You would never expect that a celebrated director, whose work explores such complicated and controversial issues as child widows in colonial India and domestic violence in immigrant families, would find inspiration in the mundane mishaps of Toronto’s mayor, Rob Ford. But in fact, Deepa Mehta claims that our fair city and all its colourful inhabitants provide a bottomless well of ideas for characters and stories she pours into her films.
“A lot of people have landed in Toronto by way of other places,” Mehta says in explaining what makes our city particularly interesting. “That makes for a lot of good stories to tell. It is very alive and has a strong appreciation for good food, art, culture, movies — all the things I love. And Mayor Ford — hard one to beat for amusement,” she jokes from India, where she spends the balance of her time, when not at her Annex home in Toronto.
Her attention to detail and interest in the nuances of everyday relationships led her very naturally to working with acclaimed author Salman Rushdie on her latest film, Midnight’s Children, premiering at the Toronto International Film Festival this month. Like Mehta, Rushdie’s work often deals with post-colonial topics, drawing from history and real-life experiences, which he then twists into magic, surrealist tales. Midnight’s Children, his second novel, was published in 1981 and an instant success, catapulting the Indian-British writer to the top of the literary A-list.
Over the past three decades, he was approached several times about turning the book into a film, and more than once it was attempted — but ultimately, for one reason or another, it failed to get made.
And even though Mehta became the first successful filmmaker to take on this complex book as a subject, it took her several years to even conceive of the project.
“I read Midnight’s Children in the winter of 1982 in Delhi,” she says. “I remember distinctly talking about the wonder of it all with a friend — specifically about the cinematic nature of the writing. But the thought of filming it never crossed my mind. I think I was too much in awe of the novel to even think about an adaptation.”
Fast-forward 26 years, and Mehta and Rushdie are sitting across from each other in a Toronto restaurant discussing this very idea. It was as simple as Mehta feeling suddenly and inexplicably prompted to ask who owned the rights to the book. “To this day, I don’t know what made me ask about Midnight’s Children,” she says. “But I did.”
When Rushdie explained that he, in fact, still owned the rights, Mehta didn’t hesitate in asking him next if she could option it. He immediately replied yes. “It was that simple,” Mehta says.
Since then, Mehta and Rushdie have enjoyed a very close working relationship, collaborating on everything from creating the script to casting the actors — Rushdie even provides voice-over narration in the film, which traces the lives of two babies switched at birth in a Bombay hospital at the hour India proclaimed its independence from Britain. What follows is the chronicle of a nation struggling to redefine itself, told through the intertwining lives of children who possess special powers by virtue of being born near the hour of India’s own rebirth.
The story deals with some controversial aspects of India’s history — subject matter which Mehta, who was born in Punjab and studied in Delhi before moving to Canada in 1973, has never shied away from. Her 2005 film Water, for which she received an Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Language Film, explores the lives of five widows living at an ashram in Varanasi, the oldest city in India. Filming was interrupted by violent protestors who went so far as to burn the set, throwing pieces of it into the Ganges River, angry that her film would portray their cultural history in a negative light. In the end, the cast and crew relocated to Sri Lanka where the film was ultimately completed.
Almost a decade earlier, Mehta similarly faced backlash for Fire, the first film in her Elements trilogy, which Water concludes. One of the first mainstream films to deal openly with homosexuality in India, Fire itself came under fire after its release and theatres in Mumbai were stormed by protestors.
But in both cases, the films also got people talking, and that is ultimately what Mehta hopes to achieve when she sets out to create a film: “Often my goal is to reveal what is not being said,” she explains. Perhaps, for that very reason, she remains undeterred by the harsh criticism she faced.
“I have realized the importance of letting the product speak for itself. I can only concern myself with one thing at a time and, most often, that is making the best possible film. Sometimes that means changing locations or having to work a little bit harder.”
Unlike Water, Midnight’s Children was shot in more than 60 locations. “The film was a massive undertaking,” Mehta admits. But now that it’s wrapped up and about to make its debut, she describes the experience as her proudest accomplishment to date — more than her Oscar nomination, her Genie Award (for 2002’s Bollywood/Hollywood) and even the success of her company Hamilton-Mehta Productions, co-founded with her husband, producer David Hamilton, in 1996.
“I can only hope that it is received with the same love I put into it,” says Mehta. “I hope that the audience is pulled into another world and swept into the narrative of love, family, war and death for the two-and-a-bit hours they sit in the dark.”
Back home in Toronto for the festival, she says she’s looking forward to reconnecting with the actors and crew to celebrate this huge accomplishment. No doubt, she’ll also spend some much-needed downtime with family and friends at her favourite neighbourhood haunts, the Host restaurant in Yorkville and Middle-Eastern eatery 93 Harbord. But true to form, it won’t be long before her work takes her to another exciting locale. Next up: the south of France, where she is directing a film called Matisse, about the painter and his muse. “Though it’s lovely in its own right, I’m not sure Toronto has the right look for that,” she jokes. “But I love shooting in Toronto — doing Bollywood/Hollywood here was great fun. I certainly hope to be making another film here in the future.”
Perhaps a biopic of Rob Ford?
