Indo-Argentinian Film Looks at Tagore’s Relationship with Writer Victoria Ocampo
NEW DELHI, (IANS) – Argentine film director Pablo Cesar’s Indo-Argentinean film ‘Thinking of Him’ co-produced by award-winning Indian filmmaker Suraj Kumar, explores the Indian Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore’s relationship with the Argentine writer Victoria Ocampo. Having read the French translation of ‘Gitanjali,’ Ocampo idolized Tagore, and when he fell ill during his Bueno Aires visit in 1924, she is said to have taken care of him.
Cesar has been making films right from the age of 13 when his older brother presented him with a Super 8mm camera and taught him the basics. He is a professor at the University of Cinema in Buenos Aires since 1992. ‘Thinking of Him’ stars Victor Banerjee in the role of Tagore and the Argentine actor Eleonora Wexler as Victoria.
Cesar has recreated the Tagore-Ocampo encounters based on the real-life story. Tagore had to stop in Buenos Aires on November 6, 1924, for medical rest while he was on his way to Peru to attend the centenary celebrations of the country’s independence. Victoria came to know about it and offered to take care of him. She rented a mansion in a suburb of Buenos Aires and put-up Tagore there.
Speaking about his experience of shooting in India, Pablo Cesar said: “It was a unique experience to shoot in India. I have known India since 1994, although it is difficult to know all of India. But over the years, I have understood many things about the idiosyncrasies and behavior of people from many places in India, a country that I personally admire.”
“The film is about what Victoria Ocampo thought of Tagore and it is not about what you and I think of Tagore. As part of my preparation, I had to understand how much she really felt for him as a woman, and as an intellectual. She was half his age when they met, but there was something beyond mere admiration in their relationship. It was, of course, Victoria who organized Tagore’s first art exhibition in Paris in 1930,” added actor Victor Banerjee.
