From Mumbai with a New York state of mind
By Robert Goldrich
“People in India think I’m more American than Indian,” laughs director Ram Madhvani, a partner in Mumbai-based Equinox Films.
It’s a perception that’s grounded in reality in that Madhvani, while born and raised in India, got his formal filmmaking training at NYU. He made a deal with his Manhattan-based brother, who’s in the diamond business, that he would work for him in exchange for funding his film education, which entailed two years of evening courses at NYU and The New School.
While stateside, Madhvani became engrossed in American music from the likes of Bob Dylan, Joan Baez and Bad Company. “I never went to Woodstock but I felt like a product of Woodstock somehow,” he observes. “Music in many ways connects you. A friend of mine said that while the British colonized our land, one of the great things about America is that it colonizes your mind. My time living in New York was more a life experience than a film experience.”
There’s also a U.K. influence of sorts evident in Madhvani, which he traces back to his days at a British boarding school.
Perhaps it’s this international, multi-cultural experience that has informed his filmmaking to the point that now his work in India seems to be of universal appeal, a prime example being Happydent White Chewing Gum’s “Happydent Palace” for McCann Erickson India, Mumbai, which thrust Madhvani onto a global stage, winning a Silver Lion at this year’s Cannes International Advertising Festival as well as multiple honors at the Asia-Pacific Ad Fest, including a best of show for direction.
“Happydent Palace” is a visual, comedic treat that takes us to a village where nighttime illumination comes from the bright white teeth of smiling, Happydent chewers who are positioned accordingly. For instance, two are mounted on the front of a car to serve as headlights, and others are situated all through a palace–on a tennis court, along a staircase, poolside and underwater–so that they can cast light enabling others to navigate their way through what would otherwise be darkness. The spot’s protagonist, who we see running through the village during daylight to reach the palace, is in a rush to position himself at the center of a huge chandelier. Upon finally reaching that destination at nightfall, he pops some Happydent in his mouth, starts chewing and smiles to cast a glowing light down below upon a dignitary who is dining.
Earlier this year, after some 15-plus years directing in India, Madhvani secured his first major representation outside that country, signing with greatguns in the U.S. and the U.K. The production company has since launched an office in Bangkok, now giving him reach into that region as well.
“Happydent Palace” is not the first Madhvani work to gain recogntion at Cannes. Several years ago he helmed a Bronze Lion-winning ad for The Foundation for Organ Retrieval and Transplant Education (FORTE), which shows that he has much more to offer beyond an engaging sense of ad humor. In the FORTE spot, we see a toy–a motorcycle being driven by a young man–crash. The batteries are removed from the toy and then placed into another toy–a boy holding cymbals–whose batteries are dead. The boy is given new life as he is again happily clashing cymbals. This spot is shot as a moody, atmospheric, almost spiritual piece, giving the message a poetic feel as we see life pass on from one toy to the next. For Madhvani, that poetic quality was essential in that organ donation is controversial in India, a land where belief in reincarnation is prevalent. Thus for some there’s the fear that organ donation could cause you to come back in the afterlife without those organs you gave to another. This PSA helps to gain acceptance of organ donation while dispelling the fear that the donor will somehow be diminished in reincarnation.
At press time, for audiences in India, Madhvani was in the midst of a fantasy spot promoting a new TV set, as well as an emotional commercial for an insurance company in which a 90-year-old man looks back at his life, but in a flash forward fashion. In sharp contrast, Madhvani had previously wrapped a pair of comedy ads–one for Hit insecticide that is centered on live news coverage of a country besieged by hordes of insects, taking on the tongue-in-cheek feel of a campy Godzilla film. The other, Airtel’s “The Search,” has an Indiana Jones-type adventurer in assorted perilous scenarios before he finally reaches his objective, a holy book, only to discover that it has already been “found” by a girl who Google searched it via Airtel. When asked what he is going to do next, our Indiana Jones-like hero replies, “Retire.”
The Airtel spot is from Rediffusion DY&R, New Delhi. The insecticide ad comes from Publicis Ambience Advertising, Mumbai.
Mentor
Madhvani describes his Equinox partner, Sumantra Ghosall, as “my guru and friend.” When Madhvani returned to Mumbai from NYU, he landed a production trainee gig at Equinox. Later while a production assistant there, Madhvani had decided to go full time to the Film Institute of India for a three-year course, but was dissuaded from starting another round of formal education by Equinox owner Ghosall.
“He told me not to go and offered me a partnership in the company,” recalls Madhvani. “He explained, ‘All you learn at film school is film. What you need as a director is to learn about life. Film school might be good for a technician, a DP…but I don’t know that directors learn so much from school. You can learn more here.'”
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Review: Writer-Director Andrea Arnold’s “Bird”
"Is it too real for ya?" blares in the background of Andrea Arnold's latest film, "Bird," a 12-year-old Bailey (Nykiya Adams) rides with her shirtless, tattoo-covered dad, Bug (Barry Keoghan), on his electric scooter past scenes of poverty in working-class Kent.
The song's question — courtesy of the Irish post-punk band Fontains D.C. — is an acute one for "Bird." Arnold's films ( "American Honey," "Fish Tank") are rigorous in their gritty naturalism. Her fiction films — this is her first in eight years — tend toward bleak, hand-held verité in rough-and-tumble real-world locations. Her last film, "Cow," documented a mother cow separated from her calf on a dairy farm.
Arnold specializes in capturing souls, human and otherwise, in soulless environments. A dream of something more is tantalizing just out of reach. In "American Honey," peace comes to Star (Sasha Lane) only when she submerges underwater.
In "Bird," though, this sense of otherworldly possibility is made flesh, or at least feathery. After a confusing night, Bailey awakens in a field where she encounters a strange figure in a skirt ( Franz Rogowski ) who arrives, like Mary Poppins, with a gust a wind. His name, he says, is Bird. He has a soft sweetness that doesn't otherwise exist in Bailey's hardscrabble and chaotic life.
She's skeptical of him at first, but he keeps lurking about, hovering gull-like on rooftops. He cranes his neck now and again like he's watching out for Bailey. And he does watch out for her, helping Bailey through a hard coming of age: the abusive boyfriend (James Nelson-Joyce) of her mother (Jasmine Jobson); her half brother (Jason Buda) slipping into vigilante violence; her father marrying a new girlfriend.
The introduction of surrealism has... Read More