Haridas was about an autistic child and his father. Wagah , said to be a love story, is set in war-torn areas in the North. Do you believe films need to do more than just entertain?
I don’t have a self-imposed rule that I will make only socially-conscious films, but I do believe films have a certain responsibility and purpose. It’s something I’ve imbibed from my time as an assistant when I worked in Malayalam cinema. I’ve admired films of Fazil and Sibi Malayil. After watching Haridas, music director Vijay Antony told me that it was just like a Malayalam film. It was such a nice compliment.
When you wrote Haridas , was it a conscious decision to shift gears from the kind of films you had made before?
I wanted to prove myself after Yuvan Yuvathi failed, but Haridas wasn’t always meant to be a feature film. I was inspired to make a documentary when Abdul Kalam proposed that corporation schools induct autistic children as well. As I researched on the subject, I realised that my nephew could be autistic. After seeing his progress when he received proper guidance, I decided to write a script about it.
More importantly, I realised that I should make only films that come from the heart.
But films that deal with such issues aren’t easy to find producers for.
It helped that my producer was a doctor (Dr. V. Ramadoss) who understood the importance of such a film. But finding actors was a challenge, given that I’d just come off two failures. As I was writing the film, I kept relating it to The Pursuit of Happyness and it struck me that Kishore was the right person for the subtle acting the film required. The rest just fell into place.
Haridas ’ success was driven by strong word-of-mouth. With so many releases every week, is it a gamble to attempt such movies now?
Haridas too was removed from 40 per cent of the screens after the first week. It needed unanimous positive reviews and word-of-mouth to bring people back to the theatres. That’s why marketing is so important for a film. All you have is one weekend to make a hit.
Wagah, starring Vikram Prabhu in an action setting, seems a safer bet.
The basic plot line of Wagah was written even before Haridas; so it wasn’t a planned decision. Like actors, directors too want to be a part of different films. The life of a soldier at the border is something that has always fascinated me.
We hardly see many Tamil films set up north.
Besides the logistical difficulties of shooting in the cold, it is a struggle to place Tamil-speaking characters in that setting. At one point, I decided that I would place a disclaimer stating that all the characters would speak Tamil even if they’re from different parts of the country.
This freed me up to focus on the story and it also helped me avoid long stretches of subtitles. Like, for instance, in Gandhi, I’ve modulated the accents of characters to denote where they hail from. Language shouldn’t be a barrier for films.
