A Dublin film and TV producer, who directed landmark videos for Michael Jackson and A-ha in the 1980s, says that his new film reveals another side to India after decades of Bollywood movies.
Steve Barron produced Brahman Naman, a new teen comedy, which tells the madcap tale of a group of school quiz champs who travel to Calcutta to take part in an all-important quiz final.
The film follows the exploits of quick-witted Naman, who leads his hopelessly nerdy friends as they battle to win the quiz - and lose their virginity along the way.
Not so much Heat and Dust as heat and lust, Brahman Naman has been described as "The In-Betweeners meets American Pie".
The film certainly reveals another side to Indian after the relentlessly upbeat but chaste world of Bollywood and English period TV dramas set during the Raj. Barron, who is from Terenure in Dublin, told RTÉ Entertainment that the reaction in India to the film has been very positive.
“People there are calling it refreshing,” he says. “The media and people who are savvy to international cinema like it but we haven’t had a reaction yet from people who are only used to home-grown cinema - Bollywood on one hand and southern Indian film on the other - so that will be interesting to see.
“This is very different to any film that’s been out there because it is very home-grown but it has an international flavour. It’s a genre that they’ve not really played in to - teenage comedy.”
Brahman Naman is loosely based on UK-based journalist and author Naman Ramachandran’s own teen years growing up in India but Barron says, the experiences of the teen quiz nerds will resonate with audiences all over the world.
“What was fascinating for me was that I hadn’t seen that time of life, the teen years, from that eastern point of view - these super smart kids who are champion quizzers and yet who spend lot of their time on this alcohol-fuelled, testosterone-driven exploits with their fantasies,” he says.
The kids are alright. Kinda
“I didn’t know that existed within a parallel universe of very strict, smart boys being brought up in India and I thought that was a very interesting take on the world we had growing up. It was very similar - just pals hanging out, doing things you’re not supposed to when you’re teenagers.”
After winning admirers at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year and more recently at the 70th Edinburgh International Film Festival, Brahman Naman has just been released on Netflix and Barron, who has worked in the film and TV industry at all levels, is in a unique position to comment on the rise of streaming and on-demand services as more traditional methods of broadcast see their business model disrupted.
“I love that Netflix is protecting the quality and going after really good things and knowing when to say, you know what? This needs more money thrown at it. It needs more time, or more production value," he says.
“They know what people demand now and what they’re used to is very, very high quality and watching things in a different way. Binge watching does consume it all quite quickly but this is a good time and without places like Netflix, this film wouldn’t have seen the light of day in 192 countries around the world.
"It would not have happened. We have been lucky if we’d sold it to four. For us, Netflix is a very happy marriage. It’s a good time for television and not a good time for film. TV production is really strong in Ireland and in Northern Ireland as well.”
A parallel universe of very strict, smart boys being brought up in India
Barron made his name during the golden age of the pop video but he began his film career as a camera assistant on epic productions such as Richard Donner’s Superman, Richard Attenborough’s A Bridge Too Far, and Ridley Scott’s The Duellists.
He began directing music videos in the early eighties for The Jam, Human League, and Adam & the Ants. In 1982 he conceived and directed the award winning Billie-Jean - the first single of Michael Jackson’s Thriller album.
Barron worked at a time when MTV was king of breaking new acts, often through innovative and, for the era, controversial videos. The power of the pop video has waned considerably since then but Barron says he could be tempted back into making music promos if the right act came along.
“I love working with music and I’m really looking forward to seeing Sing Street but yeah, I’d love to do some more music videos," he says. "I’m just a little bit out of the loop but there is a whole new bunch of people who do make them and there are some amazing ones around. I love music and yeah, if the right track came around that I connected with, I’d do one."
Barron’s long career also includes directing 1990’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and more recently, directing episodes of recent ITV family drama The Durrells. He also directed the mini-series Treasure Island, which starred Eddie Izzard, Elijah Wood and Donald Sutherland, and parts of which were filmed in Dublin.
But next up for Barron is the completion of Mike Bassett: Interim England Manager, the follow-up to cult hit Mike Bassett - England Manager, which starred Ricky Tomlinson as the ill-starred gaffer of the England football squad.
Barron is certainly making it an interesting time considering England’s ignoble departure from Euro 2016 a few weeks ago. “We’ve put together a script that is almost like the first one I think in that it’s pretty prophetic. We’ve got ideas of what will happen and then they happen. We’re chasing our tail a bit. England at the Euros . . . yeah, that was hysterical, I mean, terrible. I love watching Twitter when England play - it’s all Mike Bassett.”
Alan Corr @corralan
Brahman Naman is available to view on Netflix
