Why would Ram Gopal Varma, a director known to pick off-beat themes, choose to make yet another film on forest brigand Veerappan, that too a decade after his death?
Film makers across languages have made used him as subject. Attahasa in Kannada and Vana Yuddham in Tamil by AMR Ramesh are claimed to be “authentic” films. Now, Mr. Varma is set to launch his bilingual, Killing Veerappan .
Of late, many have posed this question to the director. “I might look like a fool, but I am not that big a fool,” he replies with a smile, during his recent visit to the city. There are many versions to the story, but the truth is “always hidden, distorted or presented in one perspective”, he explained. He promises that his film will reveal something “which no one knows so far”.
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Mr. Varma says it was one character he met (whose name he is not willing to reveal), who helped him gain a new perspective. “I haven’t met or heard of a character of this kind in my entire career as a film maker,” he says, mysteriously. “In fact, I wanted to do a film on Veerappan for the past 10 years and was searching for the right approach. At that juncture, I chanced upon this pivotal character.”
This is the first time Mr. Varma is doing a Kannada film. Shivarajkumar will play the lead. “Being an outsider, my perspective will be completely different,” he says. “This is the most important film in my career, because the content and characters I deal with are so unique and different from whatever experiences I have had. I promise you, watching Killing Veerappan will really be a new experience.” The film won’t have a standard format of a hero or heroine; all of them are “real” and come from their own conviction, he says.