2003 release Fashion, which showed the dark reality of the fashion world, turned out to be a blockbuster. Not just commercially, the film was appreciated critically and its actors Priyanka Chopra and Kangana Ranaut won national award for their performance. But it’s director Madhur Bhandarkar tells us that people around him didn’t think I was making the right choice.
“Before Fashion, most of my film, from Chandni Bar to Traffic Signal, were small budget films. And in comparison, to them, Fashion was a bigger project in terms of its scale. There were 11-12 sets for fashion shows. That’s why people were doubting about this move and conveyed that I wasn’t doing the right thing. People were apprehensive. Even after the film got released, while there was a lot of appreciation that came my way, many thought that I had made a very dark film. People from the fashion industry got upset with me because I showed the reality. But all my stories are derived from real life...and I am not denying that. That’s what Madhur Bhandarkar films are about. The incident about model taking drugs and affair with married man was all true. Lot of people felt that I had exposed the reality.” But Bhandarkar remained unaffected throughout and ignored all the noises around. “I believe, there will always be people who will like your work, and people who won’t and it’s normal,” he shares.
As we ask him to take a trip down the memory lane, and share the experiences of shooting the cult film, Bhandarkar gives a wide smile and recalls how the atmosphere on the set was always cheerful. “No matter how intense the next scene was, I was always cracking jokes, mimicking people and having fun, so much so that Priyanka sometimes used to request me to stop it because she had to give a very emotional shot and she wanted to give the right expressions. The same happened when she was about to shoot the part where her character cries while looking in the mirror. She shot it at 12 in the night, in an apartment. Nobody would believe if I tell them that she was laughing holding her stomach just before the scene. But she performed it really well. Moreover I had clarity of what I want and how I want it, and hence I could navigate her..and for that matter all my characters. I didn’t do rehearsals or workshops. It was very impromptu,” he recalls.
{{/usCountry}}As we ask him to take a trip down the memory lane, and share the experiences of shooting the cult film, Bhandarkar gives a wide smile and recalls how the atmosphere on the set was always cheerful. “No matter how intense the next scene was, I was always cracking jokes, mimicking people and having fun, so much so that Priyanka sometimes used to request me to stop it because she had to give a very emotional shot and she wanted to give the right expressions. The same happened when she was about to shoot the part where her character cries while looking in the mirror. She shot it at 12 in the night, in an apartment. Nobody would believe if I tell them that she was laughing holding her stomach just before the scene. But she performed it really well. Moreover I had clarity of what I want and how I want it, and hence I could navigate her..and for that matter all my characters. I didn’t do rehearsals or workshops. It was very impromptu,” he recalls.
{{/usCountry}}Apart from Priyanka, it was Kangana Ranaut character, which caught the attention. Talking about that, Bhandarkar says, “I had a conversation with Kangana and I asked her to focus on the strength of her character rather that the length of it because hers was a very complex, layered but beautiful role. And she played it wonderfully. I still can’t forget her walk. It was iconic. And it was also a game changer for her as she won a national award for it. That’s how the casting happened. After that, we would go to multiple fashion shows and events so that Priyanka could understand that world in a better way, learn how to walk like a supermodel and understand the intricacies of her character.”
While the film continues to touch hearts, there is another side of it that Bhandarkar shares with a story about a man he met in a flight. “He told me about his daughter who was a medical student but wanted to become an actor. He told me how he did not let her see my movies but when she turned 20 and asked to move to Mumbai for her career, he (the father) brought DVDs of Fashion and Heroine and made the daughter watch it. The man told me how she asked the daughter to make her decision after seeing both the film, and her mind changed after that. She no longer wanted to be an actor,” Bhandarkar laughs as he shares, and goes on, “So there is this side as well but I don’t mind. I showed the reality of the fashion world, which was brutal as well."