The anger lives on. Thirtynine years after Saeed Mirza’s epochal Albert Pinto Ko Gussa Kyun Aata Hai, an unexpected remake strives to adapt its rage to contemporary times. There isn’t any overlap in terms of plot: the 1980 film starred Naseeruddin Shah as a car mechanic caught up in a mill workers’ strike; here, Manav Kaul plays an upper-class hero out on a mad rampage. That was Bombay and this is Mumbai. Yet, the underlying themes bleed through: societal alienation, cynical banter and… anger.
“My film is a spiritual heir of Albert Pinto,” says director Soumitra Ranade. “I have simply borrowed the core of that film, which is the anger of a common man.” Best known for the 2003 Gulliver’s Travels adaptation Jajantaram Mamamtaram, Soumitra agrees Albert Pinto is a new departure for him.
A gold medalist from Sir J.J. Institute of Applied Arts, the visual artist-turned-filmmaker has largely operated in children’s fiction. These include books, short films, documentaries and animated and live-action features. In 2013, he co-wrote Goopi Gawaiya Bagha Bajaiya, an animated adaptation of Satyajit Ray’s Goopi-Bagha series, which was directed by his wife Shilpa Ranade and released in March this year. Soumitra’s latest animation film, Alibaba Aur 41 Chor, is stuck with the producers, while prep has begun on Kabuliwala, an adaptation of the classic Rabindranath Tagore short story.
So what stirred this sudden turnaround? To answer this better, the filmmaker urges us to think back to the time of the original Albert Pinto. “When Saeed made his film, India was at a crossroads. It was the post-Emergency era. The entire Janata Party experiment had failed. People didn’t have a choice but to side with Indira Gandhi. I feel, in 2019, we are at a similar crossroads. The elections are upon us. India has the largest youth population in India, but most of them are unemployed. They are extremely angry, and that anger has to be catalyzed in the right direction. I’ve made the film with this context in mind,” says Ranade.
Manav Kaul made his Bollywood debut in Soumitra’s Jajantaram Mamamtaram. “When Soumitra came to me with the script, I could understand his anger,” he says. “Since my background is in theatre, and that too experimental theatre, we have all been through this phase and continue to go through it.” On stepping into Naseeruddin Shah’s shoes for the film, Manav says, “I have great respect and admiration for him. He has an amzing body of work.”
Nandita Das plays the role of ‘Stella’, named after Shabana Azmi’s character from the original. She says the parallel cinema movement of the ‘70s and ‘80s had a big influence on her. She signed on to do the film out of nostalgia for the original. “I’ve known Soumitra for over decade,” says Nandita. “Besides Manav and me, many actors and technicians are either stakeholders or have worked for free or very little. We can all add our bit to the cycle of goodwill.” Albert Pinto Ko Gussa Kyun Aata Hai is slated for release today. The film is edited by Aarti Bajaj and shot by Rahul De. The music is composed by Abhishek Majumdar.