Amitabh Bachchan as a Shakespearian actor
{FILM SPOTTING}
The Last Lear (India, 2008)
Polish Distributor: None as of yet, worldwide release was in September 2008
Director: Rituparno Ghosh
Cast: Amitabh Bachchan, Preity Zinta, Arjun Rampal
Production House: Planman Motion Pictures
Plot: (from imdb)
An aging Shakespearean actor takes on one of the bard’s most challenging roles.
Trailer
Why it might be worth seeing
The main reason I guess is Amitabh Bachchan ;) He has gotten some terrific reviews for this - one of his best parts for ages apparently. Preity Zinta, who I’m rarely that keen on (though I did love her in Dil Se) has gotten some very good reviews too. I’m quite excited to see her because she’s going through a major image change apparently - no more glamour, she wants to do more realistic stuff and she’s even recently done a course in a prestigious Indian acting school to improve her skills.
Clearly the acting in this film was taken very seriously, you can read about how Amitabh Bachchan prepared here and here’s Arjun Rampal talking about his preparation for the part.
Commercially, however, this film flopped and apart from the acting it didn’t get particularly good reviews either. Some blame the flop on the film having been shot entirely in English, but I kind of doubt the reason is that simple… Still, I’d really like to see this :)
