NEWS
EVENTS
What’s about Deepa Mehta’s ‘Midnight’s Children’?
Other | Friday 14th September 2012 | Osh
Indian-Canadian filmmaker, Deepa Mehta, has premiered her new movie ‘Midnight’s Children’ at Tornoto International Film Festival (TIFF). The movie is based on Salman Rushdie's same-titled Booker Prize winning novel.
As we all know, both Oscar nominated filmmaker, Deepa Mehta, and novelist Salman Rushdie, have always been regarded as controversial figures in India, for releasing movies such as Water and novels like Satanic Verses respectively. It is expected then, that their combination might be a mess for the Indian audience and their movie, 'Midnight’s Children', might not get released in India.The film has been filmed in Sri Lanka rather than in India because Mehta didn't want to get involved in any further conflicts like those that happened during the making of her previous movie, Water. Mehta thanks Rushdie for writing the screenplay of the movie and presents his novel in the form of a great movie.
Midnight’s Children is a two-and-half-hour movie, portraying the story of two babies born on 15th August, 1947, right at the beginning of Indian independence from Great Britain. The two new born babies are switched by a nurse in a Bombay Hospital- rich born to poor family and poor born to rich family. They are fated to live the destiny meant for each other when they are endowed with strange, magical abilities. Their lives become mysteriously intertwined and are inextricably linked to India’s whirlwind journey of triumphs and disasters.
This movie has been already premiered in TIFF on 9th September, 2012 and will run until 16th September in the festival. It evoked mixed response from the critics and audience, where it didn't appeal the Hollywood critics; it induced enthusiastic responses from the audience.
The book, as explained by many, is ‘unfilmable’ due to its sensitive political content. The film does not have distributors in India yet, Mehta told Hindustan Times. She said it would be "a pity if insecure politicians deprive the people of India [the chance] to make up their own minds about what the film means". The newspaper suggests the film's inability to find a distributor may be because the Booker Prize-winning novel was criticised by former Indian Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi, and the distributors are not willing to antagonise India's present government. India has banned Rushdie for many things (Satanic Verses and Jaipur Literary Festival) but there is still a little hope that this movie might be released in India sooner or later.
Anyways, it will release internationally on 2d November, 2012. The trailer below might arouse you to watch this movie asap.
Shavy Malhotra
