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Merchant then signed up Caribbean writer Caryl (Playing Away) Phillips to pen the screenplay. After several drafts, the pair made their first recce to Trinidad two years ago.
There were subsequent meetings with everyone from the Prime Minister (Basdeo Panday, the country’s first Indo-Trinidadian PM and sometime actor) to wealthy island businessmen to discuss cooperation and cash.
With the veiled threat that the whole production could just as easily be relocated to Southern India, where Merchant had filmed Cotton Mary, the local magnates eventually suc- cumbed to the filmmakers’ charm and cajoling even to the extent of part-funding the bargain-basement £1.7 million production.
To play the charismatic Ganesh, Merchant picked Aasif Mandvi, an award-winning New York stage actor who had first arrived in the States as a teenager from India via Bradford and the Brighouse Children’s Theatre.
Better known to British audiences are Jimi Mistry and Om Puri, last seen together as warring son and father in the box office hit East Is East, Madhur Jaffrey’s daughter Sakina, Ayesha Dharker from The Terrorist who’ll be seen in the next Star Wars instalment, James Fox as an eccentric ex-pat, and 88-year-old trouper Zohra Segal, play- ing one of the novel’s most memorable characters, an aged belching Auntie.
Finally, in a very timely casting coup, Merchant chose comic actor Sanjeev Bhaskar of Goodness Gracious Me fame to portray Beharry, Ganesh’s amiable and endlessly sup- portive sidekick, who actually dubs him ‘Mystic Masseur.’
Behind the camera, Merchant belatedly enlisted Ernie Vincze, who when he’s not making films and televi- sion is head of cinematography at the NFTS. Vincze had last worked for MIP 20 years earlier on Jane Austen In Manhattan and, before that, on the acclaimed Roseland, both in New York.
Heading up the art department was Lucy Richardson, who as produc- tion designer Andrew Sanders’ right hand, was part of the Standard Award-
winning design team earlier
this year for Merchant Ivory’s previ- ous film, The Golden Bowl.
Merchant said he knew he wanted to direct The Mystic Masseur even before securing the rights expensively from the reclusive author. “I got good support from Ruth and Jim [Ivory], who was in Trinidad for the three weeks of the shoot and made sugges-
tions from time to time which were very useful.”
Ivory will, incidentally, direct MIP’s next major production, Le Divorce, an adaptation of Diane Johnson’s bestseller.
Admitting that he finds it difficult to switch off being a producer, Merchant the director still manages to run a very relaxed set. “The Prozac
“...there’s really no such thing as a James Ivory Film or an Ismail Merchant Film. It’s always a Merchant Ivory Film.”
Photos from top l-r: Ayesha Dharker with Sanjeev Bhaskar in his usual jovial mood on the set of The Mystic Masseur; DP Ernie Vincze BSC behind the camera; a quick hair-do before the next shot; Ismail Merchant and Zohra Segal on the set
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