A Konkani film on a Goan singer is vying for nomination in
the original musical score category at the Oscars. The film’s
director and composer talk to Reena Martins about the musical
[PHOTO A still from Nachom-ia Kumpasar]
Bardroy Barretto, Mumbai ad filmmaker-turned-feature film
director, was having breakfast with a friend on Wednesday
when an unexpected email popped up on his phone. It was from
the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in Los
Angeles -- better known as the Oscar folks.
Barretto learnt that his Konkani film Nachom-ia Kumpasar
(Let's Dance to the Rythm) was one of 112 films shortlisted
for this year's Oscars - the 88th Academy Awards - for its
music, or the "original score" category.
The film, about a Goan singer, has been getting
rave reviews as it crosses 300 screenings in Goa
and travels the film festival circuit from Paris to
West Asia. The film won four awards at this year's
international film festival in Milan, three in
Romania and another in London.
"My biggest gift is when people -- some even in wheelchairs
-- come up and thank me for making the film," director
Barretto says.
[PHOTO On song: Music composer Ronnie Monsorate]
A musical, Nachom-ia Kumpasar is based on the high-voltage
love story between the Mumbai-based Goan musical genius and
composer, Chris Perry, and his Goan muse, singer Lorna
Cordeiro. Together the couple performed at nightclubs,
weddings and concerts across Mumbai, Delhi and Calcutta, and
soon became the stuff of legend, till Chris left Lorna after
a nine-year-long partnership in the mid-Seventies, to start a
music school in the Gulf.
The film's music, originally composed by Chris, was written
out by the film's music director, Ronnie Monsorate - the
Oscar nominee - who had performed with Lorna and Chris as a
young musician. It tells the (slightly fictionalised) story
of Lorna and Chris (Donna and Lawry in the film) as they
flirt, fall in love and crash into despair, before she rises
from the ashes, defying his 20-year contract which forbids
her from singing with any other musician.
The real-life Lorna did not succeed in beating this contract
and remained crushed under its weight until she was
resurrected by many valiant attempts of Monsorate in the
Nineties. "I only had a voice; it was Chris who moulded me,"
she told The Telegraph in a rare interview in January this year.
Monsorate recounts how he scored the music for the film. "It
took me two months to write the background music and another
two weeks to record it," he says. "The sound tracks of the 18
songs took one-and-a-half months to write and a week to
record. The sound quality is far superior than the original
since the recording facilities back then were not half as
good."
But if the music is what has the audience coming back for
more, fitting it to the original was certainly no cakewalk.
"The film is shot using the original tracks, making it a hard
bargain when it came to synchronising the music (played by 40
musicians on strings, brass, keys and drums) with the
original which was recorded not in a studio but at live
shows, making the tempo highly inconsistent," says Monsorate
who is thrilled about the prospect of making it to the
longlist. (The award nominations will be announced on January
14, 2016, and the final ceremony will be held in Hollywood on
February 28.)
But the path to the golden statuette calls for a
large scale of luck and funds. "Sending out DVDs to
the 6,000-plus members of the Academy whose votes
will decide the film's fate will cost us a few
crores of rupees," says the low-profile Barretto,
who set sights on his filmmaking journey in Class
IX of Goa's Loyola High School, when his brother
gifted him an SLR camera.
[PHOTO: Director Bardroy Barretto]
"I'd joke with my friends that I'd make one film and stand
for elections," he says.
The words may not have turned out exactly prophetic, but they
did present a sense of deja vu for folks who lived in Goa in
the Sixties and Seventies, which the film embraces.
Barretto celebrates everyday village life in
Nachom-ia Kumpasar. People amble down red mud paths
or take short cuts through fields, shoes in hand.
As a young boy in his village of Galjibaga in Goa's
far south, it was common to see neighbours
returning home from the feast Mass, shoes dangling
by the laces and shoebites on the feet.
The film also reflects Goa's all-pervasive caste system
through its dress and colours -- muted shades for the upper
castes and bolder ones for the hoi polloi. And through the
same kaleidoscope, you see village fixtures from the Sixties
and Seventies come to life: the resident matchmaker pairing
off eligible singles at open-air wedding luncheons celebrated
in the courtyard; and young boys gossiping about the village
belles and their love affairs at the foot of a hillock.
"It's the little things that strike a chord in the
audience," says Barretto, who is swamped with an
outpouring of praise and affection from adoring
audiences online and offline. "Many people say
they've seen the film a few dozen times,
accompanying friends and relatives from overseas on
repeat visits. This trend took us completely by
surprise, since we'd made a conservative estimate
of people returning for just an encore."
The response from overseas has been equally overwhelming,
Barretto says. "Every other day we get invited to participate
in international film festivals; and in those which we
participate, we get approached for the purchase of film
rights. People from the film fraternity abroad are surprised
at the stir created by a low-budget period film in Konkani,
rather than a Bollywood offering."
Back home, when the audience meets Barretto, Monsorrate and
the cast after shows, many talk of how the film reduced them
to tears. As one woman said, "I thought I wouldn't cry the
second time I saw it, but I did." At another show in Goa,
Barretto met a long-lost friend whose Korean wife said the
film had taught her so much more about her husband's land and
culture. And then there are those who end up feeling sorry
for Donna and want to go and kill Lawry. For a few it's the
other way round too.
For them all, the film is more than a story -- it's an ode to
a love song that still breaks hearts.
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1151220/jsp/7days/story_59364.jsp
