A long empty hotel corridor. A faulty tube light.
A door opens at the far end and a man comes out, he is carrying a briefcase. He comes towards the camera and exits left.
The camera tracks back slowly – after a few seconds, another door opens and a man comes out from the other side – but from the far end. He is dressed like the first man. He also walks towards the camera and goes into another room.
Almost immediately another door opens, this time close to the camera. Another man, (or is it the same man?) comes out and walks away from the camera. After he exits, there is another.
Then there are two or three of them crossing each other in the corridor – coming out of doors and going into others.
One of them walks all the way towards the camera and comes right up to it.
He has no face.
RK wakes up…
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is your handshake with Rajat Kapoor’s next – RK/R Kay. As this unconventional filmmaker gets set to embark upon his next project, he takes forward the cause of genre-bending cinema, earlier seen in gems such as Mithya and Ankhon Dekhi. Slated to release in 2018, the film is currently in the incubation stage, and as it preps to hit the floors, we get chatting with Kapoor on the what, why, and how of his next masterpiece in the making.
“About 8 years back I’d written a script about a man losing his reflection in the mirror. The reflection escapes from the mirror; and leaves him feeling anxious – like he’s lost something intangible. He then finds the reflection in real life, as a person who looks like him, and slowly this other guy takes over his life,” shares Kapoor of the original idea for his film. However, with time, as is with everything, the script too evolved and became the version you read at the start of this piece. “After 4 years the story came to me in another form, where RK is a filmmaker (since his name is RK, I’ll have to play that role, like it or not),” he laughs and continues, “He also acts in his movie, let’s say as Sunil. Once the editing starts, he’s nervous about the film coming together nicely. The editor asks him to not attend editing for a few days, and that he’ll handle it. One day RK gets a call saying that the lead character has run away – he’s not in the film anymore. Sunil comes into real life and the rest of the film is about sending the character back into the film so that RK can finish his film.”
An illustrative peek into RK/R Kay
As the suspense and mystery leaves us wanting for more, we ask what lies beneath the theme of the film, “I find this idea very exciting, there’s something in it about the creative process itself and the ‘free will vs. destiny’ question,” Rajat quips as he tells us that RK/R Kay is in the series of his films about identity, of who are you, and if you lose this then what are you. However, for this one, the end is yet to be decoded, “You don’t know what happens in the end. I’m very excited about what happens in the end, it will be fantastic,” an enthusiastic Rajat proclaims.
With the curiosity tugging at us, we can’t wait to see the production on screens at the soonest. And in support of this cause, we are doing our bit through the crowdsourcing campaign led by Kapoor himself. Here’s how we did it – https://gocrowdera.com/IN/campaigns/rkrk – to have this stellar story hit the screens pronto!
If the film intrigues you, if independent cinema occupies a corner of your heart & mind, if you just wish to commit a good deed, then join us and help making this venture see the light of the day. And if the above three don’t feature on your list, then simply help spread the word – each one counts!
Featured Image Courtesy: find.org.in
