‘Sultan comes with a subtext’: Ali Abbas Zafar

Director Ali Abbas Zafar says the language of mainstream cinema is changing and stars are realising the need to rediscover themselves

June 15, 2016 11:19 pm | Updated November 17, 2021 04:51 am IST

One of the familiar tropes of a Salman Khan film is that the star has to take off his shirt at some point. Over the years the scriptwriters have run out of ideas as to how to make the process look plausible. Ali Abbas Zafar has now created a legitimate reason to keep the star uncovered and his fans fawning. “I have ensured that he not only takes off his shirt but also pants!” chuckles the writer-director of the much awaited Sultan during the course of our conversation.

Cut to the crux and Ali, who has made mass entertainers like Mere Brother Ki Dulhan and Gunday , underlines that he has attempted to push the boundaries of the genre. “The most difficult thing is to rediscover a superstar while keeping his strengths intact. Salman has the body type of a wrestler and he looks convincing in the mud pit. His audience wants to see him as a wrestler but we had to do it with lot of class and put him in a credible and layered space.”

It was not difficult to convince the star, known for his laidback attitude, to not just do the hard yards but also shed his vanity. In one of the scenes, he is shown with a bulging waistline. “Salman Khan is in this business for 25 years. The character has to be bigger than Salman Khan to excite him. Only then it becomes a challenge for him. He thought his audience will like it. Also, half of his family in Indore has indulged in wrestling. A number of his uncles and cousins are into wrestling. So he went all out for training and made a serious attempt towards learning Haryanvi but ultimately it all came down to the story.” “Interestingly, he also agreed to have a female character, who was not just a showpiece. “As his love interest, we wanted somebody who is equal to Sultan and is not a fan girl.” Of course, you can’t have a simpering female lead from Haryana. In came Anushka Sharma as Aarfa. “Haryana is one state from where girls are representing the country in almost every important sport. And they come from a society where purdah system is still strong and girls are not allowed to study.” Isn’t there a dichotomy here? “The film deals with it. There is a subtext,” assures Ali.

But we usually don’t associate subtext with a Salman Khan film. “ Bajrangi Bhaijaan had it, and Salman pulled it off with flying colours,” argues Ali. “The language of commercial films is changing. People want their superstars to be showcased in a new way. With layers of language, character and sport, they get something new to connect with their icon but Sultan will also break some stereotypes.”

Despite Khans ruling Bollywood, mainstream Hindi cinema has mostly shied away from making Muslim protagonists central to the story. Shah Rukh Khan has done Chak De! and My Name is Khan , Manoj Bajpayee played Sardar Khan in Gangs of Wasseypur but that’s about it. Or you have films like New York and Kurbaan where the backdrop is 9/11. “India is a secular country and the main character can from any religion. The examples are few but as I said the change has to come from somewhere. A Muslim social is not just about showing people drinking Rooh Afzah and saying salaam walequm. Sultan will show a new face of Muslim protagonists for whom Indian identity is above any other identity.”

‘You don’t need to be over smart to connect’

Ali grew up in Dehradun in the late 90s where he watched all the films in single screen theatres. “I want to reach out to the last man in the crowd.” In making this journey, the art usually gets diluted. “It is not about the genre, it is about how well you connect that genre with the audience. You make a bad ‘massy’ film and the audience will not come back. The sensibility and the language should be such that it reaches the last man. Raj Kumar Hirani and Sanjay Leela Bhansali are in this league and Rohit Shetty tries to do the same but they make films of different genres. The strength of making money at the box office lies in the way that everyone watches it in theatre. It is exactly the same in Hollywood. When you make Avatar , Transformer or a superhero film, the business of these films is higher than those which are high on content because these films are able to pull people out of their homes to have a theatrical experience. That has something to do with sensibility. I also like telling little larger than life stories, stories which are universal.”

Can a filmmaker appeal to everybody and still retain his voice? “When you are trying to make all kinds of audience happy you should not question the intellect of any one of those. That’s why making mainstream cinema or the so-called commercial cinema is the toughest thing because you have to keep the intellect of all kinds of cinegoers in mind and yet tell your own story. The simplest films are the most difficult to make.” Ali feels it all boils down to emotion. “If your emotion is correct, it connects with different social strata. You don’t need to be cool or stylish in your technique. You don’t need to be over smart to connect. You just have to keep your conscience clear. The audience is in the story, not outside of it.”

In Sultan , he tries to find the connection between wrestling and life. “In wrestling you lose if you are put down in the ring. Similarly, life will always try to put you down but if you want to be the hero, not for the world but for yourself, you have to fight.”

Ali says the story germinated in Delhi where he studied at Kirori Mal College. “I saw lots of Haryanvi boys and girls. My best friends are some of the best boxers in the country, who were with me in college in 2003-2004. I was a sportsman in school. All this pushed me to make a sports film and I picked wrestling because it is an Indian sport that has its roots in mythology. You travel from Calcutta to Kolhapur and you will find akharas in every small town. The idea was if you want to tell an Indian story, you have to pick up an Indian sport. And when Sushil Kumar’s medal in 2012 London Olympics brought the sport to the forefront, I thought this was the time.” Set in Rewari, Ali says when he started doing the research; the joys and problems of wrestlers took him to Haryana. “It is not only the sports capital of the country; its socio-political backdrop is compelling. Haryanvis have a very poker faced way of communication and it gives a certain rhythm which is unique.”

On Aamir Khan’s Dangal in hot pursuit of Sultan , Ali says everybody wants to explore sports these days. “There is a Dhoni biopic scheduled as well and recently we had the Madhavan film ( Saala Khadoos ). Dangal is about a beautiful father-daughter relationship. My point is the backdrop doesn’t matter if the story is bigger than the setting. Robert Di Nero’s Raging Bull is as good as Sylvester Stallone’s Rocky .”

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