The Forest, my film and save our tigers
My next one is a feature film - its called The Forest.
A thriller with an environmental conscience. Instead of preaching to the converted (wildlife documentaries), I thought that I need to / could do something significant about the wildlife crisis that is staring us in the face, not only global warming and devastating effects of destruction on the planet, but focus on the most callous destruction of all - poaching, killing animals for skins and bones - to satisfy some ancient quirk of distant Chinese and Tibetan patrons.
That too in the most cruel manner devised. Modern day poachers are not hunters. They are assembly line killers. They prefer to bait / trap often letting the animal writhe and thrash around for hours rather than kill an animal with a bullet. Moreover, our national parks have become sanctuaries not for animals but private hunting grounds for the likes of Sansar Chand and his ilk. Look him up on Google. Its horrifying what he's single handedly been allowed to get away with.
If people can come to my movie to be entertained, thrilled and horrified and by tickling those senses I can saliently highlight the spendour of our jungles and their imminent destruction then I would have achieved what I set out to do.
The Forest is an original story set in a semi period setting. I imagined the Kumaon of Jim Corbett and much of the leopard behavior in the film is based on his man-eater tales, specially that of Rudraprayag. But more so, it is recreating his spirit and the spell his lucid storytelling cast on me. And an homage to the many many hours spent in uncomfortable hides, the courage that comes of stalking a man-eater at night in the Indian jungle. Only someone who has been to the jungle on a moon-less night (or even a full moon night for that matter) can actually appreciate the quality of silky darkness and place into proper context what those exploits meant.
The wildlife elements of the film have been shot by Naresh and his brother Rajesh Bedi, arguably the finest cinematographers of Indian wildlife. It is a pleasure to come to those images every morning on my editing table. And as the film takes final shape, I can only reiterate that they've made Corbett National Park and Bandavgarh National Park look spectacular.
It is that flavor that surrounds the characters, yuppies from New Delhi who go to the jungle to sort out their rocky marriage. Its that sort of respect for the environment that I decided to make my debut feature around. Highly recommend reading Corbett's deeply entertaining and pleasurable accounts of his hunting expeditions in Kumaon and Garwal. Pick up any of his books. Specially Man Eaters of Kumaon.
When the 'west' thinks wildlife or safari they think of the African bush. Hopefully after seeing The Forest they would want to come and see the tiger. See the destruction of our forests. See that this beast that has proliferated in our sub-continent for thousands of years has come close to extinction. See that if the tiger becomes extinct, then the entire ecosystem that is constructed around it will also fail and rapidly decline. And maybe that would be a small contribution to the valiant efforts of WPSI (Wildlife Protection Society of India), Vallmik Thapar, Fateh Singh Rathore, Ullas Karant, Ashok Kumar and the small band of conservationists, NGOs and dedicated forest officials around the country who have given their lives in the face of daunting odds to the project of saving the tiger, though even the most optimistic of them give the tiger not more than four or five years more in the wild.
Though, as I write this, a glimmer of hope shines through this morning's paper carries headlines about how the PM has got the Army involved (for the first time) in wildlife protection.
Will that change things? I certainly hope so.
A thriller with an environmental conscience. Instead of preaching to the converted (wildlife documentaries), I thought that I need to / could do something significant about the wildlife crisis that is staring us in the face, not only global warming and devastating effects of destruction on the planet, but focus on the most callous destruction of all - poaching, killing animals for skins and bones - to satisfy some ancient quirk of distant Chinese and Tibetan patrons.
That too in the most cruel manner devised. Modern day poachers are not hunters. They are assembly line killers. They prefer to bait / trap often letting the animal writhe and thrash around for hours rather than kill an animal with a bullet. Moreover, our national parks have become sanctuaries not for animals but private hunting grounds for the likes of Sansar Chand and his ilk. Look him up on Google. Its horrifying what he's single handedly been allowed to get away with.
If people can come to my movie to be entertained, thrilled and horrified and by tickling those senses I can saliently highlight the spendour of our jungles and their imminent destruction then I would have achieved what I set out to do.
The Forest is an original story set in a semi period setting. I imagined the Kumaon of Jim Corbett and much of the leopard behavior in the film is based on his man-eater tales, specially that of Rudraprayag. But more so, it is recreating his spirit and the spell his lucid storytelling cast on me. And an homage to the many many hours spent in uncomfortable hides, the courage that comes of stalking a man-eater at night in the Indian jungle. Only someone who has been to the jungle on a moon-less night (or even a full moon night for that matter) can actually appreciate the quality of silky darkness and place into proper context what those exploits meant.
The wildlife elements of the film have been shot by Naresh and his brother Rajesh Bedi, arguably the finest cinematographers of Indian wildlife. It is a pleasure to come to those images every morning on my editing table. And as the film takes final shape, I can only reiterate that they've made Corbett National Park and Bandavgarh National Park look spectacular.
It is that flavor that surrounds the characters, yuppies from New Delhi who go to the jungle to sort out their rocky marriage. Its that sort of respect for the environment that I decided to make my debut feature around. Highly recommend reading Corbett's deeply entertaining and pleasurable accounts of his hunting expeditions in Kumaon and Garwal. Pick up any of his books. Specially Man Eaters of Kumaon.
When the 'west' thinks wildlife or safari they think of the African bush. Hopefully after seeing The Forest they would want to come and see the tiger. See the destruction of our forests. See that this beast that has proliferated in our sub-continent for thousands of years has come close to extinction. See that if the tiger becomes extinct, then the entire ecosystem that is constructed around it will also fail and rapidly decline. And maybe that would be a small contribution to the valiant efforts of WPSI (Wildlife Protection Society of India), Vallmik Thapar, Fateh Singh Rathore, Ullas Karant, Ashok Kumar and the small band of conservationists, NGOs and dedicated forest officials around the country who have given their lives in the face of daunting odds to the project of saving the tiger, though even the most optimistic of them give the tiger not more than four or five years more in the wild.
Though, as I write this, a glimmer of hope shines through this morning's paper carries headlines about how the PM has got the Army involved (for the first time) in wildlife protection.
Will that change things? I certainly hope so.
1 Comments:
Excellent advice Ashvin, to read any of Jim Corbett's books about India and her wildlife. He became a hunter almost by necessity for the family pot - his mother was a widow with quite a few children to feed - but eventually turned to hunting with a camera as well as the gun, which later he restricted to use in despatching maneaters that preyed upon terrified village people with little protection.
His books are packed with detail and his sharp observance of Indian village life. His account of the long pursuit he had after the maneating leopard of Rudraprayag is quite terrifying in its suspense. I re-read it recently and found it just as gripping as I once did as a ten year-old having a late (forbidden) reading session under the bedclothes with a torch!
It has always been difficult to reconcile the needs of man with the needs of the wildlife that surrounds him and particularly so in a country like India with an expanding population and continual economic pressures on even the rural poor.
I hope the Prime Minister's plan to involve the army in protection of Indian wildlife and against illegal poaching pays off. The reformed Jim Corbett would approve wholeheartedly.
Good luck with your film, Ashvin. I saw some very early telecine rushes and I can confirm that the forest photography was looking stunningly beautiful, even at that early stage.
Even a fictionalised account filmed in the forest can help by show how precious it is add to pressures to conserve the flora and fauna that make it so. When it is a really good story than the environmental message goes in deeper and travels wider.
I look forward to seeing Forest in all its majesty, on the big screen.
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