System Smasher
THE WHITE TIGER I A servant strikes back in the Indian answer to Parasite.
Ramin Bahrani’s adaptation of Aravind Adiga’s 2008 Bookerwinning bestseller The White Tiger has been a long time coming. In fact, his name was all over it from the beginning. “Aravind is one of my closest friends,” smiles 99 Homes director Bahrani, whom the book is dedicated to. “The first time I read an early draft of The White Tiger
I was like, ‘Oh my God.’ It’s almost 15 years I’ve been waiting to make this film.”
After years toiling in a tea shop, Balram (Adarsh Gourav) talks his way into a job as the driver for wealthy couple Ashok (Rajkummar Rao) and his American wife Pinky (Priyanka Chopra Jonas, also exec producer). A servant who lives in the parking garage underneath his employers’ glamorous apartment block, Balram’s eyes are opened to the invisible shackles he is bound by, as he starts to dream of breaking free.
Tackling uncomfortable topics headon, including the country’s caste system and continuing failure to condemn servitude, The White Tiger is a darkly comic thriller with something to say. Shot on location in and around New Delhi, Bahrani hired a “99 per cent local Indian crew”, and filmed numerous bustling street scenes guerilla-style, dropping Gourav’s Balram among unwitting civilians to startling effect.
As part of his research, Bahrani spent two months in India travelling to every location mentioned in the book, and meeting drivers in the parking lots of luxury towers. It confirmed for him that, even though Adiga’s book was written more than 12 years ago, the issues it raised were more relevant than ever.
“The last four decades or more have shown there’s corruption in democracy,” says Bahrani.
“We need to just open our eyes and accept that it’s not working. There is a simmering rage. We can feel it in America.
You can feel it in India. You can feel it in any country in the world. And that simmering rage is Balram.” JF
ETA | JANUARY / THE WHITE TIGER OPENS IN CINEMAS IN JANUARY AND ON NETFLIX 22 JANUARY.