A new ÂDelhi-6Â for Venice
- IndiaGlitz, [Monday,August 03 2009]
Lukewarm response from your Homeland and high acclaims from overseas! You can call it to be intuition or conscience. But it really happened to Director Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra. His movie, Delhi-6, might have kindled only select few here, but it was well received in Venice, where the movie was screened at the 66th Venice Film Festival. It was all due to the timely changes that the filmmaker did before the movie entered the festival. It seems that the director was not at all happy with the old version and the thought was troubling him. Finally he listened to his heart and edited the movie. The new version shows the hero, Abhishek Bachchan, dying in the climax.
The director is now very glad that he went ahead with the changes. He said, ÂI've a new beginning and end. This was how I originally intended the film to end with Abhishek Bachchan's character's death. I've realised there were people who were genuinely confused by some aspects of the film. After much introspection, I discovered where I had gone wrong. I filmed the sequence of Abhishek's character's ashes being immersed in the river. The film now begins with his voiceover announcing he's dead now. So it's now a dead man's story. Everything falls into place now. We also understand why Abhishek played the role so quietly, sensitively. It was such a beautiful piece of grammar. I don't know why I abandoned it for a happy ending.Â
Most of the filmmakers have their way to bring out films, not paying heed to publicÂs interest. And here is this director who respected Indian audience preference but the film didnÂt make a mark. It took an outside land to take a notice on the film. Hmm, donÂt they say listen to your heart?
View 'Delhi-6' Trailers