With more Indian films showcased at the Toronto Film Festival than ever before, Indian cinema has never had it this good at any major film festival.
The 32nd Toronto Film Festival, which opened earlier this month, had as many as eight films with an “Indian connection” making it to the festival’s various sections — and many Bollywood stars were visible on the red carpet.
The most visible was Shekhar Kapur, who was accompanied by Cate Blanchett, Geoffrey Rush and Clive Owen. Kapur’s new historical drama, “Elizabeth: The Golden Age,” premiered Sunday, Sept. 9 and stars Blanchett as the monarch who must deal with treachery in her court and conflict between Protestants and Catholics during her reign. (This is the second time Blanchett has donned the crown of Elizabeth I. The first was in 1998’s “Elizabeth,” also directed by Kapur, which earned her an Oscar nomination for best actress.)
The other red carpet premiere film was Rituparno Ghosh’s “Last Lear,” starring Amitabh Bachchan. “Lear” is a story of a failed actor who still believes that the stage or theater, especially Shakespearean theater, is a superior art form compared to cinema. Bachchan, who is said to have given his career’s best performance, was compared by one festival critic to Richard Burton, and to Toshiro Mifune of “Roshomon.”
Other noteworthy films included Buddhadeb Dasgupta’s “The Voyeurs” and Adoor Gopalakrishnan’s “Four Women.” No filmmaker swims deeper in the currents of contemporary Bengali life than Dasgupta, and “The Voyeurs” brings a subtle searching sensibility to this most urban setting. The film, which is about isolation and obsession, was among the five films shown in the Masters section.
“Four Women,” also shown in the Master’s section, distills stories of four women with archetypal roles — prostitute, virgin, housewife and spinster — all of whom are expected to submit to the fates society has chosen for them. “Four Women” is a deeply touching film, a universal story that resonates.
Adding to the roster is Santosh Sivan’s “Before the Rains,” a story of lust and inequities in colonial India which was shown in the Contemporary World Cinema section. Rahul Bose, the lead in the film, plays a British planter in colonial India who wants to build a road to the hills to commercially tap the spices grown there.
Last but not the least, Bollywood filmmakers Vishal Bhardwaj and Farhan Akhtar will have their shorts showcased via “Jaago,” a project produced by Mira Nair that consists of four short films documenting AIDS in India.
Ultimately, it was not mainstream Bollywood films, but lesser-known experimental or independent films, which represented India at the Toronto Film festival.
