A few days back, in a discussion over films going over-budget, a young excited producer expressed his shock and disbelief knowing how films used to cross their assigned budget in the past unnecessarily. Incidentally, the one example I thought of giving from the 90s happened to be of PREM GRANTH, because of a recently posted video of its on-shoot report on Youtube.
For friends who might not be aware of the film, PREM GRANTH is the directorial debut and the only film directed by Rajiv Kapoor under the banner of R.K Films, who reportedly thought of this title hearing a verse in a song from Subhash Ghai’s HERO as “Par Prem Granth Ke Paano Par Apni Taqdeer To Zero Hai”.
Initially started in the mid-80s with a different cast (including Sanjay Dutt), the film revolving around a rape victim got later revived with Rishi Kapoor and Madhuri Dixit in the lead roles along with Anupam Kher, Prem Chopra, Shammi Kapoor, Om Puri and more. Besides, it’s also the last film from the RK Films banner in which Laxmikant Pyarelal gave the music and Lata Mangeshkar sang a song keeping the tradition alive of a Lata song in every RK film.
Coming back to the main subject of films going over budget unnecessarily, would first like to give a gist of the film’s subject that was loosely adapted from Thomas Hardy’s nineteenth century novel TESS OF THE D’URBERVILLES. Rajiv Kapoor admitted the inspiration in his interview published in G-star magazine and stated that the entire story was completely indianized with references of caste differences, untouchability and exploitation by the pandits or the affluents.
So PREM GRANTH was a film entirely focusing on Indian rural regions - its people and the clashes between rich and the poor with a backdrop of villages, farms, temples, powerful priests, the traditional rituals, festivals and more.
And yet (you might find it hard to believe) that one of its main song was shot in the picturesque locations of not India but South Africa.
In other words, even when the story or the subject had nothing to with foreign locations, the director, artists and key technicians all travelled to South Africa (in the mid-90s) and shot a song there with both Rishi Kapoor and Madhuri Dixit wearing typical Indian ethnic wears in some open fields. To be honest, they went to South Africa and found some locations that actually shouldn’t look like a foreign land with all greenery around and shot the song there making it appear to be shot in India only.
I hope you get the irony as this was not the only film doing it in that era. As a matter of fact you will find numerous examples of this in Hindi cinema of those times with songs shot abroad, mismatching with their otherwise completely Indian themes and backdrops adding to the budget.
PREM GRANTH is specifically being mentioned here as thankfully an on-location video of both the shoot and short interviews of the lead couple and the director can easily be found on youtube searching with ‘Prem Granth Shooting’ phrase. And you can literally feel the irony witnessing them shoot in the fields.
Watching this video and seeing the film at a glance, the young producer was really stunned to see the mismatch and kept wondering how on earth they thought of doing it. Looking it at his amazement I told him to better forget, and don’t even dare to study how most of the mainstream Hindi films were being made in the mid-80s.
Switching over to the inspirational chain related to Thomas Hardy’s novel TESS OF THE D’URBERVILLES. Post some reported adaptations in the silent films era in the west, the novel was again adapted by the renowned director Roman Polanski for his film TESS in 1979.
But interestingly even before that, the novel had already been adapted in Hindi cinema in 1967 by writer-director Dharam Dev Kashyap for his film DULHAN EK RAAT KI featuring Dharmendra, Nutan, Rehman and Johny Walker in key roles.
Decades later it was again adapted in 2011 by the west as a British-Swedish film TRISHNA directed by Michael Winterbottom, having an Indian backdrop with Frieda Pinto and Riz Ahmed doing the lead roles.
Recalling the film's public response, PREM GRANTH didnt do well at the box office, because it had an outdated kind of familiar theme/storyline coming in the mid-90s, when the people were experiencing a new wave in cinema as well as TV with the introduction of many entertainment based Cable TV channels.
And it was declared a non-performer despite having Madhuri Dixit - one of the most successful actress of those times.
Cheers!
(26th Dec-2019)
Copyright – Bobby Talks Cinema / Bobby Sing (Harpreet)
