Filmmaker Shoojit Sircar and producer companion Ronnie Lahiri had been in verbal exchange with Smriti Kiran during their masterclass at the continuing 52nd version of the International Film Festival of India (IFFI). The subject matter of debate revolved across the duo’s recent, critically acclaimed movie, ‘Sardar Udham’, starring Vicky Kaushal. Shoojit and Ronnie, in the course of the session that lasted over an hour, mentioned the nuances in their ardour venture, which was launched on Amazon Prime Video, and what went into creating it without compromising their innovative vision for the story.
The producer-director jodi decoded the venture step by step for a packed hall, brimming with movie patrons, students and the media. One of the highlights in their verbal exchange was the undertaking of the Jallianwala Bagh bloodbath of 1919 for the movie, which was shot over 22 days with local artistes, prosthetic dummies and why it was placed at the end of the film.
“All the moments you see in the Jallianwala Bagh sequence are real and drawn from survivor stories. Few things were fictionalised but not much. I have chased the people and I have got the details from them. We had many debates over where we must place the Jallianwala Bagh sequence in the film. Our idea, and writers Shubhendu and Ritesh’s thought was about what we would like people to take home from the movie. I didn’t want them to take home Sardar Udham Singh or even Bhagat Singh for that matter. I wanted them to take Jallianwala Bagh with them. In fact, I have received complaints from people that the sequence is too long and how people have chosen to switch off the movie there. I have told them that they can do what they wish to but for me, it was important that they take domestic Jallianwala Bagh. With that collection, you’re taking home everything. That sequence was depicting the fulcrum of our freedom movement at that time. Everything changed after that. It was a sign of the colonial powers’ barbarism. I am happy I could depict it without a compromise.”
Ronnie and Shoojit had arrived in Mumbai from Delhi about many years in the past to make a film on Balidani Bhagat Singh. But they had been compelled to drop the concept, which laid the foundation for a film on Sardar Udham Singh. Talking about it, Shoojit said, “We came to Mumbai to make a film on Bhagat Singh but when we saw that there was a surge of Bhagat Singh films, we decided to shift our focus to Sardar Udham Singh. At that time, we started studying his life, and everything else that happened around the time. Making the movie on our terms was not easy but we had to find a way. We kept nurturing the film for 20 years. When you have an idea and you keep working on it, you start getting tight on the thoughts that you will play on. Like the Bhagat Singh you saw in the film is the Bhagat Singh I wanted to depict in my film on him.”
While creating a biopic, it’s crucial to recognize what the filmmaker selected to preserve and what he selected to eliminate. We posed the query to Shoojit about this, with admiration to Sardar Udham. He said, “I think that is what took us so long to script. We invested about 5 years to write the film. I also wanted to include what happened on the night before the Jallianwala Bagh massacre. While the foreign audience was watching the film, I was wondering if they’d know who Bhagat Singh was, what the Rowlatt Act was and what had really happened the night before the massacre. I was worried that they may not be able to comprehend what happened and why. I wanted to include all the contexts for every character but maybe now I will do it in a series or something.”
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