There is much anticipation amongst cinema lovers to watch actor Dev Patel’s directorial debut, Monkey Man, which will hit theatres on April 5. The action-thriller film premiered at the famed South by Southwest festival in Texas, USA on March 11. It received a grand standing ovation. It has gotten 94 per cent positive reviews on the review-aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, based on 62 verified critic reviews. Other than directing the film, Dev Patel shares screenplay writing credits with Paul Angunawela and John Collee. The film features actors like Sobhita Dhulipala, Makarand Deshpande, Sikander Kher, Sharlto Copley and Pitobash.
Recently, Patel spoke to Variety about the film’s representation of the trans community and how he aims to challenge the orthodoxy of faith via the story. Patel described Monkey Man as an “anthem for the underdog, voiceless and marginalised’. Patel elaborated on how the film takes many symbols from Hindu mythology and said, “For me, I wanted to take this old mythology and take these characters, who I thought was the hero – Hanuman – who had lost faith in himself, he needed to be reminded by fellow outsiders of who he was. And together they waged this war for the good and the just.”
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He emphasised the importance of rightly portraying the trans community in the film and said, “I just really wanted to include the Hijra community, the third gender in India. This is at its core, a revenge film about faith and the beauty of faith. With faith, we should be fighting for each other, not against each other. That’s what it should do at its best.”
Patel highlighted how in the current atmosphere faith has become rigid, which is divorced from the ancient spiritual philosophies. He continued, “Faith has become rigid over time. But when you look at the old carvings in these temples in India, the freedom, the sexuality, all of it, the philosophy was so ahead of its time. So I wanted to dive into it and make that the lore of the film.”
Previously, Patel spoke about the tight financial constraints that hindered the making of the film. In an interaction on Reddit, Patel described Monkey Man as the “most demanding thing he has ever done”. The 33-year-old said that he had to beg and plead with the financers to not withdraw their backing. Now, it appears that Patel’s hard work and persistence have paid off.
Initially, Monkey Man was set for Netflix release but when actor and filmmaker Jordan Peele, whose production company has a distribution deal with Universal Pictures, watched the film, he decided that Monkey Man deserves a theatrical release instead.
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