Locations in Europe: Spain – Barcelona, Costa Brava, Seville, Bunol, Pamplona
Storyline
Star(s): Hrithik Roshan, Farhan Akhtar, Abhay Deol, Katrina Kaif, Kalki Koechlin, Naseeruddin Shah
Language: Hindi
Songs/Dance/ Action Sequences: Songs: Shot in different locations of Spain. Action sequences: Bull run shot in Pamplona, scuba diving shot in Costa Brava, sky diving shot in Seville.
Indian/ International Crew: Collaboration between Indian and international crews.
Executive Producer: Sunitha Ram; Line Producers: Mekhala Krishnaswamy, Salvador Yagüe; Producer for Spain: Denise O’ Dell
Director/Producer: Zoya Akhtar (Director), Produced by Excel Entertainment Executive Producer/Line Producer
Film Location Analysis
By Ranjani Mazumdar
Imran, Kabir, and Arjun land in Barcelona for their bachelor vacation. After an initial encounter with the city’s monumental architecture and its downtown, the three embark on a road trip across Spain using different cars that they hire. The film invites viewers to explore the country by car and create their own itineraries. In several sequences, the camera frames the road signs prominently while the friends are peering at maps and planning their own routes. During these automobile journeys, some of the most interesting conversations, songs, and poetry recitations are staged against touristic vistas of expansive fields, dazzling blue skies, horses on the run, and majestic mountains and cliffs. The windswept demeanour of the friends as they drive through picturesque locations captured from a variety of camera angles allows spectators the pleasure of a breath-taking encounter with Spain’s landscape, which is enhanced through a combination of aerial views shot from a helicopter and ground level shots taken from moving vehicles. The high-angle views of the sinuous layout of the road with the automobile making its way against a changing topography of forest foliage, wild grass, the blue sea, and mountains on both sides create a pleasurable form of navigation for the spectator. The Mediterranean sun is dramatic and adds to the overall beauty of the unfolding landscape.
Like in any road movie, Zindagi halts at particular sites during the course of the journey. These moments lead to encounters with a range of adventure sports and attractions—scuba diving, sky diving, the La Tomatina festival, and the bull race, which is the grand finale of the vacation and the film. Each friend introduces the others to a dangerous sport. Each of these outdoor activities necessitates the friends confronting some deeply held fears and phobias. Arjun is scared of swimming, and Imran is scared of heights. Kabir, on the other hand, is far too polite and unable to reverse some of the major decisions of his life. Akhtar elaborately uses the context of adventurous sports to instil individual encounters with the self that are transformative.
The scuba diving sequence was shot in Catalonia's Costa Brava, in north-eastern Spain. This is where the three friends meet Laila, a fashion designer from London who works for three months every year as a diving instructor. She provides the initial training to the three friends, which is also intended as instructions for the audience watching the film. Having taken the plunge under pressure from his friends, Arjun is blown away by the beauty of what he sees under water. The combination of music and bodies moving through the density of underwater marine life turns into a colourful spectacle that appears almost artificial to the eyes. When Arjun resurfaces, he is overwhelmed by the experience and unable to stop his tears. The spectator is offered a haptic and mesmerising cinematic encounter with underwater topography.
The same approach is taken in the skydiving sequence, where it is Imran’s turn to fight his phobia. Like in the scuba diving sequence, spectators are provided a brief account of the training all three friends undergo before they decide to dive. When the three jump out of an aircraft, we see aerial views of the landmass made to look like a pretty weave of carpet patchwork. We see the view from the point of view of the friends as well as from high above their flying bodies. Like the underwater sequence, the sky diving is meant to instil an immersive experience of how to view the world from this privileged point of view in the sky. The sequence was shot in Seville, the capital of Andalusia in the south of Spain.
Akhtar also shot the film’s most popular song in the midst of a wild tomato festival known as Tomatina. This sequence offers a different kind of sensation of a large crowd participating in what is an annual festival held in the town of Bunol that involves tomatoes being thrown at each other. Around 40,000 people take part in this crazy festival, and approximately 150,000 tomatoes are brought for the event. The Zindagi team described the festival as a Spanish version of India’s Holi. The combination of red tomatoes, hose pipes spraying water on the participants, and the dense crowd's wild cheering made for an unusual cinematic ambience. It was Laila’s decision to take everyone to Bunol, and the song was staged with everyone participating in the slug fest. It was shot using two cameras and edited to offer a pleasing spectacle of bodies in motion with music. In the sequence, we witness a carefree constellation of wild energy as all the friends shed their inhibitions to participate with gusto. The song circulated independently on its own, like a set piece extracted from the film, since it also functioned as an advertisement for the Tomatina festival.
