Kannada cinema perhaps loves thrillers more than any other industry. The industry has backed this love by offering some solid thrillers over the years.
Metrolife caught up with some directors to find out what makes Sandalwood such fertile ground for the genre.
Tribute to Sherlock Holmes
After ‘Badmash’, Akash Srivatsa is back with another thriller, ‘Shivaji Suratkal: Case of Ranagiri Rahasya’. The young director-editor-writer has a chat with Metrolife about his upcoming film, his love for Sherlock and crime thriller:
Tell us more about ‘Shivaji Suratkal’.
‘Shivaji Suratkal: The case of Ranagiri Rahasya’ is a psychological thriller. My co-writer Abhijit YR told me a very interesting one-liner and I thought why can’t we have a Sherlock Holmes-kind of character. We also realised that there have never been any pure detective movies in Kannada cinema.Our film is a take on what would happen if Sherlock was a Kannadiga. It’s a tribute to the character, in some sense. I have been a fan of his since my childhood. I also enjoy reading murder mysteries and detective novels. We approached Ramesh Arvind sir for the role. He instantly agreed and that’s how the project started. This will be Arvind sir’s 101st film.
Do you see Shivaji Suratkal becoming a franchise?
‘The case of Ranagiri Rahasya’ is just one instalment. We can make a series out of it because the character has become so strong.
You have Indianised Sherlock
Originally, we wanted to do a take on Sherlock but our man Shivaji is very different. Sherlock is an alpha male, a hero, a chilled-out chap who doesn’t get involved in a case on an emotional level. There is a very human side to our man.
Shivaji doesn’t sleep, he has hallucinations, is going through depression. He is dealing with past trauma and is moody and short-tempered. He is an assistant police commissioner who is known as the Sherlock of the department. There is a Watson too, who represents the audience’s opinion.
If the movie is a success, would you foray into the OTT space and make a series?
If there is an opportunity, why not? Shivaji, as a character, is powerful. We say case number 101. There may be 100 cases before it and maybe another 100 after. For an OTT platform, Shivaji Suratkal will be very thrilling.
Many directors are coming out with thrillers, what is your take on that?
All my films have been thrillers. My very first, a short film called ‘Sulle Satya’, was a romantic thriller. ‘Badmash’ was a political thriller and ‘Shivaji Suratkal’ is a psychological thriller.
I am deep-rooted as a technician and I like thrillers because of the scope it gives it to the director. Thrillers are here to stay. It’s a genre that will make you sit on the edge of your seat, especially when its a murder mystery. You want to know who killed who and what exactly unfolded, making it a very enjoyable genre.
Do you do a lot of research for your movies?
I do. I’ve actually met people from the crime branch. I’ve taken lots of inputs from
people who work in the crime department. I have also met people who are connected to this.
Ramesh sir says “A death brings sadness, but in a crime thriller a death brings curiosity.” I’ve been to a mortuary. I like to understand what I can show and limit on the screen.
Any interesting event that you would like to turn into a movie?
Shivaji Suratkal makes references to a lot of interesting local rumours. There are many we left. If there is a second film, we can use those. I don’t want to reveal anything yet.
There are very few political thrillers in Sandalwood. Would that be an area of interest for you?
I would love to. ‘Badmash’ was a commercial film that fashioned itself as a political thriller. I would love to make something like ‘House of Cards’ some day. I love that show.
How much does one have to concentrate on music and editing while making a thriller?
I wanted to do the editing myself. →My background is in editing; I have been doing it for the last 12 to 13 years. So, I planned the edits at the stage of the writing itself.
When the director is editing, especially a thriller, you know exactly what to shoot and what to not. Every shot is important.
In the movie, there is one scene which is two-and-a-half minutes long and it took me four-and-a-half days to edit. There are 30 shots in a span of 30 seconds. It should be edited in a way that it does not come across as too complicated for the audience.
What are the other challenges you faced?
Shivaji is a protagonist who has a lot of things going on in his mind. This has to be shown audio-visually.
The detailing that has gone in the film is another reason why people should watch it in theatres.
Mansore looks for authentic Kannada story
Manjunatha Somashekara Reddy, popularly called Mansore, has directed films like ‘Naticharami’ (2018) and ‘Harivu’ (2014). An avid reader of newspaper reports, Mansore says, “I would like to make a crime thriller but I want a good writer. I am interested in the genre.”
Reddy says he would like to film an authentic story based in Karnataka and would prefer a real-life incident.
When asked about book adaptations, he said that most crime thrillers are in English or are based in different states, and that there is no connection to the regional audience.
“Except for some of Ravi Belegre’s books, there are very few Kannada books that have good research and content on crime. Though in the 70s and 80s there were thrillers and detective novels, I don’t see any unique thriller novels from Karnataka as of now.”
Film critic speaks about the rise in crime films
When one speaks about crime or mystery thrillers, central to this genre is character subjectivity, i.e viewing the world through the protagonist’s eyes and investigating the
mystery from his point of view, uncovering it bit by bit.
This is missing in Indian cinema, which is used to taking things upfront and relating to it like a fable, employing an omniscient viewpoint, leaving little space for the uncovering of a mystery from an individual viewpoint, say as in Hitchcock’s ‘Rear Window’.
“Everything upfront” is the fundamental rule of Indian cinema because of the need to deliver a message with the approval of tradition as in ‘Drishyam’ where it is the commitment of the father to the family which is the message.
Melodrama suits this approach very well. Naturally, ‘Drishyam’ should have taken the viewpoint of the protagonist but it hides something he knows from us to be revealed at the resolution.
It is effectively ‘cheating’ the audience by bringing in something the audience could never guess. Those who have tried character subjectivity in narration are Adoor Gopalakrishnan who made ‘Anantaram’ but that is in the art film genre, where thrillers are not usually found.
When an Indian director makes a thriller, he or she brings in action, villains, thrills such as fights and even romance but never suspense in the classical sense since it would necessitate character subjectivity.
The rise in crime films can be traced to the preponderance of city audiences— the multiplex kind— since crime thrillers are ideally suited to urban milieus.
There is now an urban film genre that taps city audiences and can be remade in different languages and the same story can be told in different city locations. ‘Drishyam’ would be
an example.