Aamir Khan is back with another period flick, where the adversaries remain the same but it's not quite cricket.
Ketan Mehta's Mangal Pandey, set in Barrackpore (near Kolkata) against the backdrop of the first War of Indian Independence in 1857, may find it difficult to replicate Lagaan's Oscar-nomination glory, but Aamir is keeping his fingers crossed.
"I haven't thought about the Oscars yet. I just want to entertain people. All I know is that when people see this film, they'll know the man behind Mangal Pandey, the starting point of our freedom struggle," says Aamir. "It was difficult because very little is known about Pandey. Even so, all the events in the film are based on historical facts. I even wanted to visit Barrackpore but it didn't work out. However, Ketan and production designer Nitin Desai did go there for research."
Mangal Pandey: Not Rahman at his best
The two-and-half-hour long film, made simultaneously in Hindi and English, will be premiering as the opening film at the Locarno Film Festival in Switzerland on August 3 and will hit theatres worldwide on August 12. Produced by Bobby Bedi and Deepa Sahi, Mangal Pandey boasts of an ensemble cast -- Aamir, Amisha Patel, Rani Mukerji, Tobey Stephens (who featured in the James Bond movie Die Another Day) and Kirron Kher.
Aamir, sans his now-famous moustache, denies he has a penchant for patriotic characters. "That's not true. It cannot be described merely as a patriotic film. It's about the concept of freedom. It might be a period film but it is relevant today at a time when superpowers like the US are doing the same thing (the Britishers did in India) in Iraq and Afghanistan. I just came across a story which I liked. Moreover, Bhuvan (in Lagaan) and Mangal are totally different characters. Mangal is a hot-headed individual, unlike Bhuvan."
Mehta says the script of the film has changed considerably since he first wrote it in 1988. "At that time, it was simply a jingoistic, patriotic film. Farrukh Dhondy (who wrote the screenplay of Kisna) joined us for the screenplay and now multiple perspectives are coming together. We have used Mangal Pandey as a symbol of freedom representing that section of society whose consciousness had begun to rise. People will now know his contribution to India's freedom struggle," says the director.
For Rani, playing the role of a prostitute in the film was a different experience. "It was difficult because I needed to feel like a woman who came from a different society. I needed to have a sort of fire in my eyes and bold body language," she says.
The actress dismisses reports that she was asked to put on weight for her role. "If I have put on weight, it's because of my mother's fish curry, not the film!"
Set to the music of A R Rahman, the film has seven songs written by lyricist Javed Akhtar. Rahman went to Prague to record the music because the huge orchestra needed was unavailable in India. He even made Aamir sing. The last time Aamir crooned Aati kya Khandala, his film Ghulam went on to be a blockbuster hit.
Akhtar says he had to juggle between two worlds to ensure the lyrics maintained historical consistency. "Writing for a period film is a tricky proposition. You have to use metaphors and sounds of the period while keeping in mind the audience of the 21st century. The solution was to create a synthesis of the two," he says.
Mangal Pandey was shot at various places including Pataudi in Haryana, Pune and Satara in Maharashtra and Kolkata. Parts of a disused fort in Jhajjar, Haryana, doubled up as Mughal emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar's Zeenat Mahal.