NEW DELHI : Bollywood’s first sci-fi film, “Mr. India,” was screened at the BFI Southbank in London on Sunday. Sridevi, the late actor’s husband, Boney Kapoor, and co-producer of the highly successful film, attended the event. The Sridevi and Anil Kapoor starrer, directed by Shekhar Kapoor, became a gem in Indian cinema in the year 1987.
“The show at BFI in London was sold out, and many people who came to watch the film had seen it three or four times,” Kapoor told The New Indian. Kapoor also had a Question-Answer session with The Gurdian’s Mike McCahill. McCahill wrote a blog on Mr. India. He expressed, “Mr. India was the Indian film industry’s response to the success of the Star Wars and Superman series: an epic good-versus-evil battle, wittily scripted by the Salim-Javed pairing and directed by the emergent Shekhar Kapur (a long way from Bandit Queen, never mind Elizabeth), which deployed charismatic stars on vast fantastical sets – the best Bollywood could buy in 1987 – with the intent of rallying an India in crisis.”
Also,in a recent interview with The New Indian’s Executive Editor Rohan Dua, the discussion revolved around how he, along with director Shekhar Kapur, managed to make India’s first science fiction film, ‘Mr. India.’ What’s impressive is that they achieved this without using special effects. Instead, they carefully filmed every part using traditional camera methods, overcoming several challenges in the process.
“It was never my idea. The script was initiated by Salim-Javed and when they parted, they divided the scripts among themselves. The story I had given to Javed sir. Initially, me and Javed sahab were to produce this film with Ramesh Sippy as the director and Amitabh Bachchan as the actor but things didn’t work out,”said Boney.
“The cinematographer of the film was Baba Azmi but the special effects cameraman was Peter Pereira, he was quite used to shooting films which required special effects. There used to be a wire which was darkened and lighted in such a way that the wires were not seen so this was his USP. Then we had Veeru Devgan who was our action director. In this film, more than the action, he facilitated the special effects and the entire credit goes to Veeru Devgan, who had encouraged us to have all the sequences done elaborately. So it was the good people who, probably, came through in a way and made the film Mr India,” said Kapoor.
Boney Kapoor also shared how he and director Shekhar Kapoor managed to make a standard chiffon sari look sensual without revealing too much. According to him, it all boiled down to “romance and passion.”
“Shekhar took it as a challenge; he had several costumes made for that song. Somehow, you know I had seen Sri [Sridevi] had done a song only in a plain chiffon sari. I told Shekhar during the film that it looks so sensual without showing any skin. He said, ‘Okay, cancel all the other costumes. Sri will wear a chiffon sari, and I will make sure that she is far more sensual without showing any skin, and it will be just about romance and passion,’” he explained.