Cannes 2022: AR Rahman's Le Musk is a technical masterpiece, lauds I&B Minister Anurag Thakur

Union Minister of Information and Broadcasting, and Youth Affairs and Sports Anurag Thakur experienced AR Rahman's virtual reality film, Le Musk at the 75th Cannes Film Festival. A picture of the Minister sitting in an immersive chair (designed for the film) and donning a VR set was doing the rounds on social media.

Anurag Thakur was joined by the two-time Grammy winner, Ricky Kej, and the celebrated lyricist and Censor Board chief Prasoon Joshi. Le Musk is part of Cannes XR, a segment of the Cannes Film Market focusing on cinematographic content that uses immersive technologies.

"Le Musk is a technical masterpiece with inter-disciplinary expertise coming together from around the world," Anurag Thakur said after watching the film.

"We will take all the necessary measures to speed up co-production collaborations from around the world and also offer the best locations and historical locations in India for film shoots," Anurag Thakur stated.

Further, he added, "India's red carpet presence captured the diversity of its cinematic excellence not only in terms of representation of actors and filmmakers from various languages and regions but also the OTT platforms. I stand here before you to represent a civilisation that is over 6,000 years old, a youthful nation of over 1.3 billion Indians, and the world's largest film industry that produces over 2,000 films annually."

Le Musk is the double Oscar-winning music composer's directorial debut. Based on an idea from Rahman's wife Saira, the film is a sensory experience that employs haptics, aroma and motion. A 36-minute English-language drama, Le Musk, revolves around an heiress and musician who, two decades after being orphaned, goes in search of the men who changed her life. In her quest, she banks upon the memory of smell.

Le Musk took more than five years to come to fruition. The cast of the film is led by French actress and singer Nora Arnezeder, who plays the protagonist.

Additionally, AR Rahman is promoting Iravin Nizhal, for which he composed music. It is a 100-minute single-shot film with a non-linear narrative; also the 16th directorial venture of actor-filmmaker Radhakrishnan Parthiban.

AR Rahman observed, "I made Le Musk in the English language so that it reaches an international audience. I want to break boundaries and start a new path for India."

Filmmaker Shekhar Kapur, who was present at the event, felt India has strong potential to become the venue for a festival on the scale and level of the Cannes Film Festival. "For too long we've been too impressed with the West. The next Cannes is in India because if it's not, then I don't know where Cannes will go. We're the land of stories. The west is plateauing and the east is rising. We are the east, we've to step forward," Kapur added.

Kapur noted, "We have to step forward confidently that the world will accept us. Let's go forward confidently. This is a moment of confidence. Cannes is extremely important but what is more important is how we use them afterwards. We have to focus on the aftermath of Cannes. We all have to take things seriously."

Kapur is at Cannes as a part of an Indian delegation led by Union Minister Anurag Thakur. He along with R Madhavan, Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Grammy award-winner Ricky Kej, and Prasoon Joshi walked the red carpet.