Hollywood director Phillip Noyce calls Monkey Man 'best Indian film of the year', says Oscars should study Indian cinema

Phillip Noyce has been making films since 1977. A master of the action thriller genre, he is part of the Australian New Wave, which revived filmmaking in the country, and took it mainstream. He and George Miller were the forerunners of Australian talent in Hollywood. Today, Noyce feels Indian cinema is at that threshold. In an exclusive chat with DNA, he talks about RRR, Indian cinema going mainstream in the US, and whether Monkey Man can be called an Indian film.

Ask Noyce about his favourite Indian film of the recent times and he gives an interesting answer. “One of the best films I've seen this year, whether you claim it as an Indian film or not, is Monkey Man. It is an Indian film. I'm not sure it's set in India, although it was shot on an island of Singapore. But that that film is just really something I mean. That's not an American film. That's not a British film It's more Indian than anything in Hollywood,” he says.

Agreeing that it is somewhat RRR-meets-John Wick, Noyce laments on the film not getting a release in India. “, I understand this a little bit of sensitivity about one of the main characters and how close he might be to certain political figures in India. That's a pity because I think the Indian audience would go crazy for it,” he says.

The filmmaker, best known for action thrillers like Clear and Present Danger, Salt, and The Bone Collector, has only praise for SS Rajamouli’s RRR. “The film was mind boggling,” Noyce exclaims, “Its grasp of narrative characters, its set pieces; they're all like, oh my God. You just have to take a pause so many times. I saw it three times because it was not exhausting in a bad way. The storytelling is exhilarating.”

The director of Fast Charlie emphasises on the power of streaming, particularly Netflix, in taking Indian cinema global in a mainstream manner. Indeed, it was Netflix that gave RRR that mainstream push in the US that led to its Oscar win. Noyce says, “You can see a lot of Indian cinema on Netflix. That's one of the good things of the streaming revolution. In some ways, Hollywood still dominates with the algorithms, the means of distribution as they always have. But they have been forced to realise that the even the American audience don't just want to see American product. And there's so many Indian films that showed on Netflix. Now, Netflix has allowed us to be global in our in our appreciation without going to a film festival or through piracy.”

Noyce says that he has been campaigning at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which gives out the Oscars, to study Indian films. “I've been pushing at the Academy in our branch of directors branch to admit not just the Indian directors who have gone off to international careers, but to study domestic production that doesn't make it out of India. And realise that the nation that makes the most movies in any one year is full of so many diverse voices that need to be recognised,” he says.

Noyce’s latest film Fast Charlie stars Pierce Brosnan, James Caan (in his final film appearance) and Morena Baccarin. After a limited release in the US in December 2023, it released in India earlier this month and is running in select theatres.

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