The material is ripe with Hollywood potential. As I read ...

The material is ripe with Hollywood potential. As I read the book, I could imagine a European film producer already working on the project, an Oscar-bait film a la Captain Phillips. The key ingredients are all there — an abducted Italian tourist (who also happens to be great family man), a misunderstood revolutionary (a role tailor-made for Irrfan Khan) and a heroic TV journalist (you could probably hire Rajkummar Rao) who braved the hostile Odisha jungles for the sake of the story and ended up rescuing the great Italian family man.

The book itself offers great clues for an engaging screenplay, where two narratives (or five) could be intercut — the Italian’s love for India and its tribal people; his abduction by a Maoist faction in the interiors of Kandhamal, the home of the Kondhs and the hotbed of Naxalite activities; the journalist’s race to get the story first; the reaction of the family in Italy; government manoeuvrings; the Italian’s experience with the armed militants; the journalist’s foolhardy adventure to meet the militant leader, and finally, a happy ending, back in Rome. As the screen fades to black, you could put up some texts with figures, about the Maoist movement in the heartlands of India, which no one will read.

What’s more, it is based on real events.

//

Wrote this review of Kishalay Bhattacharjee's new book, 'An Unfinished Revolution' for Sakal Times. Now I am not sure of the tone. It's a good book, but perhaps not quite satisfactory. Perhaps, I was expecting more.
Read the full review at Sakal Times.