In Conversation: ‘Laapataa Ladies’ Director Kiran Rao
by Aayushi Agarwal
Laapataa Ladies (2024), internationally released as Lost Ladies, is India’s pick for the Best International Feature Film for the upcoming Academy Awards. The comedy-drama film follows two young newly-wed brides who get exchanged during a train ride to their husband’s homes, offering a uniquely Indian commentary on female agency and identity. We talked with director Kiran Rao about what it’s been like to represent India on a global screen, intersectionality, and her plans for the future.
This interview has been edited for clarity.
Firstly, I must congratulate you on Laapataa Ladies being selected as India's entry for the Academy Awards. How did that make you feel and how was the reaction?
Oh! It made me feel not just excited but a little bit nervous. I was excited to the point of being a bit anxious. I was like, really? Oh my God, how does one do this actually? How does it play out? You know, but it was obviously a huge deal. We were all delighted and thrilled. And we are slowly figuring out what one does.
Going off of this, what has it been like to see not only the Indian audience's reaction, but also the international audience's reception to the film? And have you noticed the difference between the two?
Our audience reactions have been so overwhelming and so positive. It's always been nice to watch it with an audience. We premiered it at TIFF, which was not an Indian audience, and the reaction was overwhelmingly positive and full of love and great questions. And honestly, I felt confident that we'd connected [with the audience] because it was the very first time we were showing the film. And then after that, we showed it, of course, in India to theatrical audiences and the reaction has been good across the board, honestly.
I haven't found that much of a difference. I was wondering whether the Japanese—we just recently released it there—and I was wondering whether that would be very different. But what's interesting is that they pick up on different things about the different cultural nuances that we take for granted, but the reaction has been incredibly good even there.
Amazing, that's so good to hear. It’s well deserved, more than deserved. Now it's been over a decade since you [last] sat on the directorial chair. What made you want to return to the role now and how different was the experience now as compared to the first time?
I had been wanting to, quote unquote, “sit on the chair” for... ever since I finished my first film. I had actually wanted to start directing literally the next day. And I had several stories that I've been writing since then. And I think this story was the right one. It just spoke to me and as soon as I heard it, I knew I wanted to make it. We could have so much fun while telling what I think is a really important story. It was a challenge I could not let go of and [I] dived right in.
The experience was roughly the same. I think the only thing was that we were shooting through COVID, so there were those challenges. [Also] this is a much bigger film in terms of the characters, locations and things that we were shooting in. I was shooting songs, which I never have before. So those were probably the things that were slightly different in terms of the shooting part of the film. But honestly, I didn't find the experience very different at all. I think I had as much fun. I also had the opportunity to work with performance and dialogue, which I didn't have in my first film. And [though] I thought that would be very, very scary, it was not! It was actually great fun. So if anything, maybe technology has changed a little bit, but things that are very deeply part of visual storytelling are the same.
How do you think Laapataa Ladies fits into the current mainstream Bollywood scene?
We’ve seen how various [Indian film] industries have now come closer together because of being obviously available to us on [streaming], the fact that films from South [India] have found a really loyal audience in other parts of the country as well. I think we found that there's no such real thing as a Bollywood film. How we define it has changed quite a bit. I think films from India can be Bollywood in style, and there are many South Indian films that are very Bollywood in style as well; we have enough diversity in our storytelling [now] . . . And that means that I'm not really an anomaly anymore. My first film was a real anomaly. It was completely unheard of to make a film like that. But now it's so much easier in the sense that audiences are much more interested in different kinds of storytelling.
The film is set in, and was also filmed in, villages in India, specifically [in] Madhya Pradesh, and even casted local villagers as cast members. Now, why was it important that the story be at the rural level?
The original writer wrote it set in a small village. He also set it in a time where the mobile phone hadn't really made much of a penetration into India. That really helped you buy the idea that, one, this is remote enough that girls can go missing and there's no way to connect [with them] and find out what had happened to them, and six days could actually pass before the girls get back home. That setting helped people really buy into the premise itself. If it had been set in a city or set in the present, it wouldn't have been as easy to buy the idea of those girls getting lost.
