Recently, on a fleeting visit to Mumbai, I happened to drop into Vishal Bharadwaj’s office in an unobtrusive high rise. The sparsely furnished office had a few young assistant directors hunched over their MacBooks, poring over material on the net oblivious of visitors. I had accompanied an action supervisor who will be working in Vishal’s ambitious venture, ‘Rangoon’. A period film to be shot on actual locations, it stars Saif Ali Khan, Shahid Kapoor and the mercurial Kangana. Vishal was travelling abroad but the sprightly assistants handed over a bound script with portions where action is necessary highlighted neatly. “This is the first time I’m being given a bound script. I’m used to being briefed the previous day,” said the ‘fight master’ as he’s referred to here.
There are writers aplenty. They are deemed scarce because most directors see it as an act of condescension to collaborate and share credit. I’ve seen acclaimed directors staring at blank pages for days awaiting a supernatural surge of inspiration. They’re surrounded by assistants who’d rather watch Korean thrillers than put pen to paper. Some directors are in constant search of good writers.It was heartening to read that bound scripts of ‘Aatagara’ were given to the cast and crew much before shooting started. Sathya Hegde was excited also because the content was good and a project he was to work in got postponed. Chaitanya confessed it took two years to hone the script along with the writer Kannan Parameswaran. Dwarkish Chitra as producer has catered to the tastes of a couple of generations of filmgoers and will not back anything that does not strike a creative chord, while being commercially viable to contemporary audiences. The fact that everything was clearly on paper made it easy for Chaitanya to wrap up the film in a short time. Chaitanya showed in ‘Aa Dinagalu’ that he had the visual sense to pull it off. If his two subsequent efforts were lacklustre it was because of insipid writing. Chaitanya more than compensates with ‘Aatagara’ aided ably by Kannan’s slick script.
‘Thriller’ is the most challenging genre for a filmmaker because you need to keep the audience constantly guessing. The best thing about ‘Aatagara’ is the unflinching pace and the unwavering narration though the chances to meander are plenty. I think its Chaitanya’s vast experience in theatre that’s helped him keep the audience riveted. Otherwise it’s not easy to make an interesting film with a crowd of characters in limited space. There are no unnecessary asides. The dialogues are crisply written with screen space equally shared. The performances are uniformly good. It’s nice to see the immensely popular Ravi Shanker speaking casually, instead of chewing and spitting out Kannada. Ananth Nag never fails to mesmerise you with his casual demeanour.
It was amusing to read allegations of ‘Aatagara ’being a remake. Every form of art needs inspiration . ‘Godfather’ could not have achieved greatness without the brilliant writing by Mario Puzo but then again the credit for transforming it into such a terrific cinematic experience lies entirely with Coppola. Anyway, it was heartening to see another Kannada film in recent months where the audiences stood up and applauded. Well played Chaitanya and Kannan too!
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