Waiting for Arjun…

I was in a suburban movie theatre 2 nights ago watching “A Wednesday” when they screened the trailer of UTV’s upcoming release – Arjuna, The Warrior Prince. Not that I hadn’t seen it before (thanks to YouTube!!) but experiencing it on a big screen was a whole new experience. I was amazed. This is an Indian big-budget production that we can be proud of. If the trailer is anything to go by ( and they can be misleading some times) the quality is top-notch. (See the YouTube sneak-peek at the end of the article)

Until now the only truly ‘artistic’ animated films from India that I had seen were either independent films or student films from institutes such as NID and IDC (IIT). But large scale productions have always fallen short at some level. Maybe it was the lack of vision, time, patience, knowledge or perhaps all of these. It can’t be budgetary constraints – an individual superstar’s fees for a single Bollywood movie can fund an entire animated film! But Arnab Chaudhuri, the man at the helm of Arjun, surely knows what he is doing. An alumnus of the National Institute of Design and ex-Turner Creative Director, he seems to have what it takes to do justice to the story and the medium.

The animation style appears to be a combination of 2D and 3D – the final look and feel is of 2D animation but the fabric, the water and the movements of the characters are distinctly 3D. The film is reminiscent of Disney’s Prince of Egypt while Arjun could easily be the long-lost brother of Tarzan! The script writers seem to have taken a few liberties with the story but that is what great story-telling is about; retelling an age-old tale and embellishing it with one’s own visual interpretation.

This is the second Indian animated film that holds a lot of promise, after Yash Raj Film’s Roadside Romeo, which is an out and out 3D animated feature. I am looking forward to both of them and so is the entire Indian animation community. The Indian audiences have got a raw deal from some haughty, talent-less so-called animation film makers – a case in point being the makers of the recent ‘Icy n Spicy’, who thankfully got the boot from the audience! Roadside Romeo and Arjun should more than make up for it and once and for all dispel the myth that Indian animation lacks talent and vision when it comes to original IP productions. Until the movie releases, enjoy the trailer :)