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Hangman's tale evokes interest
By Saibal Chatterjee, Indo-Asian News Service

Panaji, Nov 28 (IANS) "The Hangman", an English language film by Pune-based director Vishal Bhandari and produced by an Indian-owned New Jersey company, is one of the most talked about entries at the 36th International Film Festival of India.

The highlights of the film are its unusual content. "The Hangman" tells the story of a guilt-ridden executioner who wants his only son to don the uniform of a policeman. The film has a compelling performance by Om Puri.

Director Bhandari, who was a journalist working with a leading national newspaper in 1990s, had written a story back then on a Sholapur policeman who also happened to be a trained hangman.

"He was a man in uniform and hardly comfortable with the fact that he was occasionally called in to pull the lever on convicted criminals," he recalls. The memories of that man stayed with Bhandari for nearly a decade before it took the shape of a film script.

"The Hangman", which has Om Puri playing the protagonist is Bhandari's third feature after "A Pocketful of Dreams" (1999) and the digital movie, "Maya - The Reality" (2001).

"I approached Om Puri even before the role had been fully written," says the director. "He liked the character and wanted to see the script. It was only then that I got down to writing the screenplay."

Does Bhandari see any parallels between "The Hangman" and Adoor Gopalakrishnan's "Nizhalkkuthu", which was about a hangman in pre-Independence Travancore state grappling with a dilemma similar to Bhandari's hero, Shiva? "The theme of that film was different," he says.

"My film is set in the 1970s and deals with the emotional impact of the hangman's profession on the protagonist, his wife and his son." The film also features Gulshan Grover as an upright jailor who goes out of his way to help Shiva, and Shreyas Talpade of "Iqbal" fame, in the role of the executioner's son.

The producer of the film, Bipin Patel of the US-based Akshar Media, is in Goa to promote the film.

"I will also be in Mumbai for a few days after IFFI to explore the possibility of distributing it in the Indian market," he announces. Bhandari is of course keeping his fingers crossed.

"Finding a distributor is probably a far bigger challenge than finding a financier for a film like mine," he says.

"I made the film in English because I am comfortable writing in that language and also because I wanted to position "The Hangman" as an international product," he adds.

Bhandari is however open to having the film dubbed in Hindi for the Indian market.