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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
A wide-ranging chat with the Indian screen superstar.
Apr 6, 2000 | He can veer from menace to tenderness in milliseconds, and though he's physically compact, he has, as one of his directors put it, "screen presence for miles." His name is Om Puri. He's been a dominant big-screen presence in his native India for two decades, and his recent English-language films have awakened Western critics to a talent that equals or surpasses that of Morgan Freeman or Al Pacino.
What Faulkner saw as the center of true literature -- "the human heart in conflict with itself" -- is at the core of Puri's acting. His broad, expressive face is like a relief map of discordant emotions. Even when he plays a cameo, as he does in the current "Such a Long Journey" (an exquisite Canada-U.K. production filmed in Bombay), he digs into a character's internal contrasts. As a secret agent's trusted lieutenant, he makes us confront the honor as well as the ruthlessness of military loyalty.
In Udayan Prasad's "My Son the Fanatic" (released here in 1999) and Damien O'Donnell's "East is East" (which opens here April 14), he plays parallel Pakistani patriarchs: a cabbie in a contemporary British midlands city in "Fanatic" and a fish-and-chips shop owner in 1971 Manchester in "East." Transcending class and ethnic stereotypes, Puri turns embattled fathers into figures as robust, funny and poignant as the immigrant parents in American melting-pot fables by Clifford Odets or Mario Puzo.
Critic Armond White contended that the best performance of 1999 was Puri's in "My Son the Fanatic" -- "hands down," he wrote acidly, "but not in a culture that only celebrates white actors." More likely the culprit was not racism, but low profile. Released as alternate programming in the summer of "The Phantom Menace," this tale of a liberal grappling with his son's Muslim fundamentalism and his own love for an English whore never achieved the American following it deserved. That neglect may be remedied now that the film has been released on DVD and videotape. At the end of "My Son the Fanatic," when Puri's cabbie tells his son, "There are many ways of being a good man," it both summarizes this great phase of the actor's career and registers as a found piece of profundity for our multicultural age.
In "East is East," Puri triumphs in an even more difficult role. He brings out the humor and humanity of a tin-pot household tyrant named George Khan, who is trying to force his English wife, Ella (Linda Bassett), and their children into following the ways of his Old Country: Pakistan. Part polyglot urban comedy-drama and part generation-gap fable, the film has been a huge success in England, and is competing against "American Beauty," "The End of the Affair," "The Sixth Sense" and "The Talented Mr. Ripley" for best picture in the British Academy Awards. (The winners will be announced Sunday.) Puri is up for best actor. The imposing Puri looked right at home amid the swanky surroundings of San Francisco's Ritz-Carlton, where I spoke with him during a recent visit.
It must have been a challenge to play, virtually back to back, characters who are so alike yet so dissimilar as Parvez in "My Son the Fanatic" and George Khan in "East is East."
It's true. Both share almost the same background. Both are working class. Both had an upbringing conditioned by traditions. Parvez falls in love with an Englishwoman; George Khan has married an Englishwoman. But Parvez is an absolute liberal, a modern man who can assimilate himself into any given set of circumstances. George Khan is still struggling -- limited in his outlook and slow in his growth. Parvez can articulate himself, his emotions and ideas. George Khan can't. He can use only one language, the fist, to nail his children down and to convince them of what he believes is right.
One thing that's admirable about "East is East" is that it doesn't soften him -- it goes so far into the abusive side of his character that it shows him hitting his wife. But you still think of him as an interesting and at times sympathetic character; you can still enjoy being with him.
You point out the challenge, absolutely. The script, honestly, does not support him and is not sympathetic to him. The first time I read the script I thought that he was a very negative person -- a brute. He is authoritarian and ill-mannered. He does not use civilized behavior to control his children. But when I read it a couple of more times I started realizing that this is not a one-dimensional character. One thing struck me -- really hit me. I said to myself, "He's been married to Ella for 25 years. And this woman is not meek and timid. She is a tigress." Like at the end: You see how she stands up and fights this conventional Pakistani couple to defend her family, her children and her honor. She gives it to them. She's not going to take anything lying down.
What is the truth here? I started digging until I could say, "This script is just one slice of George Khan's life." He has not been like this all his life. He's been warm to his children. He's brought them up, and been a hard-working man. He's not self-indulgent. He doesn't drink, he doesn't go around after other women. In that sense, he is very simple. The film begins at a joyous moment. The family is happy. The father is proud that his eldest son is getting married. But when that eldest son runs away from a traditional marriage ceremony in front of the entire community -- that is a big blow to him. He is totally scared, because he feels that all his sons are going to do the same. He goes and shares this dilemma with the priest in his mosque, because he is genuinely worried about his children.
That's when he decides to rule with the fist. When he hits Ella, his wife -- I think this is the first time he actually hit her. He may have had disagreements or arguments with her. He may have left the home in a fit. He may have broken a glass. But he never, before this, hit her personally. Because they also have so many wonderful moments.
I love the scene when he announces that he's bought a barber chair!
It could have been played straight, matter-of-fact. George could simply say, "I bought this chair because it was not expensive." But the way we played it we made it into a little love scene, which ends with them on the chair virtually making love. This is what I wanted to emphasize. Not that I wanted to make a noble or a saint out of him. But at the same time I thought it would not be fair if we didn't give him his due. People should be able to peep into his background. People should see this little man with all his frustrations and difficulties and complexities -- they should be able to see him complete. Yes, at the end of it, when all is said and done, nobody would justify his means to achieve his goal, or the manner in which he brutalizes his wife and children. But I wanted to bring out that he does have a sense of humor. Whether it is in the chair scene, or when he keeps threatening her, "Don't trouble me, I'll call up my first wife." The bugger has never been back to Pakistan! He just sends a little money to his first wife. But he keeps threatening Ella in a teasing manner -- and flirting with her in the shop.
