John Madden wants to explore India as tourist

Mumbai, April 1
English director John Madden, who is smitten by the revelry and exuberance of big fat Indian weddings and its idiomatic representation in Bollywood, says he plans to return to the country to explore its treasures as a tourist.

So far, Madden has mostly spent his time in Rajasthan, where he shot "The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel" and its recently released sequel "The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel".

Both his films are extensively shot in Jaipur and Udaipur. But the 65-year-old, who has also made films like "The Debt" and "Proof", has missed opportunities to explore the country as a "tourist".

"I will see more of it (India) as I have been here twice. I haven't seen India, except the tiny portion of Rajasthan. Now, I will come back as a tourist," Madden told IANS.

Madden has captured the magic of Indian weddings as an important part of his India-set Hollywood film "The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel". He feels shooting a marriage sequence in the country helped him get closer to the film culture.

"The tiny little toe in the water in this film ('The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel') of Bollywood is the overlap that you get between the wedding and Bollywood culture. That made me realise that most of important Indian weddings are appropriate Bollywood idioms."

"The choreography and music was irresistible to me and started a kind of acquaintance with Bollywood culture," Madden said.

Madden opened a chapter around a hotel in Rajasthan, where a bunch of Britons visit and decide to stay back to find a new meaning to their life post-retirement. The sequel or as Madden likes to call "companion piece", takes cinema-goers a step ahead in their life.

The second part of the film franchise, which was released in India last month by Fox Star Studios, has a stellar cast including Judi Dench, Maggie Smith, Bill Nighy, Richard Gere, Dev Patel, Lillete Dubey and Tina Desai. In the film, there is an elaborate sequence of marriage of Dev and Tina.

The director, whose film "Shakespeare in Love" won an Academy Award, says the exuberance of Hindi filmdom, which churns out about 1,000 films per year, dazzles him.

"I'm not an expert of Bollywood, but I love it. Every time I see them (films), I think they are so interesting with different conventions. I love the kind of exuberance and filmmaking that I see in them. I'm also impressed by the massive film industry here," he said.