In every film that he has had a chance to highlight his
Asian roots, the ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ star Dev Patel has seen it as an
opportunity and an honour to be an ambassador for his country. Essaying the
role of mathematical prodigy Srinavasa Ramanujan in his latest film ‘The Man
Who Knew Infinity’, affords him more than just the opportunity and honour to
portray this genius. “It is a great source of pride to bring this story back
home,” he enthuses.
As a tall, good-looking guy, Dev hardly matches the real
life Srinivasa, yet writer/director Matthew Brown defends his choice of actor.
“There could not have been a better actor than Dev to play the role. He is a
fantastic actor who has brought many nuances to the character,” he reiterates,
while endorsing Dev’s views. “We had a very important agenda to bring back this
film to India and IFFI has done us the greatest honour by scheduling it as the
opening film of the festival.
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A story about a mathematician, albeit a prodigy, would
hardly seem like an interesting story for audiences, but as Matthew reassures
audiences, through the seven years that it took him to make the film, he stayed
true to author Robert Kanigel’s story to make it one worth watching. “The human
story led me to it rather than science. I tried to err on the side of
authenticity and my areas of focus are the period prior to Srinavasa’s time at
Cambridge, his time at Cambridge and soon thereafter. But I did not shy away
from the mathematics. Thanks to Robert who made the story understandable and to
the volumes of research he lent me, including some minutes of a UDC meeting at
the University which helped me to write the dialogues, that I was able to
script a movie that will hopefully be interesting to all audiences. There are
various elements that contribute to the film, but overall it’s the passion of
the artiste that comes through,” says Matthew of the film which has opened at
the Toronto Film Festival as well as Zurich and is likely to make an entrance
at other international festivals before going to New York.
Romance and mathematics hardly seem to be good bed mates,
but Matthew, thanks once again to Kanigel who met Mrs Janakiammal Srinavasa,
was able to convincingly include this element in the film as well. Lead actress
Devika Bhise was able to glean much from her interaction with Kanigel about
this strong and charitable lady.
Bringing two cultures together through ‘The Man Who Knew
Infinity’ is perhaps the biggest achievement yet for the crew and cast of the
film who are honoured to showcase it as the opening film of the IFFI 2015.
