FILM INTERVIEW: KALKI KOECHLIN
Star of ‘That Girl in Yellow Boots’ Grows Into Indian Film Career Despite French Roots
That Girl In Yellow Boots is finally primed for its theatrical release on September 2nd, and former Dev D star Kalki Koechlin was happy to return on set to headline a film she helped write with her boyfriend-turned-husband, acclaimed Bollywood filmmaker Anurag Kashyap. While the French-born actress has a career in Hindi film because of Mr. Kashyap, Ms. Koechlin affectionately told the press her director-husband can be quite demanding and critical.
Thankfully, Mr. Kashyap’s criticisms are constructive, Ms. Koechlin revealed in a recent interview with the press.
"Anurag is my biggest critic. He gives me his feedback," Ms. Koechlin told the press. "In fact, just recently, I finished writing a script and I showed it to him. He didn't approve it outright. He told me that there are some brilliant things in it, but it is like different scenes and not a story coming together. So he has asked me to work on it. He is pretty harsh that way.”
Despite the criticisms and the keen feedback on creative projects, Mr. Kashyap and Ms. Koechlin have seemed to do quite well working with each other. After all, not only did Mr. Kashyap introduce Ms. Koechlin in Dev D and then bring her back in Shaitan as a leading lady before giving her significant creative control in That Girl in Yellow Boots, but also director and actress fell in love with each other in the process.
Yet, word has leaked that the relationship between both Mr. Kashyap and Ms. Koechlin is strained. Specifically, Mr. Kashyap reportedly told the press that he was unsure he would want to work with his wife on another project as dark as That Girl In Yellow Boots since he was afraid it would cause undue stress on the relationship.
Ms. Koechlin explained to the press what her husband meant.
"When we were shooting the film, we did not talk to each other, and even though we are happy with what we have done together, there were a lot of intense arguments,” she confessed to the press. “So it's not so much that I don't want to work with Anurag again on an intense film. (But) I think it will be more exciting for me, even as an actor, to do something different with him.”
She further went on to explain how she differs from her husband in her creative approach to cinema.
“I think he has his zone of gangster, emotional, violent, and intense films, and for me, I constantly want to reinvent what I am doing and not do the same kind of thing,” she told the press.
As for That Girl in Yellow Boots, Ms. Koechlin gave some perspective of what fans could expect to see when they walk into the cinema halls this weekend, coincidentally the same weekend Salman Khan hits the silver screen with Bodyguard.
“It’s about a young girl and her journey through the underbellies of Bombay. It’s an uncomfortable subject. It’s not a film that will make you feel good about yourself, but one that I think is very relative to what life is like today in Mumbai,” the actress candidly told the press.
A new trait defining the New Indian Independent Film Movement – a movement unofficially spearheaded by Mr. Kashyap, no less – is the heavy use of “Hinglish,” or constant intermingling of Hindi and English in the dialogue.
Ms. Koechlin pointed out that That Girl With Yellow Boots merely features actors speaking as they would have spoken in a normal situation, had the cameras not been around.
“Every character speaks the language they speak normally. The idea was that the characters should speak their own language and try to communicate. Also, the idea is to make it very much real,” Ms. Koechlin stated to the media. “I mean, if a foreign girl is coming to India, some people will try very hard to speak to her in English; there will be some who will only speak in Hindi or Marathi with an attitude: ‘You better learn and speak my language.’ So it’s about all kinds of people you get in a city like Mumbai.”
Through it all, That Girl in Yellow Boots is quite the colorful title of such a dark film exposing the everyday life of Mumbai’s underbelly. It is a project Ms. Koechlin seems to be proud of and thrilled it will finally be available for the whole world to see commercially after spending nearly a year traveling on the film festival circuit.
National Film Development Corporation of India's ‘That Girl In Yellow Boots’ debuted in 2010 at the Venice Film Festival and opens in theaters worldwide on September 2, 2011.
