If a Journalist can sell a magazine by lacing it with sex, why accuse a film maker of selling sex through his film? - Jag Mundhra

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April 26, 2010 (Sampurn Wire):On the eve of the release of his film Apartment, Jag Mundhra tells Jyothi Venkatesh at his office in Mumbai over cappuccino that he has every right to take away his name from the film as the director if the producer takes away his authority

Though you had made your debut almost three decades ago with Suraag, it is surprising that Apartment is only your fifth film in Hindi!

Apartment is my fifth in Hindi till date. Chase, my sixth film, is all set for release next week. I have earlier made films like Suraag, Kamla, Vishkanya, and Bawandar. Though my last releases in English in India before Apartment were ‘Shoot On Sight’, with Naseeruddin Shah and Om Puri in key roles, Provoked with Aishwarya Rai and Monsoon with Gulshan Grover, till date I have made around 31 films in English.

Is it shocking that you have earned the epithet of an X rated filmmaker?

When Merryl Streep appeared in the nude in Adaptation, Michael Douglas and Sharon Stone did Basic Instinct, Richard Gere acted in Unfaithful, Glenn Close did Fatal Attraction, Angelina Jolie did Original Sin, no one stated that they had done erotic films! But when I made a film like Last Call with Shannon Tweed, who was the playmate of the year 1991, I was promptly typed as an erotic porn filmmaker. It was Khalid Mohammad who had visited me on the sets of Last Call when I was making a film for Ashok Amritaraj in L.A, who called me the Sultan of Porn in his magazine Filmfare by putting a picture of Shannon Tweed in a sexy and revealing fishnet body suit. If a journalist can sell a magazine by lacing it with sex, why accuse a film maker of selling sex through his film? That was the time that I decided to reinvent myself with Bawandar. Though you can say that my career has come a full circle, I’d still say that I am trying to push my range as a filmmaker by making films in different genres.

How did you bag the task of directing Apartment?

Though producer Nari Hira and I have been family friends for a long time, I had never ever asked him for any write up about me in his magazine Stardust. Once when Nari and I were having lunch at my London apartment, he happened to mention that he was upset that he was taken for a ride when he made Brahm, and I offered to make him a thriller. Nari suggested that I remake his own earlier video film Shingora, which had starred Aditya Pancholi, Persis Khambatta and Marc Zuber, with Ronit Roy, Urmila Matondkar and Ruslaan Mumtaz. Though I agreed to make it, when I realised that it would need a bigger budget which Nari was not ready to spend, I dropped the idea. Nari gave me the DVD of Stuck and asked me to make it as Accident on Hill Road, but I told him that I would not like to do it since a premise like that would not work in Mumbai.

How would you describe Apartment?

Apartment is a psychological and compact suspense thriller laced with humor. In fact, I wanted to give the film the title 2 BHK but Nari Hira felt that people in Indore or Bhopal will not understand what 2 BHK means and hence had to opt for the title Apartment. I wrote the subject of Apartment, with the working title as Roommates, inspired by a film called Single White Female about two girls sharing an apartment fifteen years ago, when you could not even conceive a subject like it in India.

How tough was the casting for the film?

I had short listed Tanushree out of Gul Panag, Neha Dhupia, Tanushree and Celina for the role of the air hostess. For the role of the small town girl who goes nuts, my producer’s choice was Kangna Ranwat but since she had signed on Rakesh Roshan’s Kites, I knew that she would not be approachable.The moment I met Neetu, I knew my search for the actress was over and I cast her though producer Nari Hira wanted a bigger name at that point of time. Nari suggested that I cast Celina Jaitley, Neha Dhupia or Gul Panag for the role which Tanushree Dutta has essayed in Apartment. The biggest hitch was that all of them insisted on playing the role which Neetu Chandra is doing and I refused to budge even an inch, because I had committed to Neetu. I cast Tanushree when she told me that she was ready to do whatever role I felt would suit her.

How did you zero in on Rohit Roy as the lead man in Apartment?

I had a tough time when it came to casting the leading man because no one was ready to play the role of the young ad executive, which Rohit has done since every one felt that Apartment is a heroine oriented film where the leading man had nothing to do. It was Ashwin Varde of Magna who suggested the name of Rohit. I told Rohit that though on the surface, it may not be a big role, it was a vital role . Rohit had approached me for the role of Sanjay Gandhi, when I was doing the casting for my film Sonia, which has been postponed indefinitely because of the legal notice I received.

Is it why you have disowned Chase though you had directed it?

Chase is a Hithcockian thriller about a guy who watches a murder but is framed by the murderers for the murder. How he turns the table to save his own skin forms the crux of the good looking film shot well except for the stock shots for which I am not responsible as a director. Anuuj Saxena, who is not only the producer of Chase besides being the leading man, wanted to be a Tarantino and juxtaposed the scenes in Chase, by also taking over as the editor. Anuuj does not realise that there is a lot of difference between confusion and suspense, because when you do parallel cutting, two scenes should happen at the same time and not in two different time zones but he was not ready to listen to me. Anuuj told me that he wanted to experiment and asked me to indulge him but I told him to trust my judgment because I have earned my name in the industry after putting in so many years. I know how to edit even at the script stage. To be a good maker you have to be a good editor. If he takes away my authority, I have every right to take away my name from the film as the director too.

Isn’t it true that long before Shekhar Kapoor, you had made a dent in the International market?

Before I made Night Eyes, which was the first film that I had made with nudity, I had not even shot a kiss. The only two Indian films that I had made till then were Suraag and Kamla. I took it upon myself as a challenge to make a film in America set in American ethos without even a single Indian character and made Night Eyes on a meager budget of just 7,50,000 dollars. It made a business of 30 million dollars and went on to become a cult classic. Eventually five sequels of the film were made not by me but my assistants. I have since then made 31 films abroad including horror films like Death Mask and Open House, a police story like Eyewitness to Murder, a crime story like Jigsaw Murders etc besides Last Call with Shannon Tweed, Backwaters, which I had shot in Kerala, Natasha and Private Moments.

-Jyothi Venkatesh / Sampurn Wire