(MENAFN- Arab Times) MUMBAI Dec 4 (AFP): A new film depicting the toxic gas leak that killed thousands in India's Bhopal city puts the blame squarely on Union Carbide for the disaster the director said. Indian filmmaker Ravi Kumar rejected criticism that 'Bhopal: A Prayer for Rain' was too soft on the US company saying he had told the truth in the film.
The movie opens in Indian cinemas on Friday just days after the 30th anniversary of the Dec 2 tragedy whose victims are still fighting for better compensation. Starring Hollywood's Martin Sheen and already showing in US cinemas the movie has been accused of placing greater blame on Indian management at the chemical factory and less on Union Carbide. Spewed Around 3500 people were killed soon after the factory spewed a cloud of gas over Bhopal and up to 25000 died in the years that followed. Those living near the factory who survived suffered related illnesses while women gave birth to children with deformities. 'We have tried to tell the events as they unfolded. When the audience comes out of the film there's no doubt who was at fault' Kumar told AFP. 'It's the American Union Carbide Corporation that has the responsibility of the disaster. That's the truth and that is what we have told in the film' he said. Kumar suggested lessons still needed to be learnt from the tragedy. 'The mechanism for most industrial disasters... is eerily familiar cost-cutting corporate greed untrained staff and ignorance of early warning signs by the management.' 'We want to ensure that accidents such as Bhopal belong in the history books.' Evidence The screenplay is based on court evidence correspondence testimonies hospital and forensic records and memories and experiences of survivors and Carbide workers. Sheen plays Warren Anderson CEO of Union Carbide which was taken over by Dow Chemical in 2001. Liv Ullmann's newest film 'Miss Julie' is set in rural Ireland in the late 19th century but the Norwegian actress and director says the themes of the period drama about class power and desire are still relevant today. Ullmann adapted and directed the film which opens in limited release on Friday from Swedish playwright August Strindberg's play of the same name. It depicts the social restraints and struggle for dominance between a woman and her father's valet on Midsummer's Eve a celebration of the summer solstice. 'There is so much we have in common today with what was happening then although it looks different today' Ullmann 75 said in an interview. 'The unfairness of how people are living today compared to the unfairness of how people were living then it is not better today.' Oscar-nominee Jessica Chastain ('Zero Dark Thirty') is the haughty lonely and fragile Miss Julie. The daughter of an Irish nobleman she alternatively flirts with and then insults her father's handsome aspiring and well-traveled valet John played by Irish actor Colin Farrell ('In Bruges'). On Midsummer's Eve while the servants are celebrating and the master is away the pair drink dance battle and taunt each other which leads to tragic circumstances. British actress Samantha Morton nominated for Academy Awards for 'In America' and 'Sweet and Lowdown' is Kathleen the pious cook and John's fiance who witnesses his charged relationship with Miss Julie. The film which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival is set in a castle on a sprawling country estate where the servants had to enter and leave through a tunnel so they wouldn't be seen. Ullmann said she was directing the Tennessee Williams play 'A Streetcar Named Desire' in Australia when she realized how much he had been influenced by Strindberg. 'So I started to read 'Miss Julie' and saw why Williams loved Strindberg' she explained. When given the opportunity to write and direct a film she knew it had to be 'Miss Julie.' Although the trade magazine Variety found the acting impressive it said Ullmann's adaptation of the Strindberg classic fails to work on film.
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