Wide Angle: Zooming in from abroad
What is that makes international cinematographers work in Bollywood? It is not an easy question to answer. Perhaps the best way to elicit an appropriate response is to ask those cinematographers who have in recent times lent their talent to Indian films.
“Big adventure, new challenges,” says Pawel Dyllus, the director of photography (DoP) from Poland, about working in Bollywood. He is the man who shot Mirzya. The film may have flopped at the box office, but those who have seen the Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra-directed movie constantly rave about its look.
“Exciting!” exclaims Sophie Winqvist Loggins, the Swedish DoP who shot Aatma, starring Bipasha Basu. “Working in Bollywood is fantastic.”
The recent trend of hiring foreign directors of photography lends a fresh look to the sights (and sounds) often used in Bollywood films
Surprisingly, there is a sudden upsurge in the discussions about cinematographers, or DoPs as they are commonly known, in Bollywood. And of late ‘kya photography hai yaar’ [What great photography] has become one of the very common reactions of movie buffs coming out of cinema halls.
The elevation of cinematographers to such an important position could be understood when one sees Kaira, the name of Alia Bhatt’s character in the film Dear Zindagi, effortlessly wielding the camera as the DoP. The film ends with her even directing a short film. Nowadays many cameramen do end up holding the megaphone.
The reason for the increasing number of foreign DoPs, their Indian counterparts notwithstanding, working with Indian directors is to give a ‘fresh’ look to their films.
“Working in India and with differences in culture and our style of working makes the work even more interesting and effective,” argues Dyllus.
Dyllus and Loggins are two of the many foreign cinematographers working for Indian filmmakers. Spanish cinematographer Carlos Catalan has been working regularly with Zoya Akhtar. He wielded the camera in all of her films — Zindagi Na Milegi Dobaara, Dil Dhadkane Do and Luck By Chance. Marc Koninckx from Belgium worked on Farhan Akhtar’s Rock On 2. Jeffery F. Bierman’s cinematography made Rishi Kapoor look great in Kapoor & Sons. Greek cameraman Nikos Andritsakis has almost become a citizen of India. He has shot several advertisements and five feature films including Detective Byomkesh Bakshy, Bombay Velvet, Ugly, Love Sex Aur Dhoka etc. It’s generally believed that it was British cinematographer Giles Nuttgens who started this trend by filming Deepa Mehta’s Fire in 1996.
Many of these cinematographers are award winners. Nuttgens has won the Canadian Academy award for Water; Dyllus has won the Golden Tadpole award and was nominated for the Golden Duck award; Catalan won the Filmfare and IIFA awards for Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara; Koninckx has won the Kutxa Prize for the film The Day God Walked Away and earned an Academy award nomination in 2012 for the film Zabana.
The Indian film fraternity believes that there is no dearth of talent in India. They have Santosh Sivan (Dil Se, Asoka, Pukar, Tahaan), Rajiv Menon (Bombay, Guru, Morning Raga), Senthil Kumar (Bahubali The beginning, Magdheera), Binod Pradhan (Devdas, 1942 A Love Story, Rang De Basanti) and many other new-age cinematographers who are doing a great job. But the fraternity also admits that “international DoPs come with new ideas and see things differently.” The Sam sand dunes (Jasalmer), the ornamental havelis in Rajasthan, the eerie dry land of Ladakh, the tranquil Pangong Lake, the bustling streets of Delhi and the crowded beaches of Mumbai are the same distinctive Indian sights that hundreds of Indian films, over a century, have used as their backdrop. But with the arrival of foreign cinematographers these iconic landmarks have assumed a different look.
For example, the city of Kolkata has been shown in films on a number of occasions. But Sushant Singh Rajput, wearing a Bengali babu’s dress in Detective Byomkesh Bakshy, appeared different in the film. Nikos Andritsakis brought both Rajput and Kolkata alive by giving his own touch to the city with different lighting and camera angles, and made Kolkata look ‘new.’
Aatma wasn’t the first horror film to be made in India. Watching Aatma would make us understand the difference. Loggins explains: “Spookiness is about the uncanny and the abject. When you study images and storytelling, you learn how to connect with the core idea of the movie. Then you need to figure out how that can be represented visually in a way that does not communicate to the mind but to the body.”
Interestingly, prior to working for Indian directors, a majority of these DoPs had never seen an Indian film. They started hearing about them only recently. Dyllus says, “Before Rakeysh Mehra approached me to shoot Mirzya, I hadn’t seen Indian films. Actually, I don’t watch many films as I prefer to work on my own ideas.”
All of them love working in India. As Loggins puts it, “I miss India and working amidst Indian film people. Today there are many interesting storytellers who have started getting a chance to say things the way they want to say it. I would love to work here.”
Published in Dawn, Sunday Magazine, February 12th, 2017