Scaling the sheer walls of Amer (via the staircase), I had made a journey few had travelled before. But the few that had made it included Harrison Ford, so I was in good company. Before me lay the Amber-Fort Palace, better known as the set for George Lucas’s epic: Indiana Jones & The Temple of Doom.
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| Amber Fort. |
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| The Mountain perimeter |
After reading Gunga Din, Lucas envisaged the plot of the Indiana prequel with its murderous Thuggi cult of kidnappers in this imposing medieval building. The Fort is one of the most famous sights in Jaipur. It was used as a backdrop the 1984 adventure film and was a famous attraction in Rajisthan since 1604. Its summit can be reached by elephant train most mornings. At the end of a very long queue of tourists it will cost 900 of your Indian Rupee for a piggy-back from a pachyderm. [Photos and story to follow in a future blog-post.] However, for the more impatient and adventurous tourist, the perimeter walls run around the town of Amer and out to the surrounding hill-posts.
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| The Citadel Palace |
From one film-fort to another, we continued our filming at Narhargarh fort. Almost putting the finishing touches to the Indian section of Utopia. Having located a jail, with the required character and lighting. However the key flaw was our jail (read warehouse) had no bars and all the prisoners had long since escaped. The art department were pleased to have a project that was more of a challenge than shopping for props.
Cue the soundtrack and a day later we had cell blog 15 and 16, repleat with a visiting area. All we needed now were some willing inmates.
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| No one escapes cell-block 15! |
Using this location to the full, we were still sure to be wrapped in plenty of time as we had photos to take for the newspaper in Tehran. Saahil, managed to arrange a spot about his involvement with the film for the Times of India, which was a surprise to see over breakfast.
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| The Team. |
Another full day of filming round forts the only thing left to do was get an early night in before travelling to location. Taxis were set to roll at 3:30am for our 6 hour journey. However, the early night was not going to happen.
In Jaipur the custom is that there are only a certain number of days in the year on which one can marry. As it so happened that night fell on one of those marriagable dates. From around 7pm onwards the unmistakable sound of drums filled the street with processions of marriage goers. With scant chance to sleep, a number of us ran out into the street to try and gain some photos of the event. The bridegrooms were seated on horseback, with a young boy, and had money pinned to them, by their entourage. The procession danced their way down the busy roads playing music, whilst two lines of lamps corralled the festivities in and stopped them competing with the busy traffic on the streets. Fireworks and music kept up an unrelenting carnival atmosphere. There was even a disco in the basement, which went on until 3am. That left a good half an hour for sleep before the taxis arrived to take us on to the river and the last scenes of the film.
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| A Rajisthani Marriage Procession |
