Anurag Basu’s last directorial, the crime-anthology Ludo, featuring Pankaj Tripathi, Rajkummar Rao, Fatima Sana Shaikh, Abhishek Bachchan, Inayat Verma, Aditya Roy Kapur, Sanya Malhotra, Rohit Saraf and Pearle Maaney, emerged as a big success on OTT last year. The film was applauded for its concept, performance of the cast, cinematography and especially Anurag’s direction. Recently, he was felicitated with the Best Director award at the Indian Film Festival of Melbourne as well for Ludo.
The director had spoken about how the award actually comes as a great motivator for him and his team. His last successful film before Ludo was the 2012 film Barfi, featuring Ranbir Kapoor, Priyanka Chopra Jonas and Ileana D’Cruz. After that, he did Jagga Jasoos with Ranbir and Katrina Kaif but that film failed at the box-office.
Ask Anurag if the success of Ludo has made him wonder if any changes need to be implemented in his filmmaking style that made Ludo work but Jagga Jasoos didn't and he responds, “I wouldn’t have made Ludo if I thought on that basis. I would have made only one film in my life.”
The filmmaker goes on to elaborate that all his films have been a risk, so he can never predict anything for them. “With Barfi also, people were telling me that don’t make the film at that time. So, I just keep making films that I love. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don’t. Barfi was a risky film and people loved that. And so was Jagga Jasoos, but people didn’t click with it. Although, my favourite film of mine remains Jagga Jasoos. Bollywood in itself is like a musical genre, so it gets difficult to make a musical within that,” he asserts.
Image Source: Instagram/anuragbasuofficial/slmni74, spotboye archives, imdb