The director’s next is on Julian Barnes’ Man Booker winner
Kunal Guha (MUMBAI MIRROR; March 16, 2017)


How did you come across The Sense Of An Ending?
I’m a fan of Julian Barnes and read the book in 2011. I looked into it after The Lunchbox and learnt that someone was adapting it for BBC. A year later, it came to me as an offer to direct and I jumped at it.

What were the challenges of adapting characters not conceptualised by you?
When I first met him in London, Julian Barnes told me, “Go ahead and betray me.” This isn’t a book you pick up and say that it should be made into a movie. It has the character of Tony Webster talking in first person to readers and movies are not told like that but through relationships. We have to find, flesh out and create relationships to tell a story. The biggest challenge was in the process of adapting it, how far away do you go from the book and how close do you stay. You need to figure out whether you want to be first or second cousins since you can’t be siblings.

There is a flatness to cinema but when you pick up a piece of literature and your brain engages with it directly, it brings a lot more depth to the work. This is because the brain has infinite dimensions. Cinema is a powerful medium but, in many ways, not as powerful as literature.

How did you ensure you didn’t betray Julian Barnes’ readers?
In the movie, all the actors bring their lives to it. It’s great to have actors like Jim Broadbent and Charlotte Rampling because in every scene, they are working on it like a pebble in clear water — honest, simple and unaffected. And later, when you get to the editing table, you just have to arrange these pebbles to ensure it delivers emotionally. For the readers, it’s never going to be the book onscreen.

Would you rather call it a tribute?
You can say that if you like but don’t say I said it. (Laughs) Or you can compare it to an apple. A successful adaptation complements a book. Cinema is a collaborative medium. Charlotte Rampling comes to the screen with all the tragedies and triumphs of her life. Is it a tribute? Well, hopefully, it’s not an insult.

What were the production challenges of filming in the UK?
Since the story is set both in present day and in the ’60s, it has to feel true to both periods. Given our restrictive budget, we had to shoot within London. Fortunately, the British take good care of their history and there are some well-preserved schools and bridges. We shot the past on weekends and the present on weekdays. And as I’m not British or old enough, I took cues from Jim and Alan Rickman (who passed away shortly after the film was shot) — like in the ‘60s, you could buy half a cigarette and these were smoked by schoolboys, I’ve used that in the movie. The challenge was immersing myself in the period and to ensure it was a truly British movie.

The British are believed to be really reserved, did that factor into your storytelling?
That is a cliché but then all clichés are true. The ‘British reserve’ is a real thing. These conflicts wouldn’t exist if they were more candid.

How does one crack the festival scene? Does lobbying count?
I don’t think it counts much because every festival evaluates films differently. It’s a market where films are bought and sold. Festival directors are powerful people who are there for their taste in films. From the looks of it, it seems those in Berlin like political stuff, Cannes appreciates ‘different’ films and Rotterdam, the edgy stuff. But A-list festivals are important to get to international buyers. At the end of the day, you’re trying to find a wider audience.

Do you have a fascination for older characters?
I’ve never thought about it. Even in Our Souls At Night (Batra’s next) I thought the conflict between Robert Redford and Jane Fonda’s characters would be enhanced because they don’t have enough time. But then, as it turns out, well they do, like in The Lunchbox. Life teaches you things but after you’ve invested a certain amount of time, you realise that ordinary life is difficult. And I’m not talking about extraordinary circumstances like planes getting hijacked.

The Lunchbox director’s debut film is creating ripples in the West before its official release
Subhash K Jha (DNA; December 18, 2016)

Ritesh Batra’s film The Sense Of An Ending based on Julian Barnes’ novel has been selected by Variety magazine among the 10 films and directors to watch out for in 2016. Clubbing Batra for this singular honour with some of the best works of the year — no Indian director has been thus honoured in recent times — Variety places Batra and his film alongside Julia Ducourno’s shocking horror film Raw and theatre’s veteran director William Oldroyd’s screen adaptation of Lady Macbeth.

The Sense Of An Ending will open the 28th Palm Springs International Film Festival on January 2, 2017. Ritesh is understandably pleased, but habitually calm about the honour. “One doesn’t know what the outcome will be when one sets off to make a film. The Sense Of An Ending was completed in June. Shooting with actors like Jim Broadbent and Charlotte Rampling was very enriching.”

Batra got to work with the legendary litterateur Julian Barnes. Says Ritesh, “Barnes was on the project helping us all through. It is an interesting challenge to adapt the novel. We couldn’t just take the book and put it on screen.

We had to search for the centre of the novel and place it in the film. And since I was involved with the writing, I didn’t feel the brunt of the cultural shift from Mumbai in The Lunchbox to England in The Sense Of An Ending.”

Batra says the film moves quite a way away from the novel. “If you’ve read the novel it’s actually quite short. There were lots of unspoken feelings and emotions between the lines which we had to dig out. We had to amplify the emotions. It was an amazing experience to work on the development of the script with Julian Barnes.”

Ankur Pathak (MUMBAI MIRROR; May 13, 2015)

After the exceptional response to his directorial debut, The Lunchbox, Ritesh Batra's next is a British production, which will be bankrolled by the BBC in collaboration with two American companies.

The filmmaker will adapt Julian Barnes' eleventh novel, The Sense Of An Ending, which won the Man Booker Prize in 2011. The book divided into two parts, details two suicides, both narrated by Tony Webster, a retired man living alone, who begins to reassess his life after receiving a curious letter.

Confirming this, Batra told Mirror, "I never thought I'd direct something which I haven't written, but playwright Nick Payne has done such an outstanding job in adapting the script that I'd be silly to let go of this offer."

The duo has been working together since November and Batra describes it as a unique, enriching process. " I've grown and evolved as the film has developed. I've been a great admirer of Barnes' work and to get to direct one of his great works is blissful," exults Batra.

Since it's a British story and production, Batra says it's unlikely that any Indian artistes will be involved. He compares his lead star, Oscar-winning actor of Iris, Jim Broadbent, to his The Lunchbox star, Irrfan Khan. "They are both naturally gifted actors who have made unusual career choices and carved a distinct niche for themselves. Jim's performance in Topsy Turvy and Iris, for which he won an Oscar are fantastic. I'm thrilled to direct him."

After The Lunchbox, does he feel the pressure to make another film which will please both critics and the audiences? "Not really. Films aren't like the share bazaar, they are a personal and an internal journey. where one grows with it."

Like The Lunchbox, this film too has a letter as an important plot point. "Yes, but I think there will be more synergy in the tone - funny and sad, something I think I manage to do well," he smiles.