Iranian filmmaker Majid Majidi’s engagement with the world of children is born out of a need to say what one is unable to say otherwise, says Ramya Palisetty
Intellectuals, critics, journalists and thought leaders do hold the mirror to society and government. But when Iranian filmmaker Majid Majidi gets the children in his films to voice the truth with the earnestness of innocence, everybody listens in.
His new film, Beyond the Clouds, his first Indian feature, narrates the heart-warming tale of a brother and a sister and will grow on people and plunge them into a direction that they are not familiar with. Most of his films have a running theme of children and innocence. Through children, the director says what he cannot otherwise. “As you grow older, somehow, the kindness and innocence disappears. The social and political issues in the society engulf an individual and cloud their mind enough into taking polarised positions. Making films about children’s world is a reminder for the adults to hold on to innocence. One should be careful not to miss it or it will lead to misbehaviours and disasters. All the problems we are facing today, all the wars we are seeing in Syria and Iraq is happening because we have lost the thread of innocence.”
Majidi feels that the world of children is very sincere. He says, “This world is a bridge to understand and cope with the adult world. Seeing the world through their innocent eyes leads you to surprising, profound observations. Bitter truths become palatable when children utter them and the message can hit home effectively. Children in my cinema help me to stay away from cliches in my narrative.” And child protagonists help in other ways as well. “Censor can’t really make unreasonable cuts when kids are making a point as opposed to adults.”
But children as actors and adults in the same role need to be tackled differently. Majidi doesn’t start out by directing them. “I play with children and first ensure that they feel comfortable and safe in the new environment that they find themselves in. I wait patiently till they are completely carefree.” He gives the example of a child at a party who sits quietly in a corner and is perceived as calm by onlookers. It is only the parents who know he/she is nothing short of a “tornado”.
The comfort of working in the zone of childhood led him to the next theatre of operations — India — the country with which he feels a civilisational connect and which he chose to break the language barrier in a non-Western construct. And though he is a big follower of the realist genre by greats like Satyajit Ray and Shyam Benegal, he understands Bollywood has its own limits.
During the shooting of his first Indian film, he felt that high-profile directors themselves don’t like the kind of cinema that is being churned out in India but are forced into it for market economics. “The feeling of venturing out of the comfort zone and losing the audience is a risky move,” he says.
Some of Majidi’s Indo-Iranian friends told him that Beyond was a nice film but could be a little different. When he questioned them how that could be done, they were of the opinion that it should have a happy ending. It is a norm in Bollywood and people are conditioned towards it.
But the filmmaker believes that the whole concept needs to be reinvented as the audience is like a child used to being served a certain kind of food. Doesn’t mean they won’t accept anything new or not get used to itIJ “The audience has been fed salty food for a long time and has been educated in a certain way which is wrong. Though the film industry is earning a lot of money, it doesn’t really work too much outside its imperatives. To bring about a change, governments should finance experiments while intellectuals should bring in the concept. Film directors, who have concerns about proper cultural matters, need to be educated to increase the quality of visual culture.”
He gives the example of his home country to illustrate the same. “The Iran revolution was quite important as things began to change. Before that, we were in a similar state that Indian films are in today. That procedure will take a lot of time and effort. At this moment, I will say on Friday, when our film releases, I want to encourage common people to watch it. Even if they do not like it, they will take something precious with themselves.”
The decision to make the film in India was conceived as there is a a lot of commonality between Indian and Iranian culture. “Years ago, when I was young, I knew Indian culture and cinema from Satyajit Ray’s films. When my movies were screened at different festivals across the globe, they received great feedback. For almost eight years, Namah pictures has been following me, motivating me to come down to make a film but I was busy with various other projects. Meanwhile, I made a few trips to India and during my trips, I was searching for a story in Mumbai since my stories are inspired from the society and people’s lives.”
So did he face the hurdles of getting the emotions and dialogues right especially since there was the language barrier in placeIJ But Majidi was unperturbed. “This is the language of cinema and there is no verbal skill set involved. All the crew members were Indian. So that helped to transfer the emotions in the scenes. I credit actors Ishaan Khatter and Malavika Mohanan who portrayed the characters very well. Before the shooting began, we had quite a few meetings where we spoke about everything. Once we were on set, somehow, the bigger part of it was achieved.”
While shooting the film, Majidi faced other challenges as 80 per cent of his film had to be shot in real locations.
The bustle of Mumbai was a big challenge but fortunately he was able to overcome it with a great crew. “When you watch the film, you will come across dhobi ghat and you will see that it is very crowded. It was a limited location and we had to control everyone. We were keen to use local people and at the same time shoot a scene where they are not looking into the camera while doing their day-to-day chores. This posed an obstacle.”
Asked why Indian films fall short on the global platform, he says, “To be global and to overcome borders, a film needs to be born from the roots of the country and its culture. For example, Indian dance form arises out of rituals. But the contemporary Indian dance which is a dominant element in cinema today is far from Indian roots. If the filmmakers keep to their roots, they have the potential to reach global pinnacles. The films made by Satyajit Ray and Shyam Benegal have local culture which is the why they have lived in the hearts of many for years and surpassed borders.”
And although independent movies are gradually developing into a strong sub-culture, Majidi feels it should be inter-connected with the audience to make sense to the industry. In that sense, he finds a digital release limiting. “Films are supposed to be released for watching. It should not be a private art confined to a gallery. Creating independent cinema is not just to entertain audience. Though attractions are part of cinema, you need to inform or gift something to the viewers. For me, individuals who try to break those cliches or stereotypes are the ones who can change the face of cinema as we know it. For example, in Italy, realism emerged when individuals decided to come out of the studios into real locations on the streets. Being independent comes from a personal concern for the society. So one can shoot a film with himself and a camera which might not necessarily be independent cinema.”
According to him, a real independent cinema is made the moment one feels, as a director, that the identity of a country and mainstream cinema is going somewhere else and something is missing in the culture and they pick up a camera to show the reality to the people.
The casting of Gautam Ghosh as an actor in the film was unexpected. A well-known Bengali director, he plays an important role in the film. “I tried to use all the potential present in India and this individual is full of potential in acting as well as directing. When I watched some of his works as an actor, I came to the conclusion that his face matched one of my characters.”
Now that he has forayed into Indian cinema, he has plans to venture into regional cinema as well. “If everything goes well, my next film will be made in Bengali.”