Prabhakaran biopic: If Mani Ratnam is the director, what the dream cast would be

If LTTE chief Prabhakaran's life were to be brought on screen, Mani Ratnam should be the director doing it. We give you the reasons.

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Mani Ratnam should be the director bringing Prabhakaran's life on screen

New Delhi,UPDATED: Sep 30, 2016 11:19 IST

Recently, Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (MDMK) founder Vaiko released a secret letter written by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) leader Prabhakaran, to Tamil Nadu's then Chief Minister Kalaignar Karunanidhi.

To the world, Prabhakaran is known as a guerilla leader, an extremist and a terrorist, who pioneered the usage of suicide bombings to annihilate two prominent leaders of the world - Ranasinghe Premadasa, former Sri Lankan President and Rajiv Gandhi, former Prime Minister of India.

But to the Tamils in Sri Lanka, he is known by the sobriquet Thambi (little brother), who was a freedom fighter, a demigod and a martyr. Prabhakaran, the militant leader and a mass murderer, who spearheaded the intermittent insurgency against the Sri Lankan government for 28 years, was killed on May 19, 2009. However, if you look at his life from an alternate perspective, he was a rebel who actually had a larger-than-life image among his people.

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At the same time, Prabhakaran's tumultuous journey has enough potential to become one of the finest films of Indian cinema, even commercially, so to speak. Now that his life is back in focus, we take a look at why Mani Ratnam should direct his biopic and who all should play the lead roles.

Be it Arvind Swamy throwing himself on a burning flag in Roja (1992) or the opening scene in Kannathil Muthamittal (2002), where a couple, while having a quiet moment, is cautiously aware of the sounds of Sri Lankan troops, who has romanticised brutality on film better than Mani Ratnam?

But what makes Mani Ratnam a trailblazing filmmaker? Is it just his vision of cinema or his audacity? Speaking of audacity, no director would have had the gall to helm a subject like Iruvar (1997), which was a fictionalised exploration of the relationship and dirty politics between Dravidian stalwarts MG Ramachandran and ex-Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, Kalaignar Karunanidhi.

Even further, Mani Ratnam went on to direct a biographical drama on the life story of Dhirubhai Ambani in Guru (2007), which depicted the emergence of crony capitalism in Mumbai. These are subjects that have the potential to not only jeopardise one's career, but also earn the stamp of an 'anti-national'.

Shootout in Madras

On May 18,1982, all hell broke loose when the Tamil Nadu police nabbed two Sri Lankan youths who tried to take each other's lives outside a theatre in Pondy Bazaar in Chennai. The youngsters were none other than Prabhakaran and Uma Maheswaran alias Mukundan, founder of another militant outfit PLOTE (People's Liberation Organisation of Tamil Eelam).

Senior journalist MR Narayana Swamy details what happened there in his book, Inside an Elusive Mind: Prabhakaran, "Both Uma and Pirabaharan (Prabhakaran) whipped out their revolvers almost at the same time, but it was the more agile Tiger chief who fired first. Pirabaharan let go at least six rounds. Uma, however, managed to get away. Pirabaharan and Raghavan also tried to flee, but ran into a crowd and were caught by policemen who had rushed to the scene. Uma was tracked down near a railway station six days later and overpowered, but not before he had fired at the policemen who pinned him down."

A vintage Pondy Bazaar setting with two rebellious youngsters seeking blood for retribution. When you ponder over this, goosebumps are but inevitable. Especially if a director like Mani Ratnam writes this one with a pulsating score from AR Rahman. However, it's not about Ratnam's cinematic approaches, but the amount of detailing he gives to the characters and the script itself that make him skilled enough to head a project as full of drama as Prabhakaran's life.

In Kannathil Muthamittal, Mani Ratnam showed us a glimpse of the Sri Lankan Civil War, although it felt like Ratnam's script was lost in transition from paper to screen thanks to political reasons.

Having said that, for an audacious script like Prabhakaran's life, the film requires solid casting. Be it Selvaraj (Janagaraj) in Nayagan (1987) or Shyama (Nandita Das) in Kannathil Muthamittal, these films received international acclaim mainly because of their character artists. With a change in the political climate, what if Mani Ratnam were to direct Prabhakaran's biopic? Here's what the dream cast would look like:

Prakash Raj as Prabhakaran, founder of LTTE

Prakash Raj as Prabhakaran