Deepa Mehta’s Film Adaption of ‘Midnight’s Children’

Mathew Bower in Flavorwire:

Salman Rushdie would be hard-pressed to find a more suitable director for the film adaptation of his beautifully allegorical Midnight’s Children than Deepa Mehta, best known for her Elements trilogy, which confronts traditionally repressed issues in Indian society surrounding arranged marriage, sexuality, and patriarchy. We’re excited about the idea of one of the most acclaimed voices in politically charged Indian filmmaking collaborating with the country’s most celebrated contemporary author. Winner of the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and the Booker Prize, as well as the special Booker of Bookers Prize, Midnight’s Children has earned status as a modern classic, and although there’s plenty to be wary about when it comes to adapting great literary works to film, this one seems promising. Here’s a quick look (via i09) at a few clips from the forthcoming movie, set to be released this November, and how they fit into the novel’s narrative.

Midnight’s Children follows Saleem Sinai (played by Satya Bhabha), who, born exactly at midnight on the eve of India’s independence, is imbued with special telepathic powers, an exceptional sense of smell, an inordinately large nose, and a birthmarked face. He soon learns that everyone born at midnight on August 14th, 1947 possesses similar special powers, and makes use of his telepathy to assemble the children of India’s independence from across the disparate regions of the country. Here we see Saleem kissing Parvati the witch, another of Midnight’s Children whom he later marries. The choice of casting a relatively unknown actor as Saleem rather than a more celebrated Bollywood star is refreshing, and it seems Mehta accomplishes the same heartfelt and intensely personal performances as she has in her previous films.

More here. (Note: Thanks to dear friend Naheed Azfar)