Midnight's Children (based on Rushdie's book) Dir: Deepa Mehta

[Havai]

So, Salman Rushdie has tweeted that this movie is done filming and now being edited.

I'm excited for it.  While of course I don't have as much of a stake in the story and its faithful portrayal as some people here, I really enjoyed the book.  I'm excited about the cast (no Irrfan Khan, but look who-all else! http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1714866/fullcredits#cast  ...Shabana Azmi, Rahul Bhose, Soha, Shriya Saran whom I inexplicably adore, and Shahana Goswami whom I'm looking forward to seeing in something other than a rom-com!)-- they seem to have great potential for a really swell ensemble piece.

Release is scheduled for May 16, according to IMDB.

[filmcrazy]

I am going to watch this just for Nandita. It's been ages since she has done films.

[Simran_Singh]

I am going to watch this just for Nandita. It's been ages since she has done films.

Nandita Das isn't in this movie.

[Simran_Singh]

Deepa Mehta has started releasing some pics from the film on Twitter.

First, here's Rahul Bose and Indo-Canadian actress Anita Majumdar "as General Zulfikar and Emerald on their wedding day."



(to which Rahul replied "Looking at his expression we know where zulfi's baton is!")

And today "@Actor_Siddharth as Shiva in #MidnightsChildren. An intuitive, strong sublime performance. What a stunner as well !"

[Dil Bert]

http://www.midnightschildren.com/

[Goribollywoodfan]

Getting sure excited about this one! Can't wait to see what this great group of individuals brings to the table!

[Spencer]

The Hollywood Reporter

Midnight’s Children: Telluride Review

2:36 PM PDT 9/2/2012 by Stephen Farber

The Bottom Line

Faithful Salman Rushdie adaptation might play better at a literary convention than at the cineplex.

Telluride—Celebrated author Salman Rushdie has been a friend of the Telluride Film Festival, even serving as guest director one year.  So it’s not surprising that Deepa Mehta’s film version of one of Rushdie’s most acclaimed novels, Midnight’s Children, had its world premiere in Telluride over the weekend.  Nothing less than an epic, panoramic look at the history of India and Pakistan over a 50-year period, the film is ambitious and often sumptuous to watch but not always dramatically satisfying.  The film is seeking distribution, and even with Rushdie’s name attached, this one faces an uphill battle in penetrating the American market.

Rushdie wrote the screenplay, with help from Mehta, the director of the excellent Oscar-nominated film Water (which also dealt with Indian history).  Perhaps one problem is that the film is too reverential toward its literary source, struggling to incorporate most of Rushdie’s teeming subplots.  The result is that it becomes too difficult to find a narrative focus.  Rushdie himself narrates the film, which is told from the point of view of Saleem, a boy born at the very moment when India declared its independence from England in 1947.  The early scenes, which may be the film’s most engaging, introduce the boy’s grandfather, Dr. Aziz (clearly intended as an homage to the protagonist of E.M. Forster’s classic novel, A Passage to India), his wife and three daughters.  The doctor and his family are Muslims living in India, and the film captures some of the tensions that led to the partition of Pakistan and the later creation of a third country, Bangladesh.  Yet Midnight is not conceived as a political tract.  It’s designed as more of a fairy tale about babies switched at birth and a witch with magical powers.
 
It may be that this fanciful tale isn’t well suited to Mehta’s talents, or it could be simply too challenging to blend this kind of whimsy with dramatic reconstructions of major cataclysms in Asian history.  One gets impatient trying to keep track of the vast cast of characters and all the news events treated in such quicksilver fashion.
 
There are moments of wit and charm, and some of the tumultuous crowd scenes have unmistakable urgency.  Although most of the movie was actually shot in Sri Lanka, it boasts a vivid evocation of Agra, Bombay, Karachi, and many other cities.  Cinematography and production design are first-rate, and the lovely musical score by Nitin Sawhney also enhances the film.
 