Though Phool and Jaya's story starts similarly, they end completely differently, with Phool reuniting with her husband and Jaya leaving to pursue her education. I personally loved the ending to the film. It felt very true to life with the different paths that women choose for themselves. Can you tell me a little bit about why you wanted their stories to conclude this way?
It was important for us to show that there's no one way that is the right way for anyone to live their lives, and it's really a question of personal choice. Valuing Phool’s choice of staying a homemaker . . . wanting to raise a family or live in a traditional, conventional marriage and domesticity is valid and Jaya wanting to live independently is as valid as that. So that was the key in the story, to show that girls just need to have the freedom, choice, and agency to decide what they want to do with their lives and futures . . . Finding the space to find your own identity, to find your own happiness, can happen in any circumstance, and that was what was important to portray.
Amazing. As we just talked about a bit, this movie has great social commentary on the position and expectations of women in India. What has your experience been like as you continue to express yourself and your ideals in the context of Indian society and an Indian audience?
Most people are aware that India is a subcontinent, and that there's enormous diversity in people's experiences. Intersectionality really matters when it comes to creating your characters. And I, for instance, as a filmmaker have had certain privileges that a lot of these characters would never have had. I'm acutely aware, in that sense, of how my experience is not the only experience or the only valid experience that women can have in our country. What was important for us was to use comedic satire to spark discussion about gender roles, the importance of women's education, about self-discovery, the freedom to choose, the journey you want your life to be. And I feel, as I go along in this country, that there's always going to be issues that we address, but looking at them with a fresh pair of eyes, [with] some sense of solutions and new ideas, is really important. It's important to empower us to question patriarchal constructs that we navigate daily. I wanted to just have my own small part in that conversation.
I think that's so important because creative people can, not necessarily forget, but get lost in the creating of art versus the responsibility that they may have as a filmmaker or an artist. I love when artists take that responsibility and try to do something with it…that's so inspiring.
What did you initially want audiences to take away from this movie when it first came out? And have those expectations changed now that it's been a while since it’s been out in the world?
Actually what I said earlier is what I want people to take away, [which is] to spark important conversations about equity, gender roles, women's autonomy, and women's rights to choose what they do with their lives. The film [looks] at what would actually happen if we gave girls agency. I hope people take away from the film the idea that there is that space, for all of us to find within whatever sort of situation we find ourselves, to be our best selves, to reach for our own goals and dreams. Also, I wanted to highlight the importance of male allyship and how men play such a critical role in this transformative journey. I think sisterhood and male allyship were two things that I really hope that people take away.
Of course, because nothing can be done in a vacuum. There's always an integration of different things.
From the original story by Biplab Goswami to what was finally shown on the screen, what were some of the biggest changes made in the production process from the first initial story to the final product and why were those changes made, if you remember?
Biplab's story had this structure that you see in the film, of the girls getting lost and being found. The journey that they follow through the beginning and the end was what we actually wanted to develop and deepen because we felt that the girls’ arcs could be richer and that there could be more complexity in the plot. It was a little more realistic in tone and more art house, and we wanted to bring in more humor, more comedy of errors that could give us fun plot points and speak to certain themes that we wanted to touch upon. So we added characters and changed the arcs of a lot of characters [as well]. For instance, Jaya's arc is completely different, the policeman and Manju Maai were not there in the original script. There were lots of new people that we added into the story. Sneha [Desai] created different characters in both the home and the railway station, like Chotu and Abdul.
For my last question, to end on an aspirational note, what do you hope to do next after Laapataa Ladies and the Academy Awards? Do you hope to direct again?
Yeah, I absolutely do hope to direct again. I was actually working on my next few projects, one of which is a genre piece. It’s a supernatural story, which we were very deep into when the news came and we got a bit derailed, but that's something that I really want to get back to—all the projects that I've been developing over the years while I was waiting to make this film. I can't wait to be telling more stories. It's what gives me the most joy. I have a lot of things that I want to say to various stories, so I hope to be telling a lot more of them.
