'Indian History, Harry Potter, And LOTR': Ayan Mukerji Decodes The Inspiration Behind Brahmastra

The fantasy drama Brahmastra, directed by Ayan Mukerji, is scheduled to hit theaters in September. Brahmastra, delayed several times for different reasons, is being touted as one of this year's major releases.

Just a few weeks before its official release, Ayan released a video explaining how facets of Indian mythology, history, and filmmaking in its entirety pushed him closer to becoming the director of this movie.

Instagram/Brahmastrathefilm

Ranbir Kapoor, Alia Bhatt, Amitabh Bachchan, and Nagarjuna play prominent roles in the movie Brahmastra. The film is the first chapter in a trilogy.

Ayan is seen sitting in a room with a trident and film series posters in the background in the video, which begins with a dialogue line from Ranbir's character in the movie.?

The filmmaker stated,

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"The threads with which Brahmastra has been woven go very deep. As a child, I grew up loving stories about Indian history. My father used to tell me a lot about our powerful gods and goddesses, and I was deeply affected by them. Shiv bhagwan and Vishnu bhagwan, Ganpati ji and Hanuman ji , maa durga and maa kaali. A certain spiritual depth and even science in Indian philosophy naturally infuse most people's lives growing up in India. "

Ayan's monologue sharply transitions to citing Hollywood movies as sources of inspiration.

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"As a teenager, I became a big reader, and like many others from my generation, I was very excited by certain fantasy series from the western world. The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter are among my all-time favorites. As a young filmmaker, I enjoyed greatly and observed closely how Hollywood regularly used technology to bring their storytelling alive as blockbuster cinema," he said.

But even though many movies and aspects of Indian history have influenced Ayan, Brahmastra is nothing less than an entirely original work of art.

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"As I started to create Brahmastra, all this inspiration pent up within me came bubbling up, and I realized that the movie that I was creating in my imagination had colors of everything I had absorbed, but somehow they had all mixed up together in a way to create a new, a very original color. And today, as we almost finished making the movie, this same fact makes me feel very proud that Brahmastra is a very original film," he said.

Watch the video here:

Ayan previously revealed in a video titled Brahmastra The Beginning that he dedicated ten years of his life to trying to make this movie come to life.

Brahmastra will be released in theatres on September 9.

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