Academy-award nominated actor Dev Patel, renowned for his roles in films like Slumdog Millionaire, Lion and The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, has ventured into directing with the movie Monkey Man. In a recent interview, the actor-filmmaker discussed drawing inspiration from the Ramayan and the deity Hanuman for Monkey Man. He emphasised how the film reflects contemporary issues in India and delves into the intricacies of the caste system through action sequences.
Speaking at SXSW, Dev revealed that his grandfather would tell him tales of Hanuman as a child and he took inspiration from those stories for his film. He said, “My grandfather used to tell me stories from Ramayana, particularly of Hanuman. My father has this little necklace with a Hanuman pendant on it. Those mythologies have so many interesting parallels to them. When you put those stories in a caste system and the idea of the one percent against the elite. I was like I can take this and take what would be a Lord Of the Rings type film and distill it down and give it some social weight. I thought I can fuse this mythology with my love for the action genre.”
Explaining how Monkey Man is about faith, Dev Patel said, “It’s really a revenge film about faith. How faith can be a beautiful teacher for the uneducated. For a kid that grew up in a forest, a mother can inspire the child with stories, iconography, capture his imagination, but at the same time faith can be weaponised and monetised. Personally for me, I hope I don’t get in trouble for this, for me Hinduism is a beautiful philosophy, and what’s going on in India, we touch on all of these things and try and give a voice to the voiceless.”
Sharing how he tried to show caste system through action sequences in the film, Dev said, “We pulled from action film tropes. You look at Bruce Lee or Game of Death or the Raid, it is always about working your way up to the big boss. I was like, okay, this is the caste system. That’s why I wanted to talk about caste system with action. We are going to start in a club called Kings and we start with the poor, the slaves in the bottom in this windowless kitchen and then this guy will go up to the land of the Kings. He will conquer that and bring down the tapestries of oppressive Maharajas and then he will meet a manmade God and then he will challenge that God. Spoiler alert. He will then reach the heaven.”
Apart from Dev Patel in the lead role, Monkey Man also stars Sharlto Copley, Sikandar Kher, Sobhita Dhulipala and Makarand Deshpande in pivotal roles.
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