"Without a doubt, I am the most romantic husband" - Mani Ratnam Be it showcasing romance with utmost reality, displaying a situation with blatant truth or making a film that touches your heart and stays with you forever, director Mani Ratnam is not just a name or a brand but a phenomenon in Indian cinema. From a classic love story in Mouna Raagam, a beautiful romance amidst the Hindu-Muslim riots in Bombay to a family drama that we can never wake up to in Anjali and a heart quenching friendship shown in Thalapathi, his films have been nothing less than masterpieces. With a blare of his presence and a blast from the past, a one hour conversation with the living legend can never be enough. Yet, Anita Raghuraman and Abishek Raaja squeeze out the maximum from him that people have always wanted to ask.. You are known for maintaining a certain level of class, be it in person or in your films. How have you designed this space for yourself? While making a film there is no class. Every film is like a new film and our main work is to give life to the script. The class is only outside and not as a filmmaker. While making films I am just another normal man who tries to manage a crew of 200 people. Inspiring each of them towards working with passion and getting something new out of everyone is what I aim for. My work is to literally lead them all forward and show them the right direction. What is that small spark or that idea which transforms into a film and then a phenomenon? What we like will be with us throughout our lives. What we don’t like will also stay with us. Now if we know clearly what we like and dislike and have strong opinions towards them, we will get a clarity in life. That clarity is very essential for the way forward. If I don’t like talking in a certain way or showing artificial things in films I try not to include them but if I like certain aesthetics or a particular set-up, I try to incorporate them in films. Basically, what we get combining our likes is what is made into a film. From Swarnamalya and Suchitra to Leela Samson now, your casting has been impeccable. Even if a character stays just for a few seconds in the frame, it matters and they create an impact in your film. How do you go about choosing them? Casting is the easiest process in our minds. Some roles need an experienced artist and few others need fresh faces to lift up a scene. Now if we know these two ends clearly, then casting becomes easy. Sometimes there will be an ideal person too, but due to practical difficulties we might not always cast the ideal one. Even if we don’t get the ideal person, getting the maximum out of a person who is there, becomes important. From filmmaker to producer, how is it to wear two hats at the same time? I am a director. Producing is not my passion. I am a director. I am a producer only for friends and assistants that I know. Producing is not my passion. For instance Nerrukku Ner happened and I was just the production house backing Vasanth’s film. The film and the entire script was his baby, I was merely a producer and I had no other involvement. Your movies mean legendary combinations consisting geniuses like PC Sreeram, AR Rahman and Sreekar Prasad. Beyond comfort there is a magical sync. How do you see that? I think it is the wavelength and the desire towards pushing the boundaries each time. Be it PC Sreeram or Rahman or Sreekar, I have the same equation with each of them. We are doing mainstream cinema. But to showcase it differently by eradicating all the unwanted filmy elements and portraying realism to the maximum, is what everyone strives for. Though the way we look at things might differ, we all have the same wavelength. Everybody is willing to try, they don’t back off if something new comes up and they don’t fear experimenting. Dilip became AR Rahman and AR Rahman becomes a living legend now. You gave him that break. How do you see his journey? The first time when I listened to his music he showed me a piece that he made in a small room where there was absolutely no acoustics. He played me a sound in a room that was supposed to be a car shed of say 50 sq ft and it was brilliantly produced. The talent was always there in him. If I wasn’t there, then someone else would have identified him. He is unstoppable. He would have made it big even if it were not for me. I am lucky that I was in the right place. He is also a person who does not work to satisfy just the director. He looks for satisfying himself too. When two people are equally satisfied then work becomes better and more fun. He never settles, he always wants to push further and get something new every time. I don’t prefer people who nod along but who improvise and give more personal inputs. Even a mere movement of the lead character turning and looking back at someone demands attention from the viewers. How do you conceive a scene or a moment? A scene is what we write inside the room. I don’t go with story boards. I write a scene in a room with a table, chair, pen and a paper and the rest is all conceived in my mind. From this I go to a real environment and when the two characters stand in front of me with their respective costumes and deliver their dialogues, it is pure magic. When a writer transforms into a director it is something extraordinary. There must be a different feeling to it. The aim will be to show something close to reality or at least something that could be real. There is a search to bring reality from paper to a scene and this search can sometimes be very painful and sometimes be effortlessly pleasurable. Be it ‘Yezhundiru Anjali’ or ‘Neenga Nallavana Kettavana’ or ‘Suriya…’, some distinct scenes have