiran.
00:15I always thought you're a bit girl-interrupted.
00:17I kind of didn't think that I had a comedy in me, myself.
00:21Though, you know, when I was young, I used to be called a clown in school.
00:24And over time, you know, I thought I was, that was too silly.
00:27I was a serious person. I was a serious artist.
00:30And, you know, my first film, of course, was very personal, very big reflection of who I am
00:37and my voice as a filmmaker and all the rest of it.
00:40But I think, you know, the intervening decade plus, I've done quite a bit of growing up.
00:47And honestly, when this script was sort of the story I heard from Aamir, I just loved it.
00:54At that point, it was not a comedy. It was actually a drama, you know,
00:58and much more serious and much more realistic.
01:01But I somehow felt like I wanted to do it in a way that was funny and yet emotional
01:10and, you know, kind of ticked lots of little boxes for me.
01:15So, yeah, I hope it's a good surprise for people.
01:19How do you deal with it in a, in almost like a satirical way, perhaps, and then still strike home?
01:26Makings of the story were already there in the script which we got from Biplab Goswami.
01:32The arcs were more or less there. But the actual journey, I wanted to make less direct, you know.
01:40I wanted to use this suspense and, you know, situational humour to keep you guessing up until the end.
01:48Because I feel a lot of these things that we're talking about in this film have been said before.
01:53Everybody knows. These are not familiar issues, unfamiliar issues.
01:58They are actually things that most people, many people would have experienced even, you know, if not this situation.
02:03But some, some of these, you know, kind of perceptions, people have encountered.
02:09But I knew that they could be still made fresh if that journey was, was fun.
02:16And we could take everybody along on this little adventure.
02:19It was actually Sneha Desai who brought the humour and this story to life with her screenplay.
02:25And Divya Nidhi Sharma who came on to write the character of whom everybody seems to love when they watch it,
02:33the character of the Inspector Manohar, played by Ravi Kishan.
02:37With the help of really great writers, you know, we were able to find that little sort of sweet spot
02:44between it being not dark comedy and not full satire, but also emotional, also humorous and also a little bit suspenseful.
02:55There's so many issues. There's about the woman, the kind of like she's repressed anyway,
03:00but how they normalize it in their homes, how they lack friendship, there's no sisterhood, etc.
03:05There's a lot of issues there. So how difficult was it to pack it all in?
03:08When we had the original story draft from Bipla, the broad story, like I said, was there.
03:13A lot of these things I felt could be woven into the story quite seamlessly
03:18because at the end of the day, it wasn't really about tick marking, you know, various things that we wanted to address.
03:25Working them quite subtly into story was Sneha's, actually, artistry.
03:33But this was something that I knew I wanted to do because otherwise, that's why I love the story
03:38because it offered the opportunity to speak about so many things
03:43and open up these conversations about issues at different ages as well.
03:47Older women, younger women, you know, not very macho men, you know,
03:53so how do you make the soft man a hero?
03:58You know, he's very heroic while he's also exceedingly emotional.
04:03So all of these things that I felt were important or could easily be done,
04:09we should attempt to do.
04:12The character that I kind of, in a sense, had a hand in creating was Manju
04:16because I really felt like it was important to create a woman
04:20who could, you know, stand for, in some ways, all the things that I believe in
04:26and also, you know, do things on her own terms but be very accepted within her society.
04:31So she becomes a symbol or a, you know, like in some way a mascot
04:36of a woman being able to be happy and independent at the same time, you know.
04:40She wasn't there in the original script.
04:42Really?
04:43So she's a character that we created, yeah.
04:45How difficult was that, like, to sensitively have both gender roles represented well?
04:51I think it's exceedingly important because often when we're discussing films
04:57that talk about women's lives or women's struggles,
05:00we tend to forget that we don't have enough representation of the wide variety of men
05:07that we possibly all have encountered in our lives.
05:09They exist, you know, but there is an idealized man
05:13just as there is a possibly idealized or sexualized woman.
05:17In the same way, we have these clichéd men that keep appearing in all films, you know,
05:24and our heroes are always meant to be the kind who will protect or be the best warrior, you know.
05:32It's kind of important to break those stereotypes, I think,
05:37and I wanted to do that with all the men.
05:40This film did give us the space to create a much more rich kind of embodiment of both men and women.
05:47We were casting during the second lockdown, so in 2021,
05:51and these tapes were coming to us and I didn't know anything about,
05:55I got the name Nitanshi and I got this test and she was outstanding in the test.
06:00She was just so good and once we got it, we were like, okay, let's see what she's about
06:05and like, is she on the internet?
06:07So, it wasn't that I even knew who she was before I saw her test.
06:12And then when we went online, at that point in 2021, she had two and a half million followers
06:19and we were like, what? This child, she was actually really young.
06:23She was 14 then.
06:25She has two million followers.
06:27So, I had no idea honestly, because I had not seen her work in television
06:32or she's done a lot of roles as a child actor and that's why she's an influencer later.
06:38She was an actor on TV, though we are quick to judge influencers.
06:43Because I suppose they bring something to their followers that everybody looks forward to
06:52and in some way is entertained by and enjoys.
06:56But I had kind of cast her before I knew that she was an entertainer, was an influencer
07:01and I was like, amazing because nobody's going to recognize her.
07:04Nobody's going to even know that it's her.
07:06Because this role was so different than anything that she's been part of in the past.
07:13And she's extremely talented.
07:16I mean, she has a huge, I think a very, very bright future.
07:20All three of them would hopefully go on to do better and better work
07:25because they're not just artistically, creatively very, very talented and driven
07:32but also they have a certain authentic, genuine quality to them
07:37that they haven't been hugely, if you meet them, they're not hugely influenced by their, you know,
07:45I don't know, the fact that they're in the film industry and they're supposed to be, you know,
07:49there's one thing about being glamorous for your feed but actually, you know,
07:55being someone who's interested in their craft, interested in their stories, you know,
08:00also very real is what I really like about the three of them.
08:05Was that the biggest gamble you have taken?
08:07You know that it's not their names that are going to bring people into it, it's purely content.
08:11I could not have done it if Aamir had not supported me because as a producer, it's his call, you know,
08:17he's putting in the money, he's supporting this with his name.
08:21So, the fact that he was very much on board when I said I wanted to go with Fresh Faces,
08:27he said, yeah, absolutely go for it.
08:29It's really because I have him, you know, backing this film that I was able to do it.
08:35Aamir kind of calculates based on the story.
08:38I don't think there are very many producers who do that where he sees the value in the story
08:43and he feels if you do it within a certain budget, we can take the risk.
08:48You know, as a producer, he's willing to take the risk.
08:50There's one bit where you tell women have to be financially independent no matter what.
08:54I think that is one thing that is even also, we live in woke times, right Kiran?
08:58So, every, the messaging is so clear. There's always we have to be woke.
09:02Did you have that pressure as well?
09:04In fact, this film actually was made to be able to talk about many, many things
09:09and financial independence is certainly one of the most important ones.
09:13I think, you know, I feel that would be an ideal for every woman to be financially independent
09:21but also the play on Laapata, I mean, you know, this isn't really a,
09:25this film is not about ghoonghats, it's not about, you know, actually women getting swapped.
09:30It's about women finding their space, wherever, whatever circumstances they are in
09:35and fighting for their space, fighting to find their voices and having their voices heard.
09:41So, you know, this film was made entirely for this.
09:45So, it wasn't a struggle.