T he Tamil word for victory is Vetri . It is only incidental that his name spells the same. Vetrimaaran is just three films old and revelling in national and international recognition. The filmmaker Vetrimaaran was in Thiruvananthapuram town for a workshop at the LV Prasad Film Academy.
Excerpts from a conversation .
Your last film Visaaranai is dedicated to your editor. It says: ‘To Kishore who helped me find my films’. What did he help with and how?
T.E. Kishore, who passed away in March 2015, was a crucial contributor in my films. He had won National awards for Aadukalam and Visaaranai . I always believe a film assumes different forms during the making process. On paper you will have one form; post shooting you will have another. So the filmmaker has to rediscover, realign or re-identify the film at the edit. The editor has to help with that.With Visaaranai I never had a script. We shot it and at the edit we realised that we had a film but not a story. We had to build the narrative. Also I shoot a lot. Aadukalam was shot for 115 days, Polladhavan for 92. Aadukalam had five hours and 49 minutes of footage. We had to bring it down to two hours and 39 minutes. It is a complex process that involves elimination and inclusion with a fine balance. Kishore was alert, alive and would remember everything.
All your films are distinctly different. How do you arrive on your themes?
There is no criteria except that it should have the potential to grow in me. I will be living with the idea for at least three years. I take one year to write, another year to film and yet another year to edit and release. So the script should sustain for the duration. For instance, there are several books on police brutality, but Lockup, on which Visaaranai is based on, had a great impact on me, deep within. I stayed for a long time. Aadukalam has its cultural roots, which can grow in you. I thought it was an ethnic representation of my people to the world.
Your films are full of that – culture and ethnicity. Have you ever thought of making a film outside of the Tamil milieu?
I can make films that speak another language, but I cannot undo the Tamil ethos in it. My films are natively Tamil. But when we speak about language, we have to understand what a language can do to a creative person’s thought process. The Eskimo has 16 words to say snow. English has two – snow and sleet. Tamil does not even have one. We only have a word for fog – Pani . We do not know if it is mist or fog. Whereas Tamil has six words for leaf - Ilai, Thalir, Olai , et al. So the language determines – with its restrictions and possibilities – your perception of the world. It is with your perception that you make films. So my films will essentially be a Tamil person's understanding of the world.
Your films are also intense, gritty portrayals of the man’s world.
My problem is that though I grew up around women, my mom and sister who dotted on me, I never had girls as friends. So, I hardly knew anything about their world. But as I grew up, I got to understand them better. So, if you see my films there are two different people. One is an adolescent – reckless and carefree – and the other is a mature, responsible, middle-aged man. That also implies my evolution as a person. Pollathavan and Aadukalam has these wild boys who just wanted their way where as Muthuvel in Visaaranai is caught between many things and loses his mission. So when I make more films on middle aged men, it will have women in parts.
Both the wild boys were portrayed by Dhanush and the films were instrumental in shaping his career…
The shaping is mutual. He was only 19 when I first met him while I was assisting Balu Mahendra. And we clicked from the beginning. Whenever I write, the protagonist is me. I mean physically also. Dhanush has a similar body frame. So the transference was easy. With Polladavan , many of his well wishers discouraged him in taking up such a subject. But he had the conviction and the film worked. But when I started Aadukalam , he was a star and the film required him to undo the star quotient. He did it very effectively by undoing his actor quotient also. There is a photograph of Aadukalam where he is standing in a small crowd. And he stood as if he was one among them.
I believe that the director-actor relationship should be stormy. You push him into a well, not considering he does not know swimming, and when he is struggling to come up we say there is a crocodile there, so he goes this way-that way, and you finally pull him out of it. You tell an actor what to do and how to do. Ultimately, he has to deliver it. He has to swim around all the obstacles in front of the camera. Dhanush can take up that challenge with ease.I started a film Soothadi with him and Parthiban. We shot for five days and I stopped it as I thought it was not happening. I told Dhanush I will do a small film and Visaaranai happened. He was the co-producer of Visaaranai as well as Kaakka Muttai , which I produced. My next is also with him. We have not decided on the script but it is going on the floors on May 15.
Whenever I write, the protagonist is me.
