Director’s Cut | Vasan Bala: ‘Neo- Noir is very delicious genre as you are dealing with the fatalities of human nature’
Director’s Cut | Vasan Bala: ‘Neo- Noir is very delicious genre as you are dealing with the fatalities of human nature’
Director Vasan Bala believes that the 80s and early 90s were an unfiltered time for cinema because one could watch everything. Remember his first film, Peddlers which was screened at Cannes in 2012. Though Peddlers did well internationally and the film festival circuit, it did not see the light of the day in India. It was only after eight years that he got the recognition he deserved with Mard Ko Dard Nahi Hota. His short film in Ray anthology was also appreciated by many. In an interview with Firstpost, Vasan Bala talks about his latest film Monica O My Darling and how it was made to cater to the needs of the Indian audience.
Edited Excerpts from the interview:
On setting the film Monica O My Darling in Poona…
Screen writer Yogesh Chandekar had set the film in Poona and he once asked me if I wanted it to be set in this city or if I wanted to set it in some other city. Poona has a certain classiness where most of the population is a graduate and is educated and most of them are law abiding citizens. Basically it’s a place for the cultured middle-class people. So, it was very interesting to set a murder mystery in this kind of a surroundings.
On Sukant Goel’s character…
When Sukant came in, he had a moustache and when he removed his moustache, I so loved it and I felt that he looked like Buster Keaton. There was a ninja quality about him, that if he stands with ten people he is actually invisible. But when you look at his face you just cannot forget him. Also as an actor, he is very committed and he has his method that he dwells into.
On Radhika Apte’s character…
When I had given the role to her, I had to rewrite all the dialogues because the best thing about Radhika is that it is not how much time she gets to play on the screen, but about loving the story and going with the flow. So, it’s a very macro point of view that she comes with and not how much it is about her.
‘Story ko tight nahi rakhne ka dheela chorna kaa”… was Radhika’s patent dialogue. She played a very firm police officer, but not harsh. Was it a conscious effort to portray her that way?
When you meet people with real power, they are not rough because they are aware of their power. So, these people play on psychology. It is when you don’t have the power you showcase a little more.
This applies to the most effortless actors, athletes and cricketers. It’s with everyone. Once you know that you are good at what you do and you have the power you don’t try to show it because you know you are a winner. Her power is that she can be relaxed and the people around her need to be uncomfortable.
On the neo- noir genre of films and how popular is it getting in India?
I think it was always there. Obviously filmmaker Sriram Raghavan is the master of it. He has been consistently giving us these wonderful films that he makes. Manorama Six Feet Under and even Kaminey to an extent is neo- noir. And my absolute favourite is Anurag Kashyap’s No Smoking. Even for me Abhishek Chaubey’s Ishqiya is neo noir. I think it is a very delicious genre and you are dealing with the fatalities of human nature. It gives a very rich flavour.
On Monica’s character, how did you play up with it?
We were always sure that Monica is not going to be a vamp and traditionally with Hindi cinema, someone who is on the other side of morality you always associate them with cigarettes and wine, but that is not what it is. And that is not the first thing that you should associate her with. It is the person and not just the vices that cinema projects these characters. Monica is a character who is not a skimmer, but a character who has had enough from life. And she is looking for payback in her own way.
On cinema changing and the whole concept of vamp and villain changing?
I think it goes back in time… remember the film called Gilda and what an amazing song it has ‘Put the blame on Me’. It goes this way, If the building falls you will blame me and natural calamity you will blame me. So, I think that has always been around. Every era had its own set of grey protagonists. It’s just the popular ones or the massy ones which were just black and white. But filmmakers in every era have been trying to create interesting characters and tried to make it mainstream. It has always been an effort for me to do it differently!
On the OTT boom…
Every era will have alternate ways of viewing cinema, When VHS came along, when satellite and DVD came along, many felt that people would stop going to the theatres. But that didn’t happen. We are all meant to coexist with each other. Not just OTT, even way back Ramesh Sippy made Buniyaad, Govid Nihalani made Tamas, Shyam Benegal made Discovery of India. All the film people then were also dabbling into television. There has always been this cross pollination all along. So, it’s nothing new really. But definitely the volume is more. The fun part is in the beginning of anything new it is always great because you are chasing a vision and you are not chasing a project. It’s a great time to be around. And the audience also understands that something stale has been offered to them. So, you need to keep pushing your creativity and come up with freshness.
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