I am looking forward to Dhobi Ghat. Its director Kiran Rao might be just a debutant, but she seems to carry the spirit of a rebel filmmaker.:bowdown For the upcoming Dhobi Ghat, Kiran has stayed away from all the Bollywood formulae and stereotypes. Thus, the item numbers and Munnis and Sheilas have not found any scope in the movie. We all know that it would have been easier for Kiran to make the most of the weekend collections by adding a Sheila or making it look like an Aamir Khan film, but she has made sure that the film does not lose its flavour!:bowdown
Here are the excerpts from an interview on Dhobi Ghat: Why cast Aamir as Arun when your vision was to make a small, indie film with Dhobi Ghat? [/U] Aamir: Actually, she didn't even want me in the film. I was very crafty about it, though... Kiran: Yeah, I didn't want him. I didn't want a known actor with baggage. I was testing theatre people and non-actors. Arun's character is attractive, complex and restrained. He spends a lot of time alone, watching video tapes. It's all in the reaction. Aamir said, 'Why don't I audition and show you how I can play it?' And he did. Of course, the economical dynamics of the film change when you cast Aamir... Kiran: It added pressure, as it's a small film. There is no way this film will be a blockbuster. People have certain expectations from Aamir. But we became a little more relaxed about the budget, it was Rs 2 crore and went up to Rs 5 crore. Aamir: And you would've never got (Spanish guitarist) Gustavo Santaolalla...
The film ‘Dhobi Ghat' is about four people who come for work in the city. The four are Monica Dogra who plays an Indian – American banker, Parteik Babbar aka Munna ( Smita Patil’s son ) who is a washer boy, Aamir Khan who plays a painter and Yasmin (played by Kirti Malhotra) who is a small town girl who comes to big city Mumbai. Incidentally, Aamir is reported to have stayed in a one room flat in a Mumbai chawl for three weeks during the shooting of the movie. He sneaked in at 3.30 am one morning before the start of the shoot. At night, he and his wife used to draw the curtains and use only candles.
Kriti Malhotra was very hesitant about working in Dhobi Ghat, but now she has no regrets. She had the unbelievable fortune of making her Bollywood debut opposite Aamir Khan. A friend had called Kriti and asked her to audition. Kriti’s first reaction was “Are you mad?” She appeared for the screen test out of curiosity and auditioned alone with only the camera in a room! When she was selected Kiran did not want her to rehearse. Kiran wanted her raw. Kriti at the time was completely unaware of the fact that she was going to land herself a debut opposite the legendary Aamir Khan!:bonk :thumbsup
Kriti Malhotra freaked out totally when she found out that Aamir was going to be in the movie:crazy. The young actor realised for the first time that the movie was going to be watched by thousands of viewers.:bonk Dhobi Ghat, incidentally, is not Kriti’s first association with Bollywood. She has worked as an assistant costume designer in Delhi 6, Sarkar Raj and Action Replayy.:thumbsup Yasmin is a 22-yr-old Muslim girl from a small town in UP. Yasmin develops a relationship with Arun (played by Aamir Khan). Kriti, who plays Yasmin, says meeting Aamir and working with him were nerve-wracking experiences.:hide:mg::shaking::whistle
Hi, I am desparately waiting for 21.Jan to watch it. Some facts about the debutant Kriti Malhotra (lucky girl) She is one of the main lead female stars in Dhobi Ghat. She graduated from Nowrosjee Wadia College, Pune in 2003 with a major in Geography, and also a diploma in Fashion Apparel design. She was first seen in Small Screen Television Reality Show MTV Roadies which was India’s first Adventure reality show.
Do you know that Dhobi Ghat is going to release without an interval? The Kiran Rao-directed movie defies the conventions of Indian cinema and does not have a break midway through the film.:thumbsup According to Siddharth Roy Kapur of UTV, Aamir has spoken to all the multiplexes about it and they have agreed to no interval. Dhobi Ghat has a duration of 95 minutes and is structured to be watched in one sitting without a break. The multiplexes have seen the point behind it and agreed. I feel, nowadays, many movies do not need an interval and they are applied forcedly in the middle of a movie just to sell popcorns and icecreams.:rant
Kiran Rao is a different kind of a person. Born in Bangalore and grown up in Kolkata, she says life for her was quite amazing. She has spent many summers in Bangalore at her grandmother’s house. To her Bangalore was about summer days with blue skies. She associates Bangalore with green trees, the parks, good coffee and food and time spent in the open. She has done her schooling from Loreto House, Kolkata. This convent school boasts of nuns who try to make the pupils “well-turned-out” ladies. Kiran says what she is today is because of what she has learnt in school.
The more I know of Kiran Rao the more I admire her. I read the interview that she has given in Bangalore on her trip to promote Dhobi Ghat. She says that she will never forget the set of values that she has learnt in school. That is nice to know! She is a rooted individual in life and marrying the legendary Aamir Khan seems to have not changed her as a person. On her writing Dhobi Ghat, Kiran says, “I find the entire process of writing very interesting because you can never quite know if there is another way to do it. I didn’t start Dhobi Ghat with one idea — it was more like a cluster of various ideas. But I know you can’t start off without a seed. The first idea that came to my head was the dhobi, and his chameleon like character who is able to merge into the current scenario, is upwardly mobile and actually wants to be somewhere else and because he has access to other people’s lives, and he sort of imbibes those traits in them.”