‘Art direction isn’t just about lavish sets’

Sanjay Dhabade is the art director of Gadar, Vivah and Veer. Here he talks of five film he thinks had exemplary art work.

Parinda (1989)
As an art director, I have always preferred a film with a realistic setting than one that is make-believe. Parinda was one such film. The art direction was such that you couldn’t differentiate what you saw on screen from the film’s story. The film was largely shot on real locations. The interiors of Nana Patekar’s factory, which was used to conduct his gang’s nefarious activities, lent the perfect mood to the scenes. The house Anil Kapoor and Jackie Shroff live in was a flat in Colaba, the interiors of which were kept intact, which lent simplicity to the scenes. The director, Vidhu Vinod Chopra, worked well with the art director Nitin Desai to get what what he wanted.

Rock On (2008)
You might be surprised by my choice, but Rock On was a film that I thought got its art right. Putting up sets is not the only thing an art director has to do, camouflaging a location to make it look like something the story demands is as important. The film’s opening scene was shot in Mumbai’s busy Fountain area. The situation was that of a rock show, and it came out looking very believable and not at all filmi. Arjun Rampal’s house had the perfect interior design necessary to communicate the character’s simple living. Even the house Farhan Akhtar and Prachi Desai lived in was done-up well. The art work (by Shekhar More) was very subtle, didn’t resort to any gimmick and went well with the requirements of the script. We seem to have this perception that films with lavish sets have good art direction, which is actually far from the truth.

Pakeezah (1972)
Pakeezah’s art direction was less realistic, and more the filmmaker’s fantasy gone wild, yet it worked because it helped to communicate the film’s story well. It was all about bringing to life director Kamal Amorhi’s vision and the film’s art director, NB Kulkarni, managed to do that well. In the scenes where Meena Kumari was shown dancing in a kotha, you could see other kothas in the background. It was totally a make-believe world, yet it appealed. The director seemed to have a clear concept and the art director was good enough to execute it.

Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam (1962)
The film’s artwork captured the flavour of Bengal just right. It wasn’t any more grandiose than what it was supposed to be. Each and every prop in every frame was there because it had to be so — there was minute detailing in every scene. Large corridors, Roman-styled architecture, the rannaghar (kitchen) in a separate section of the house, all of it helped to establish the story well. Rehman’s haveli, in fact, was one of the characters in the film.

Vivah (2006)
Vivah is a film I did the art direction for and that’s not why it made it to this list. I could achieve what I did with the film due to the guidance of one man — Sooraj Barjatya. We traveled to Ghaziabad, Mathura and other north Indian cities together, taking pictures and imbibing everything we saw for our research. Later, we came back and replicated the atmosphere through a set in Filmcity. Soorajji dictated every single thing he wanted from the length of the lanes, to the design of the houses, to the props used. Every time someone visited the set, they felt like they were transported to north India. After watching the film, MF Hussainsaab called up Soorajji and spoke about how much he liked the art. It was a great compliment.