Arati Kadav’s ‘Mrs’ gives a voice to thousands of women to make their choice in life
Director Arati Kadav has been gaining applauds for her movie Mrs starring Sanya Malhotra. Having had a good run at Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival, Chicago Film Festival, New York Indian Film Festival, Melbourne Film Festival, and International Film Festival of India, it is now streaming on OTT platform. We speak to her about the process of making the film which has instantly connected with audience across generations.
Excerpts:
What about The Great Indian Kitchen appealed to you that you wanted to adapt it to Hindi?
The core story and the fact that it was spotlighting the invisible hard work done by a lot of women! At home, I had seen my mother and aunts go through the same so I felt that this story was very urgent and important.
Did you use your creative liberty to better any sequences in Mrs?
The biggest change I tried to incorporate was in the character psychology of the lead cast to make it more connectable to the audience.
Was Sanya always your first choice for the protagonist?
Sanya was always a first choice. I think she has a beautiful child-woman quality. She’s a very sincere actress and brings a lot of dedication and hard work to the process. She even met a lot of women who were in similar situations and consulted them to make the character more effective. I think she gave her 1000% which is showing in the way people are reacting to it.
You have worked on the sci-fi Cargo, short 55 km/sec and The Astronaut and his Parrot. Was making Mrs creatively different from the other formats?
Mrs was definitely creatively different because I had to work very hard on the character design. Basically when you are making Sci-fi can worry about the character slightly less. But here I had only characters to play with. It felt like micro-surgery trying to get the right performance out of everyone. Getting the pitch of the story right was very important. But I did bring my sci-fi rigour to the look of the film. Right to the table cloth I personally supervised and I was very particular about the sensibility and coherence in that design.
How significant is it to use cinema as a platform to voice women's opinions?
I think cinema as a platform is very effective and important; and the kind of way this one film has created so many reels and videos of women, I just feel that only a film and a cinematic medium can create something like this. So I think cinema is a very important medium where you can tell people stories effectively, especially a story like Mrs.
Upcoming works
Science fiction and biopic which I am excited about.
Mrs is streaming on Zee 5
