Bollywood fancies romantic side of legendary Indian painters
Movies on Rabindranath Tagore and Raja Ravi Varma, you tend to believe, would obviously be portraying their painterly attributes. You are wrong! These are rather tales of ‘breathtaking, timeless romance’. Isn’t it stupefying?
Rabindranath Tagore and Raja Ravi Varma, are two legendary figures of Indian art whose works have fascinated art connoisseurs.
Now, it’s the turn of Bollywood to catch fancy of the mysterious and monumental artists. Movies on the two (artists), you tend to believe, would obviously be portraying their painterly attributes. You are wrong! These are rather tales of ‘breathtaking, timeless romance’.
A ‘controversial’ film on Rabindranath Tagore is not on the poet-painter, but Kadambari, his sister-in-law. Documentary filmmaker Bandana Upadhayay has done a film on their ‘untold’ relationship.
The filmmaker, playing it safe, has been quoted as saying in the media: “I leave everything to the audience's imagination and am not making any statement with the film. I have only shown in the film whatever I have gathered from Tagore's writings." ’Fascinated’ by her character, she researched on her, and arrived at a conclusion that she was the one who inspired the legendary artist. “I was wondering why there is no mention of Kadambari in history. Every material about her has been destroyed.” the filmmaker quips, and terms the film as ‘tribute to this lovely lady’.
After much debate and dilly-dallying, the film that claims to solve the mystery of the artist's relationship with his sister-in-law has received a go-ahead from the Censor Board.
On other hand, after filmmaker Shaji Karun scrapped his plans to paint on screen the Ravi Varma ‘magnum opus’, it’s Ketan Mehta’s turn to bite the bullet rather the brush! And listen to what a starlet signed to essay a role (opposite the on-screen Ravi Varma - hope by now she knows him (I mean, not the actor playing him, but the character itself!) has to say about the film. According to her, it’s a tale of breathtaking, timeless romance.
The controversial character of Sugunabai, the sensuous model, who posed for the artist and then eventually said to have become his ladylove, will override portrayal of painterly attributes of the iconic artist in this project. Understandably so! It’s ‘a tempestuous love story’ after all! Hope that the ‘Raja Varma on screen’ will have time and inclination to paint gods, goddesses and royal portraits!
Isn’t this all sound stupefying, especially when you contrast this against controversial but contextual movie like The Da Vinci Code that draws from the artwork, documents, and paintings of legendary Leonardo Da Vinci?
What’s your take?