The sensation triggered by the dense crowd is staged again at the end of the film during the famous bull run, another annual ritual held across Spain. For this sequence, the Zindagi team shot in Pamplona, the capital city of the autonomous community of Navarre. This is the most famous of the bull runs in Spain, and in the film, it is Imran’s decision to try this despite major opposition from his friends. The final run to escape the bulls is the sequence that ends the journey across Spain and becomes the climax with which the film ends. The closeness of the danger in this controversial sport is played up as the moment that finally gives all three, especially Kabir, the strength to take certain crucial decisions. This is revealed in the credit sequence, where Arjun is getting married to Laila and Kabir is no longer with Natasha.
In addition to all these adventurous encounters, we are also introduced to flamenco music and dance, choreographed by Bosco and Caesar. The sequence was shot with the three friends dancing together with a flamenco artiste in the Andalucian town of Alajar, 100 kilometres from Seville. It took a few days to complete the shooting, and on one night the local mayor along with several residents joined the dance performance in costume.
What has usually been missed by many reviewers is the Mediterranean architectural layout of the film. This kind of architecture is usually associated with countries like Spain, Croatia, and Italy. The striking and distinct look of this form has made it popular with hotels, offices, and housing blocks in coastal areas of the world. The windows and doors are usually arched, and the roof is covered with red-coloured clay tiles. The walls have a striking white colour that helps to deflect the harsh sun. The outdoor sensibility enabled by good weather is structurally drawn into the architectural form in the form of courtyards, gardens, and patios. Sometimes these courtyards and gardens include stone carvings, and there is usually ornamental detailing on the door and window frames. In Zindagi, the audience gets a fair sense of both the interior and the exterior of this distinctive architectural form, especially when the three friends visit Imran’s estranged painter father Salman Habib (Naseeruddin Shah) in a village, after he bails them out of jail.
As is obvious from the range of cinematic attractions offered by Zindagi, the spectator was clearly being invited for a touristic encounter with a major European country. The film combines car travel, walking, flying, and various outdoor sports to introduce Spain’s landscape, distinctive architecture, cultural traditions, and dazzling sun. Spectators are invited into an immersive experience of travel embedded firmly in the structure of the narrative. Zindagi quite openly exploits cinema’s affinity with tourism to transport its audience to a magical elsewhere of desire and fantasy. The combination of spectacle, playfulness, romantic encounters, and choreographed musical performances allowed the film to operate as an unusual tourism catalogue that showcased Spain’s diverse geographical contours and monumental architecture in the garb of a coming-of-age story.
Additional Information & Links
The Spanish government offered the production team concessions to help with the tourism market. Zindagi released in July of 2011 and by September of the same year, tourism from India to Spain rose by 32%.
The film was produced in collaboration with the Spanish tourism promotion agency, Turespaña. “There was an immediate impact in the number of people requesting entry visas to travel to Spain,” said Enrique Ruiz de Lera, who led the agency’s talks with the producers of the movie.
In 2012, a year after Zindagi was released, 60,444 Indians visited Spain. This is twice the number of 2011 according to the Tourism Ministry.
Lonely Planet launched a guide to Spain in 2013 to advertise tours to the locations featured in Zindagi.
India’s ambassador to Spain, Vikram Misri, said the film “was singlehandedly responsible for making Spain a household name in India and increasing tourism from India”.
Turespaña suggested locations but gave no direct financial aid to cover the cost of making the film, Ruiz de Lera said. They helped with permits to film at particular locations and helped with transportation and hotel rooms at discounted rates. “We helped a lot with contacts so filming in Spain was easy,” he said.
The producers agreed to return the favour with a short promotional advertisement for Spain by the award-winning Spanish director Julio Medem.
Spain and India signed a film co-production agreement the year after Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara was released.
Turespaña regularly takes part in film location fairs in India to pitch the tax breaks and other incentives available to producers who shoot in Spain.
Since Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara, many Indian films have been shot in Spain.
Tourism is crucial for the Spanish economy, accounting for around 11% of GDP and one in nine jobs, according to the tourism ministry. The UN World Tourism Organisation predicts that 50 million Indian tourists a year will travel abroad by 2020, up from 18 million in 2014.
Zindagi has now been included as a case study for a course in marketing management in Spain. The marketing course gives example of Spain as a product and calculates how the film has increased the tourism by 65%.
The film has been described as a “brochure of Spain”.
Tourism
http://travel.cnn.com/mumbai/life/indian-movie-boosts-spanish-tourism-694426/
https://awaradiaries.com/znmd-filming-locations/
https://www.thelocal.es/20160620/spain-joins-forces-with-bollywood-to-boost-tourism
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p147cWofim4
https://travel.earth/travel-reviews-zindagi-na-milegi-dobara-movie/
