With Nana Patekar’s passing, fans are revisiting his iconic Anna in Parinda, widely named among his best films. The 1989 Indian Hindi-language crime thriller stars Jackie Shroff, Anil Kapoor, Nana Patekar and Madhuri Dixit, and was directed, produced and distributed by Vidhu Vinod Chopra. Here are seven things you may not know.
The climactic fire was dangerously real
While filming the final scene’s fire sequence, the crew lost control of a fire they built using rubber solution and petrol. Nana Patekar suffered serious burns, was critically injured and was hospitalised for nearly two months. He returned to filming after a year, and the set was rebuilt in Film City, where the fire sequence was re-shot under more controlled conditions.
It was first called Kabutarkhana
Parinda translates to Bird. The film was initially named Kabutarkhana, meaning pigeon accommodation, before it was later changed to Parinda.
Two real brothers inspired the story
Chopra based the story of Parinda on two real-life brothers who worked for a gangster. In 1985, his suspense thriller Khamosh failed to find distributors and he released a single print at Mumbai’s Regal Cinema. In retrospect, he decided to make a more commercial Hindi film about two brothers on the streets of Mumbai, which became Parinda. The story drew from two non-fictional brothers who worked for a gangster named Ashwin Naik.
Nana Patekar nearly played the elder brother
Chopra cast Patekar in the elder brother’s role after he saw him in a play called Purush. Anil Kapoor, who was cast as Karan, told Chopra that Patekar was not suitable for the role of his elder brother. Patekar was then offered the role of Anna, the film’s antagonist. Shah and Patekar were considered for the role of Kishan, which later went to Jackie Shroff.
Jackie Shroff said yes only after the songs
Anil Kapoor asked Jackie Shroff to play his elder brother. Shroff was initially hesitant to do the film because he did not want to get typecast in the elder brother role. Later, Kapoor made Shroff listen to the songs and he agreed to do the film.
Its shadow lighting took cues from The Godfather
Scenes were shot in natural lighting, with light coming through the windows or candles in indoor scenes. Cinematographer Binod Pradhan chose shadow lighting because he was tired of the way Hindi films were lit. His main inspiration was Gordon Willis’s cinematography in The Godfather (1972), and he used diffusion materials such as white cloth or tracing paper to soften the light. According to Chopra, the use of natural lighting was a way for them to function on a limited budget.
It became India’s official Oscar submission
In a 2010 interview, film critic and Chopra’s wife Anupama Chopra noted that there was so much buzz about Parinda before its release. After the film’s release, Chopra went to Alankar cinema in Girgaon to see the audience’s reactions, but found some people were not happy with it because the lead characters are killed. Parinda was selected as the official Indian submission for the 1990 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, but it was not nominated. Critics credit it for introducing realism into mainstream Hindi cinema and redefining the portrayal of the underworld in films, while Patekar’s role as the psychopathic don is considered one of the best performances of his career.
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Facts from Wikipedia: Parinda, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Film images from TMDB. This product uses the TMDB API but is not endorsed or certified by TMDB.