A meditation on class and space in South Mumbai, Lata frames the life of a young domestic worker (the film’s namesake) within contrasting privileged and prohibited interior worlds. Director Alisha Tejpal and producer Mireya Martinez, who both co-wrote the screenplay, shared with me their creative process shortly after the screening of their film at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival.
ARCHITECTURE, DISTANCE & PRIVACY
Tejpal: Before even knowing the story, the film was very much structured around the idea of wanting to capture modern day, post-colonial architecture and spaces in India that reflect the ways in which even urban architecture perpetuates this system. The home is divided in particular ways, there's particular corridors and doors that cut access. The quarters that the help live in are so segregated, both in sound and in location. So, this idea of wanting to have this architectural element play a role as a character in the film was very important to us. We started to script keeping in mind that the film would at first just be this look into small, segmented spaces of the home, and as the film proceeds, we open the world so you get a sense of the architecture of the entire space. The sound of the outdoors is what would guide us in understanding how far Lata is from something, how much she can hear or can't hear.
Martinez: I remember while we were writing the script, Alisha said something very funny to me...that she couldn't ever envision the film in a close-up. It's almost like her brain had a block where it just all took place in single wide takes that cut into each other.
Tejpal: Yeah, that's true. I do think the film benefited from my not-yet-advanced filmmaker brain in the sense that when it came to editing, I was still unable to fully comprehend shot sizes. So, my natural go-to response has always been wides. The framing of the film was very much an attempt at maintaining distance from the lead as a constant reminder to the audience that the filmmaker is of a different class and caste, right? That the filmmaker is an outsider, and I’m not in any way proposing to give a voice or be a voice for the various actors. They have their own voices and very much have the agency for it. That isn't my job or my place to do. In some ways that dictates the distance, as well as this repetitive reminder, even to the viewer, that we are looking into a life that also has its own privacy. We had a rule with our DP (Director of Photography, Ravi Kiran Ayyagari) that no matter what, the camera always stays at eye level. Even if it's not the best, most beautiful frame – we meet Lata at eye level, no matter what. As much as you are getting access to, I am getting access to as well. The access, in this case, is being controlled by Lata and protecting and preserving her own privacy as well.
PROTECTING THE VISION
Martinez: It's a very close creative collaboration. I was a co-writer and a producer and a creative producer. I think all of those roles may sound like a lot, but to me they make sense. The writing component was the one that stuck more to being a co-writer, whereas the other roles merged into one, becoming a facilitator for Alisha's vision – also a protector of the vision itself. Firstly, you're supposed to take care of getting what you actually need for the film. I think for awhile she (Alisha Tejpal) had a very strict, theoretical idea of what she wanted the film to be. But the whole time I was like, "Okay, I understand that it has to hit these aesthetic constraints that you want to reach. And you want it to do XYZ on a theoretical claim, but where’s the meat? So, a lot of our co-writing exercises were more about dragging out the meat and putting it on the page. The script. As a producer, it was just about—
Tejpal: As a protector.
Martinez: (Laughs) …as a protector.
Tejpal: I want to know this too.
Martinez: I think as a director, if you're doing too much, you’re bound to stray away from the thing you want to make. I remember that because I'm also a filmmaker and I definitely struggle, or have struggled in the past from trying to do too much, which I think is part of what makes me a reasonably good producer.
Tejpal: I like the term “protector,” and I think that's where the role of a creative producer comes in, depending on the relationship. It's not about how many shots you can get and how much of the film you can get. It's about figuring out what serves the film best.
Martinez: This is a silly example, but as a director—I was trying to shoot this short film. Alisha was on camera and it was my own project. I wrote the script about a little girl whose turtle dies. I was doing too many things at once, so I went and ran out to the rental house to get a little fake turtle. But between the stress of directing and the shoot and all of these things, I forgot a key component, which was that the turtle was supposed to be the size of the fish tank. And I ended up renting a tortoise.
Tejpal: A tortoise. (Makes shape with hands)
Martinez: And that's what I tried to not let happen to Alisha. It's about catching all the things that would distract her from what she's actually trying to make.
Director Alisha Tejpal & producer Mireya Martinez (standing, first and second from right) review their camera setup on location in a residential apartment in South Mumbai. Crewmembers Hetal Dedhia (Gaffer) Vandita Jain (1st Assistant Camera) and Director of Photography Ravi Kiran-Avaggari look on.
OCCUPYING THE SPACE
Martinez: We had a very leisurely schedule, which was a choice. The pace was very slow, it couldn’t have been made any faster. Sometimes we’d have an hour-long break in the middle of the day because if we have control of the set, why don’t we do what we would like in the real world? There were moments where the crew would look at us and just be like, "Why are we waiting for the sunlight? Just light it.” And we had to stick to the original vision and wait for the light outside to naturally change.
Tejpal: Just to add, I think the biggest thing we learnt from all of this was that you have to serve the project what it needs, right? I don't think it would’ve been possible to have made Lata without non-professional actors and on a tight schedule. If I want this woman's presence to fill the frame and I want whatever her body carries to find its own meaning within the space, then I need to give her time and time doesn't necessarily mean with the camera rolling. So, we shot over five days. We could’ve done it in three, but we gave it time. There was time for her to repeat the gestures, or the living room shot where she swept. She must've swept eight times before we even shot it.
Martinez: Or just be there.
Tejpal: Or just be there, and I think it had all of that. It's not something you can rehearse, right? It's muscle memory. And it's the way your body reacts to objects. And I think all of that infuses the frame. And for that, we had to make sure the base of the film permitted her to keep up and to sort of experience the space and give her the space to do that. But we also used it like a framing device, right? Because we don't really hear her name until the end of the film, so it became a play on who does the audience latch themselves onto in the first scene? When a film opens, there's a certain expectation of story and how we read story and where we latch ourselves onto what stories we think are worthy of our attention. And similarly, what characters usually tend to dominate stories. We were interested in also playing with that, the ways in which we attach ourselves to upper class and upper caste characters in the frame almost instantly, because the working class is always usually the background, unless sort of “made a protagonist” by a specific cinematic language, like a close-up.
Martinez: It’s something that I believe in, and I think Alisha does too. I think when these choices have a true history, or depth, or are thought through, usually people feel it even if they're not consciously aware of that depth.
Tejpal: It’s something we both agree on. For cinema to be accessible, it doesn't mean it has to be passive. It can still be cinema that demands participation and that if you leave the room with questions, then I think that's more interesting to me than giving you all of the answers. I think in some ways, both of us resist this idea of cinema being universal and this idea that it speaks in the exact same way to everybody. I think there's a beauty to not knowing everything and that it's okay for a foreign audience to watch something about a particular environment in India and not know. As long as it allows space for participation and space for questions, I think it's successful.
Lata will make its European premiere at the International Film Festival Rotterdam, June 2nd through 6th.