Manish Tiwary’s adaptation of Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet is not only about love. The fairly new director tells Iknoor Kaur that the film is a complete package
Most of us are used to happy endings when it comes to Bollywood. There have been rare cases when the directors broke the stereotype and ended the film on a sad note. Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak and Angoor are examples. Director Manish Tiwary belongs to the rare class and has decided that his tragic love story, which is based on Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet, won’t end on a happy note. The film is titled Issaq and is shot in Benaras. “Romeo & Juliet talks about love in the times of difficulty and explains the pangs of first love. In today’s time where love is seen with cynicism, I think the story holds relevance and people connect to it,” said Tiwary.
Before Tiwary’s Issaq, there have been films taking an inspiration from the popular Shakespearean drama. However, the director strongly believes that his inputs will make his film different from the rest. “It is not a two-line take off, my film is the entire adaptation. People usually pick one or two elements from the text and claim to have adapted it, but we took the whole text,” he added.
The one-film-old director feels that it is a director-writer instinct that guides one while adapting. He elaborated, “Before this I was working on another film, Mohabbat Mia, which was a gangster movie set in Mumbai. However, it never took off, that’s when the idea of reworking Romeo & Juliet occured to me.”
He continued, “While adapting I fell in love with Shakespeare. He used to weave situations for characters and kept blocking their ways. We have reinvented all the characters.” Tiwary’s first film, Dil, Dosti, Etc was an urban drama, while Issaq is set against ethnic, rural background.
“We needed an old world feudal setup. Varanasi was perfect for us. For example, we have replaced the clergy in the original story with the priest of Benaras. I found the set up that I wanted for Juliet’s balcony, in Varanasi only,” shared Tiwary and added that he knows enough about the town. He calls Issaq a Harry Potter like film.