arts&life

film

Tikkun
Olam
Meets
Bollywood

A new fi lm by

native Detroiter

Danny Baron brings

elements of his

Jewish upbringing to

the screen.

SHARON LUCKERMAN
CONTRIBUTING WRITER

A

dozen years ago, three
Detroit friends brain-
stormed a concept for a
film. They had a bold idea — to
make a romantic comedy with
a moral dilemma at its core.
Even more, the story would take
place in India and be a musical.
Danny Baron, born and bred
in Oak Park and a graduate
of Berkley High School, the
University of Michigan and
New York University, eventually
taught screenwriting at U-M
in Ann Arbor. There he was

ABOVE: Danny Baron and Brie Larson
discuss a scene in a rice field.
TOP: Larson and
Utkarsh Ambudkar.

48

February 22 • 2018

jn

joined by Jeff Dorchen, from
Farmington Hills, and Danny
Thompson, from Ferndale, to
create the story they called
Basmati Blues.
This week, Basmati Blues
finally premieres around the
country, including Metro
Detroit, and can be viewed
On Demand. It was directed
by Baron, now based in Los
Angeles, and produced by
Jeffrey Soros, Ruedi Gerber and
executive producer Monique
Caulfield, Baron’s wife.
Baron remembers his first
writing project with Dorchen
at age 13 — the two worked on
their graduation project togeth-
er at the Jewish Parent Institute
at the Jewish Community
Center of Oak Park. “Jeff and I
wrote and acted in a play about
my grandparents and their
immigrant experience coming
to America,” he says.
Little did the Detroit friends
imagine their script would
attract Academy Award-
winning actors Brie Larson and
Donald Sutherland, who makes
his singing debut in the film,
along with Utkarsh Ambudkar
(Pitch Perfect, The Mindy
Project), Scott Bakula and Tyne
Daly. Or that most of their film
would be shot in India.

Baron on set in his Tigers cap

While Basmati Blues journeys
from New York City to India, its
essence, Baron says, goes back
to his secular Jewish upbringing
and lessons learned from his
Russian “Baba” and his politi-
cally active parents, Evelyn and
Eugene Baron of Oak Park.
“Growing up, I was surround-
ed by ideas about how to make
the world a better place,” Baron
says. “The film is about having
responsibility for others, about
tikkun olam.”
In his film, the idea of per-

sonal responsibility infuses the
story of Dr. Watt (Brie Larsen),
a scientist who creates a new
kind of rice to improve rice
production in India. Once she
arrives in India, however, she
learns that her company’s
use of her research actually
harms farmers. How Dr. Watt
proceeds is complicated, espe-
cially when she falls in love
with one of the farmers, who
also studied science until he
was forced to drop out.
To heighten the film’s mul-
ticultural themes, Baron used
a range of musical styles to
create the soundtrack. “The
film’s a little Bollywood and a
little Hollywood,” he says. “We
watched a bunch of Bollywood
films and started to think,
‘What is it about these films we
love? What can we borrow to
best tell our story?’”
The film became an aesthetic
mix of East and West, follow-
ing the journey of the lead
character from West to East.
He approached the soundtrack
similarly. Each song is a differ-
ent sound along the way, from
mid-century jazzy Broadway
to the current pop of Kristian
Bush of Sugarland to classical
Sufi Qawwali mixed with rock
on a Pearl Jam number, plus

