Bollywood director and screenwriter Kiran Rao and producer Aamir Khan answered questions at a moderated Q&A after screening their film “Lost Ladies” to a packed Eileen Norris Cinema Theatre on Monday, November 18.
“Lost Ladies,” known as “Laapataa Ladies” in Hindi, follows two brides who are accidentally switched when traveling with their respective husbands. The film uses their journeys as opportunities to discuss patriarchal social norms and women’s roles in Indian culture under the guise of comedy and drama. The Q&A was moderated by SCA Professor Priya Jaikumar.
Director Rao said both she and Khan had agreed that one of the most important ways in addressing such themes was in the casting of lesser known actors instead of major Bollywood stars.
“When we finally had written the first draft, I think it was quite clear that this film would be much more authentic and more fun if these actors were unknown,” Rao said in an interview with Annenberg Media. “We could potentially have had a star in the role of the police officer, and Amir [Khan] was quite keen to play that role at one point. But after really considering it long and hard, we realized that it [could] set up expectations for those characters, which we didn’t necessarily want.”
“Lost Ladies” marks Rao’s first time in the director’s seat since her 2011 debut “Dhobi Ghat.” While she has been active in Bollywood and film circles at large, producing hits like “Dangal” and “Secret Superstar,” Rao said she was inspired to direct again after Khan told her the story that inspired the film – “Two Brides” by Biplab Goswami. She said the initial premise was perfect for her to build a story around and to address the themes of women’s independence amongst a patriarchal society.
“I was completely captivated by [Two Brides] when I heard it because it seemed like a great vehicle to talk about women’s freedoms and their agency and autonomy and financial independence and their identity,” Rao said. “It’s not just done through speeches, and monologues and a lot of dialogue, it’s done through just the very premise of the story. What would women do if they had agency? What would they do if they were given a chance to choose? That was really powerful for me, and that’s what made me want to make it.”
Rao further said that the contrast between the two characters, one wanting to study agriculture and the other wanting to be a homemaker, was intentional in establishing a variety of ambitions for the central characters that is rooted entirely in the concept of independence from controlling patriarchal norms.
“[One character] wants to be married, she wants to have a family, and that, as an ambition, is totally fine,” Rao said. “To have the consciousness that you’re doing it out of a sense of choice, and you’re doing it with your identity, while being valued as a human being as one of the partners in a marriage. I think that was what was important for us to highlight.”
While the film has received much praise for the performances and witty screenplay, Rao said something her and her team worked extensively on which has not received as much attention was the sound design and editing.
“If you give it a good listen in a good cinema theater or with headphones, you kind of hear the diegetic layers of sound we put in for comedy, sometimes instead of music,” Rao said. “We also used it to create the [contrast] between the village and rural life. We had a really great time doing sound.”
The film’s international release translated the title from “Laapataa Ladies” to “Lost Ladies” sparking a new wave of marketing. It was submitted under this name as India’s nomination for the Best International Film category at the 97th Academy Awards. This change, Rao said, made the film more accessible to American audiences, because it made it easier to remember the title and understand what the film was about just by looking at the title.
“When we premiered the film at TIFF, we had to give it an English title, because that’s what they put into the catalogs, and people find international or foreign language titles hard so you need a translation of the title,” Rao said. “We called it “Lost Ladies’ because it’s an easier recall and it’s a good translation of the word ‘laapataa,’ and it has the same alliterative ring. It’s not as much rebranding as using an already earlier used English title to reference the film now.”
However, Rao wanted to emphasize that this change did not mean they were abandoning the traditional roots of the film.
“We are still ‘Laapataa Ladies,’ [just] in brackets,” Rao said.
“Laapataa Ladies” (”Lost Ladies”) is available to stream on Netflix.