Mumbai, May 31
There seems to be a strong resemblance between Anurag
Kashyap's unreleased directorial debut "Paanch" and his forthcoming
production venture "Shaitan". And Bejoy Nambiar, who has helmed the
latter, says both the films are inspired by real life cases.
While
"Paanch" was based on Joshi-Abhyankar case from 1976-1977, "Shaitan",
which is releasing June 10, is inspired by Adnan Patrawala.
"The
starting point for 'Shaitan' was the Adnan Patrawala case where a
16-year-old was killed in 2007 by his friends for ransom. My co-writer
Megha Ramaswamy (who is also writing Shekhar Kapur's 'Paani') wrote the
film with me," said Nambiar.
However, Nambiar admits that
"Shaitan", like "Paanch", is about five youngsters who seek and get more
adventure in their lives than they had bargained for.
"Paanch" was
about five young people's quest for adventure, excitement, money and greed
and how they get embroiled in a botched kidnap incident, while "Shaitan"
tells the story of five youngsters who are out to have a recklessly
adventurous time but get involved in a botched
crime.
Interestingly, Nambiar has cast actors who are associated
with real-life cinema. For instance, veejay-tuned-actor Neil Bhoopalam,
who plays one of the protagonists in "Shaitan", had played the role based
on Shayan Munshi in Rajkumar Gupta's "No One Killed Jessica".
"The
idea was to bring in actors and a crew that understood the realistic space
in cinema," said Nambiar who also roped in Rajat Barmecha, Rajit Kapoor,
Rajeev Khandelwal and Kalki Koechlin for the film.
Kashyap had the
same idea when he directed "Paanch", which starred Sharat Saxena, Kay Kay
Menon, Aditya Srivastava, Joy Fernandes, and Tejaswani Kolhapure, eight
years ago. No wonder in private, Kashyap refers to "Shaitan" as "Aaj ka
Paanch".
"It is Anurag Kashyap's revenge on the cruel commercial
formula-cinema that prevailed when he made 'Paanch' in 2003. Anurag
couldn't release the film because of its strong content and language. It
hurts him to this day," said a source.
"When Bejoy Nambiar came to
Anurag to make a film, Anurag immediately remembered his own travails as
first-time filmmaker and decided then and there that Nambiar's 'Shaitan'
would be the new-age 'Paanch', but with the difference that this time
people will get to see the story of five restless edgy people who stray
into crime," added the source.
According to the source, the
resemblances between "Paanch" and "Shaitan" are uncanny and certainly not
coincidental.
"Every character in 'Shaitan' has a reference-point
in 'Paanch'. Kalki plays the part that Tejaswini Kolhapure did in
'Paanch', and so on," the source added. |
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