|
One Dollar
Curry
Basically One
Dollar Curry is the story of a street-smart Indian immigrant
who opens a kitchen on wheels called One Dollar Curry
in Paris.
Vikram
Chatwal .... Nishan
Gabriella Wright .... Nathalie
Smriti Mishra .... Yamini
Trevor A. Stephens .... Fixer
Benoît Soles .... François
Lakshantha Abenayake .... Bale
rest of cast listed alphabetically
Raghav Suri .... Party Guest
Yashodhara Suri .... Party Guest
(more)
Twenty-four years on and Vijay Singh can still vividly
recall his first experience of polite French society.
Brandishing a letter of introduction to Elisa Breton,
Singh somehow managed to get himself invited to a party
being held in honor of the first lady of French surrealism.
Unable to speak any French and so nervous he could
hardly breathe, Singh, dressed in a tattered duffel
coat, arrived at the apartment where the party was being
held and pushed the doorbell. “This lady, the hostess,
opened the door and the first thing she said to me was
Donnez-moi votre manteau,” remembers Singh. “Of
course I didn’t understand what she was saying
so when she opened her arms wide to receive my coat
I assumed she wanted me to give her a hug, which is
exactly what I did.”
It is a scene that could well have been written for
Singh’s exuberant new movie “One Dollar Curry”
about a charismatic, young Sikh, Nishan, who lands in
Paris seeking political asylum.
Desperate to make a living and bereft of any working
papers Nishan hits the street and tries selling curry
out of a bucket. The bucket might be silver but snooty
Parisians still turn their nose up at Nishan’s
endeavors. “Here even dogs eat off Limoges plates,”
Nishan’s Jamaican friend Fixer tells him. So with
the help of the appropriately named Fixer and an opportunistic
TV journalist, Nathalie, Nishan ups the ante and reinvents
himself as the “Maharajah of Indian cuisine,”
complete with mobile-rickshaw. “I wanted to project
this whole issue of immigration and integration which
mean a lot to me,” says Singh who both directed
and scripted “One Dollar Curry.” “The
story is essentially about this guy, a Sikh, who comes
to Paris because he’s lost everything in his country
except his sense of humor and imagination. It’s
with these two tools that he’s able to build a
new life for himself.”
Why a Sikh? Singh who is a Rajhastani attended a private
school in Delhi and many of his friends were Sikhs.
He remembers them as being “probably the most gregarious,
fun loving community on this earth and probably the
most successful: they’re very industrious, hardworking.”
Singh reckons there must be about 5 000 Sikhs in France,
many of whom came here during the 1980s as political
asylum seekers.
To play the part of Nishan, Singh opted for an unknown,
at least in acting circles. His search led him to Vikram
Chatwal the playboy son of a wealthy New York hotelier.
Singh found out about Chatwal after his niece showed
him some photos of the young Sikh posing in Vogue Magazine.
It was an inspired choice because Chatwal makes the
film, utterly believable as a charismatic charlatan
who lives by his wits.
“One Dollar Curry,” Singh’s second feature
film, is a curious mixture of Bollywood and French art
house influences. “I think French cinema has become
too realist,” says Singh. “So I decided to
give some glimpses of the better elements of Bollywood
cinema, its fantasmagoric, magical and irrational aspects,
which are especially evident in some of the spontaneous
dance numbers.”
Singh is hoping “One Dollar Curry” will be
a crossover hit like Mira Nair’s “Monsoon
Wedding” or Gurinder Chadha’s “Bend It
Like Beckham,” but has had to resign himself to
the idea that some of its racier scenes will have to
be cut for the Indian release. “It’s like
that, there’s nothing you can do, you just have
to accept it,” he says. Handling the promotion
himself Singh has already come up with some imaginative
gimmicks like handing out sachets of “One Dollar
Curry” powder at the press screenings. His next
plan is to give out complimentary bottles of “Kamasutra
Nandi Bull Oil” (it’s a recurring joke in
the script) at an upcoming party to be held for the
film by the Indian ambassador in Paris. Meanwhile the
Passage Brady in the 10th arrondissement where a lot
of it was shot has become a veritable shrine to “One
Dollar Curry,” with its posters tacked to the walls
of most of the curry houses.
Born in 1952 Singh came to Paris and began studying
for a PhD at Paris’ Ecole des Hautes Etudes en
Sciences Sociales but packed it in after he began getting
articles placed in newspapers like Le Monde and Libération.
He is the author of several books that have won wide
critical acclaim: Jaya Ganga, In Search of the River
Goddess, (Penguin, 1989), La Nuit Poignardée
(Flammarion, 1987), Whirlpool of Shadows (Jonathan Cape,
1992), The River Goddess (Gallimard Jeunesse/Moonlight,
1994). These have been translated into French and other
European languages.
His first feature film was the much admired “Jaya
Ganga” which Singh adapted from his book about
a young Indian writer living in Paris who travels to
the River Ganges in search of a mysterious woman. It
ran for over 49 weeks on Paris screens before going
on to play in 80 cinemas in the UK. It was also shown
in several festivals, often in the competition category.
While “Jaya Ganga” was slow, mystical and
contemplative. “One Dollar Curry” couldn’t
be more different, cruder definitely, but also a great
deal of fun. Singh reckons about 95% of the audience
for “Jaya Ganga” was European but he can see
that about to change with “One Dollar Curry.”
“The Indians at the screenings I’ve been too
were the ones laughing their heads off,” he says.
“I think they liked it so much because they identify
with this guy who doesn’t come here to cry but
takes the battle on and says I’m going to succeed.
The boldness and dynamism this guy has are very Indian.”
(Source- Paris Voice)
Vikram Chatwal
New York based actor-cum-hotelier with his hands deep
into the Indian curry is excited about his first release
One Dollar Curry directed by Vijay Singh who had earlier
made Jaya Ganga. Vikram who is also acting in Tanuja
Chandra’s Hope and a Little Sugar opposite Mahima
Chowdhary has been teamed opposite Gabriela Wright and
Smriti Mishra.
Any
comments on this article or
you have any news:
Click
here
Disclaimer
NRIinternet.com will put up as many of
your comments as possible but we cannot guarantee that
all e-mails will be published. We reserve the right
to edit comments that are published.
|
