Express News Service
With two films that are diametrically opposite in tone and storytelling approach, Tharun Moorthy has proven himself to be a filmmaker who likes taking risks. His first feature, Operation Java, was a risky endeavour that nobody expected to do that well, but it succeeded beyond expectations.
Saudi Vellakka, his second, is even bolder. The film struggled to get a release date due to the absence of big names. Tharun was very well aware that it would only get a limited audience, no matter how aggressive the pre-release promotion was.
“We were essentially counting on strong word of mouth to get people to theatres,” he says, adding that he didn’t have lofty expectations. “Whether 100 or 1000 people showed up, it was clear that it would only work for a particular target audience. If you look at the pre-release promos, we didn’t reveal the faces of a couple of the main actors because I don’t believe audiences would come to watch the film for them. And I’m not blaming anyone because that’s how people are.”
But Tharun is optimistic after receiving praise from IFFI, Goa and the initial array of positive feedback from Kerala, which he hopes will bring more people to theatres in the coming days. Ahead of the film’s release outside Kerala and in GCC countries next week, Tharun is busily engaged in promotions in various corners and managed to squeeze in some time for this interview before he took off to Dubai the next day. Minor spoilers follow.
The inspiration for focusing on a conflict between two central characters belonging to two different generations came to Tharun from a newspaper clipping. It was an incident that Tharun got more interested in after deeply exploring the various intricacies around it. “I found a way to do it in a way that would entertain audiences,” he says.
The ‘way’ that he speaks of is something filmmakers in Malayalam normally steer clear of—structuring the screenplay that generates plenty of tension in the first half and then opting for a mellow, subdued approach in the second.
Had he been concerned about the sudden tonal shift? “It was deliberate. The faster pace and sense of urgency reflected that of the characters played by Binu Pappu, Sujith Shankar and others, while the slower pace aligned with Devi Varma’s character Aisha. The challenge was to do it well. Yes, this tonal shift is something we normally don’t see a lot. Making the viewer feel the passage of time without getting them bored was a challenge, but it was an interesting process. We tried to fix some things on the editing table. A few negative feedbacks are inevitable for any movie. We got a few too. But my view is that if the so-called ‘lag’ didn’t exist, the film would lose its meaning.”
The events in Saudi Vellakka are triggered by the knee-jerk reaction of a few players, causing significant emotional damage to its main ones, especially Lukman’s Abhilash and Devi’s Aisha. Tharun was drawn to the subject because he wanted to address the nature of hate and “people’s inability to reflect on the reasons behind spreading hate or what they can do to change their perception of someone” and, in doing so, open people’s eyes.
“Aisha Ravuther’s problem is common to many families,” observes Tharun. Newcomer Devi Varma, who plays Aisha, the aged woman caught in a decades-long court trial, caught Tharun’s eye after seeing her picture in a WhatsApp chat. Having Pauly Valsan dub for her is a decision that can spark a debate about whether Actor A’s voice will dilute the Actor B’s identity.
However, Tharun has good reasons for this. “I used Pauly chechi’s voice because I didn’t want this character to feel too unfamiliar. But then we have to remember that only people who follow cinema that closely or are part of the industry know it is Pauly chechi’s voice. For the outsiders, it’s just a character regardless of whose voice it is. But even for those who recognised that voice, the strangeness is only felt for the first 10 minutes; they get used to it later. Besides, there is no rule that we should or shouldn’t use someone’s voice. After all, it’s the creator’s choice, and people are free to criticise it. I believe audiences instantly connected to that character because of Pauly chechi’s voice.”
Aside from Devi, the other standout performance in Saudi Vellakka comes from Sujith Shankar, a gifted actor most noted for his negative character in Maheshinte Prathikaram. But Sujith has also demonstrated his ability to take on soft and vulnerable roles, as seen in Moothon, in which he played a trans woman. It was the latter that compelled Tharun to cast Sujith as Sathar, the emotionally volatile son of Aisha.
“I must credit Rajeevettan (Rajeev Ravi) and Geetu Mohandas for making me think that we can use Sujith in this way, too,” says Tharun. As for the character’s ambiguous fate, it was a deliberate writing choice. “We like to believe that whatever place he left for is way better than wherever he was earlier. But there’s another way of looking at the void left by this character: other characters take his place at various stages in the story—it’s either Gokulan or Binu Pappu or Lukman. That’s what I’d like to believe.”
A couple of days ago, Tharun screened the film for Tamil filmmaker AR Murugadoss. It’s an experience he recalls with much fondness. “You see, even people in Kerala sometimes make fun of the so-called realistic cinema with terms such as ‘prakrithi’ and all that, but there they look at our cinema in an entirely different way that makes us proud of what we are doing. They are curious about our sense of humour and how we direct our actors… After the screening, Murugadoss sir hugged me, his wife had tears in her eyes, and his assistant directors were excited. They all laughed at some of the humour in the film more than the audience did here. It’s nice to see our films bypassing language barriers and doing wonders in other states.”
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