Some of the performances help to involve us in the fractured narrative.  Rajat Kapoor as the paterfamilias, Dr. Aziz, draws us into the fate of this family at the outset.  Satya Bhabha, who plays Saleem as an adult, brings the right ingenuous spirit to the role.  Seema Biswas, as the hospital nurse who switches a poor and rich baby in her own effort to bring equality to India, supplies the most moving performance in the film.  Veteran actor Charles Dance has a few pungent scenes as a British aristocrat with a surprising role in this family’s tangled history.
 
Despite the solid work of cast and crew, the film dawdles and fails to justify its two-and-a-half-hour running time.  Midnight reaches its tender conclusion without ever achieving the emotional or dramatic heft that such an epic tale requires.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/midnights-children-telluride-review-deepa-mehta-salman-rushdie-367491

[Moot]

I would love to bring some good news to this thread but I can't.

Apparently no Indian distributor has bought the rights for this - more info here : http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/sep/09/rushdie-film-india-controversy-book

[Dolce~oro]

Trailer

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fxd19zXorWY

I wish I could be more excited about it, what with Rushdie being one of the two writers who can do no wrong by me, but it seems like the movie focused more on the personal stories than on the allegory, which renders it kind of pointless. Then again... maybe it's just the trailer. 

[alexaha]

Midnight's Children film to be shown in India

There had been fears no local distributors would risk controversy and buy rights to the film. However Kamal Gianchandani, head of Mumbai-based PVR Pictures, told the Times of India he had seen Midnight's Children at the Toronto International film festival last month and was aiming for a December release.

Cinema experts in the subcontinent had said the apparent failure to find a distributor suggested a weakness in Indian democracy.

The newspaper quoted Ronit Roy, who acts in the film, as saying the deal showed that "India has come of age".
(...)
Its unflattering portrayal of the then prime minister Indira Gandhi and her suspension of democracy in India between 1975 and 1977, a period known as The Emergency, led to the author being sued for defamation by the premier in 1984. Gandhi won the case shortly before her assassination that year and the publishers were forced to slightly alter the text to remove an offending passage.
(...)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2012/oct/09/midnights-children-film-india-salman-rushdie

I had no idea Indira Gandhi won a defamation suit against Rushdie!

The movie premiered in London a couple of days ago, but the official site lists November 2nd as release date. That would be UK release?

[corbie]

Since I have seen most of Deepa Mehta stuff and hated it, I probably won't like it. But then I will probably see it anyway. Maybe she will miss once?

[Darshana]

Yeah Deepa mostly annoys me - I expect to see this and not like it too much too.  Though - Charles Dance!!! I was in love with him in  The Jewel in the Crownbut then shocked t see that 40 years later he looks older - don't like this.  The casting however is worthy of Bollywood, with its intra-fim references to the acting biographies of its stars, as he played a notable fictional colonial all those years ago.

[Dolce~oro]

Well, I guess this was exactly how I thought it would be: a good telling of the family saga, and a not so great illustration of the allegory that is the book. My expectations were very low in that respect, so whatever, there was hardly any room for disappointment. It IS Deepa Mehta after all, I don't exactly expect brilliance from her. It was entertaining enough for what it was. I suspect for the people who haven't read the book all the history bits will seem like a backdrop for the story of the family. That's fair enough.

Siddharth and Shriya were my favourite bits of the film, but the whole movie was like a Bollywood character actors reunion party, so we had fun with that the whole time. Rahul Bose as Major Zulfy and Shahana Goswami as Amina Sinai pretty much stole the show. I was largely unimpressed with Satya Bhabha.

Overall a decent watch. As long as you know to not expect it to do justice to the book.

[odadune]

Only relevant to moviegoers in India proper, but interesting as a sign of changing times: the film was cleared for viewing in India under an "A" certificate without cuts, much to Deepa Mehta's surprise.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/entertainment/hollywood/news-interviews/Midnights-Children-gets-A-certificate-Deepa-happy/articleshow/17610423.cms

[corbie]

Was it gruesome and man hating? I have not read the book and Deepa makes me want to vomit. It took me years to be able to watch Aamir Khan  after Earth.