'I can't make unrealistic movies'

You know that you have made it in the Hindi film industry when people know you by your brand of cinema. Madhur Bhandarkar, who started out with the unknown Trishakti, soon established himself as a serious film-maker with Chandni Bar, which dealt with a subject not often taken up in commercial cinema. Now after almost a decade of serious film-making, he is trying something drastically different. In conversation with Metrolife, he speaks about his upcoming romantic comedy and his brand of cinema.

Though he did make Jail last year, the furore about his previous movie Fashion has died down only recently. Mention Fashion and he explains that it was a subject he knew would get a lot of mileage from the media. “The common man wants to know about these subjects. How models are and what happens in the world of glamour. The man on the streets never really gets to see the real picture,” he says.

It’s not the first time though that he has taken a sector or an industry as the focal point for his movie. “I feel that there is a story or a subject in every place. And if you see my protagonists, they are all middle class people. It is because I come from such a background,” he says. But why are most of his protagonists female? “Male or female, they are all common people,” he replies.

With so much serious cinema behind him, he is now all geared up to make a comedy called, Dil To Bacha Hai Jee. “I have always liked comedies but was so mixed up with social issues that I never got the time for it,” he says. But even though he is in the process of making a rom-com, he hasn’t forgotten his sensibilities. “It is still going to be Madhur Bhandarkar kind of cinema. I can’t make unrealistic, larger-than-life movies,” he says.

“Personally I like movies by Hrishikesh Mukherjee, Basu Chatterjee. Those are the comedies I like,” he says.  And what kind of comedy is he attempting? “It is going to be a simple, sweet comedy. It is about three men in relationships and is like a slice of life on the big screen,” he says.

About his cast, he says, “Omi Vaidya, Emran Hashmi and Ajay Devgan have already been cast,” he says. He also mentions his upcoming project Heroine. “Yes, I am making that with Kareena Kapoor and will start it in November,” he says. So is this going to be his take on the Hindi film industry itself? “Not as such. It just focuses on the life of an actress inside the industry,” he says. Well, it’s back to square one then.
Sonal Sher