travelled beyond the four corners of the screen and gone deep into us. How did you go about making something pathbreaking like these? Well, things like these have also impacted me. What has happened to me is mostly transformed into a film. It is pure love for art. These lines are just a path to showcase emotions but more than that for me they are the forms of my love for the art form. That line is a display of just an incident but the impact is your love towards the art form. You have given an all new meaning for romance. You must be the most romantic husband ever... Without a doubt, I am. I am the most romantic husband. You have to be what you are and you have to enjoy it. You have worked with two legends; Kamal and Rajini, but just once. How did you consume them as actors in your film? Working with Kamal sir was like a dream! Rajini sir was such an open person and he never behaved like a star! Now, we are going to flash back… (laughs). Working with Kamal sir has been a dream. He makes the work very easy. We were just talking about how easy and difficult it is to give life to the scenes written in the paper, right? Here, in Nayakan, the set up and everything is similar to what we do in other movies but what Kamal does on screen is something totally spectacular. You might not need any edits for his work. I didn’t have to fall back on editing to make corrections as he gave me much more than what I asked him for. I learnt that working with a talented actor needs no spoonfeeding at all, as he completely lifts up the scene. He gives life to the scene. To make the film real and alive, he works on many other aspects apart from just acting. He knows cinema and how it works, so all that I had to do was just to tell him what the scene and the set up is and he will do the rest. We have to just watch him mesmerize us. With Rajini sir, he is a huge star. I told him only one thing, we had to make Thalapathi realistic. I have watched his Mullum Malarum, it was brilliant and very realistic. I wanted to reach at least 75% of that film. He is a very nice gentleman in the sets. You just have to tell him what he has to do and he will do it with such effortless flair. We will only be constantly thinking what his fans might think with a few scenes, but he doesn’t care about all that. He is the most co-operative man in the whole set. It didn’t feel like I was working with two legends in Thalapathi. It felt so much at home. Though a situation like Alaipayuthey would have happened in closed quarters, it shook the audience when it became a movie. Did you foresee a trend like that and how do you think ahead of times? No, I did not foresee at all. It was just what was happening during that time. I have gone to quite a few weddings like that myself. And I had attended such weddings some 7-8 years before I made that film. One of PC Sreeram’s friends got married like that and we have attended a wedding in such a scenario. We did research, as in we met couples who got married like that and then made this film. It wasn’t a non-existent situation. Only it was happening in the pockets and when the film came, it was out in the light. Did this trend somewhere mislead people in taking the wrong direction? See, there was a generation back then that didn’t want to hurt their parents and also didn’t want to leave behind their love. Why is this bad influence? They tried convincing but it didn’t happen. It is not necessary that it had to be a marriage, it could have been a handshake or could have even been a promise, it’s just a symbol of love. The 2000s wasn’t an era where they would not do anything against their parents. They were willing to stand up for their love and go against parents. Whether the film came or not, it was emerging. People did not do it because the film was there. It just opened out to everyone. Kamal has quoted in an interview about the scene in Nayakan where he realizes his son is dead. He said that it was the strong set design and the apt mood on the sets that aided the impact. What did you do behind that scene? Kamal is probably being very modest. Because I remember, I went to his house and in his dressing room while we were trying out his older get-up, I narrated that scene, and there he acted it out to me. He probably forgot about that but he completely showed me how it could look. I agree the set-up was genuine and it was an elaborate scene but it is Kamal, he has worked in so many films without any set-up and still has given rock star performances. It comes so effortlessly for him. He had to just be in that zone. Will the Raja-Mani combo happen again? Ilayaraja is a genius! Raja sir is a genius. If you just touch him, the tunes will flow. They will just fall effortlessly. Even today I listen to his songs. I have to give him something that he has not done before. I have to only create that. Only then, I can approach him. If it has to happen, it will. What do you think was the problem with Raavanan? Why didn’t it work for our audience? Well, yes it didn’t work at all. May be I didn’t communicate it effectively. When you start working on a film and that too a film based on an epic, people will know certain facts. That’s probably an essential factor that I shouldn’t have touched upon. Had I made Raavanan without saying the name ‘Raavanan’, but just told a story of the character Veera then people might have understood what I was intending to say. Things like why that character was like that, his behavioral traits and the way he reacts would have been conceived better by our audience. Since, I indulged too much into Raavanan and the story of the epic it wasn’t well received. I think I should have done more detailing towards the character Veera, I might have taken it for granted. I just jumped the gun and said he is Raavanan and may be people weren’t ready to jump the gun along with me. Be it Karthik of Alaipayuthey or Arjun of Aayitha Ezhuthu they are all charming lover boys and yet very distinct in their approach and characters. Do you take conscious efforts to keep them unique and different each time? I think, next time if anyone asks me ‘why your characters are similar?’ I should refer them to you for answering on my behalf (laughs). Well, basically when you start writing the first few scenes of a film or a character you will get a hang of them and then proceed in the similar direction. How they will react, how they will be in a given situation and what the character is like, will be known when you start writing them. After that, when you cast an actor to that character, they will have their own inputs to make it look better and they will define it in a certain other way. Then it takes a fuller form and it looks complete. So you don’t necessarily make an effort to write them differently because in a writer's mind it is completely different anyway. Your eye for detailing has received plaudits. Every character has been designed to such perfection giving attention to the minutest details. How has that evolved in you as a filmmaker? The details are supposed to be blended within the narrative. It has to be there for people to not notice and that is where my success lies. There have been great filmmakers who have taken such care in showing a scene very deeply. For instance, director Shyam Benegal started this, he has set a benchmark in terms of period, costumes, set design or any intricate details. Each one has set a standard in their respective field of interest. Satyajit Ray would have excelled in visuals and the art department. These people have given the pathway and set the standards. There is so much in front of our eyes and their work demands filmmakers in today’s generation to make films at least to that level. Guru Dutt and all have made masterpieces. If we can watch a movie taken 60 years ago without any technological support and learn so much, then imagine to what extent they would have had an eye for details. All the effort that I put in my films is to not show that I have done so much work but to show cinema closest to reality. The symbolism behind colors that represent each of your character was established evidently through Aayitha Ezhuthu or Yuva. How did you go about doing that? OK Kanmani is about young, vibrant, out-of-the-box and free-spirited individuals. With Yuva it was very distinctive and I could show three separate characters very uniquely. But the colors are not the only thing while representing those characters. When you take a closer look at the film, they are shot and edited very differently from each other. In every which way the film’s script gave me the liberty to showcase three different characters entangled in one story. The film was such that it allowed every character’s pacing, dialogues and everything look very different. So films do that. OK Kanmani is about young, vibrant, out-of-the-box and free-spirited individuals. They aren’t like Alaipayuthe where they have to go back to their families. This film is set in Bombay and they are on their own. It is their mind that is open to accepting modern systems. Now we can’t question whether it is right or wrong. It is simply what is happening. You are making love stories catering to each generation and it is talked about through eras. What does OK Kanmani have to give this generation? After more than 10 years of Alaipayuthey, OK Kanmani will feature that gap in attitude. OK Kanmani is very current and a love story based on today’s youth. To how much I have understood them, this film deals with all that. Now, one can’t question ‘why and how’, based on this film. I am just showcasing what happens in this generation. What we take seriously, what we don’t, what is the drive in each person today are the things that are covered in this film. If you take Mouna Raagam, the attitude of the lead characters were catering to that particular era. If a girl is disinterested in a marriage, she can disapprove that by talking about it to her dad. Further, she can take it to her husband stating why she wasn’t willing to get married. And that’s how much she could do. She was a modern, straightforward and a clear headed girl of the 80s and yet could do only so much. In Alaipayuthey, that lead lady could do a lot more. When the parents aren’t agreeing to the marriage she could go against them and get married on her own. There is a big gap in attitude from the girl in Mouna Ragam to the girl in Alaipayuthey. Similarly, after more than 10 years of Alaipayuthey, OK Kanmani will also feature that gap in attitude. These days youngsters are exposed to a lot of things. They work in IT, they are globally aware and their thought process is completely different. Though they have modern thinking and are a part of the current generation, they are a product of their parents, grandparents and our history. There are two sides to this story; on one side the modern thinking and free spirited youngsters and on the other side our cultural ethics and backgrounds. Blending these two is what this film is all about. The balance between this contrasting thought of being modern outside and traditional from inside is what I have tried to showcase in this film. There was a time where your movies would surprise us with the cast. But now we are at an era where the promotions speak so much about a film. How involved are you with respect to your film’s promotions? I think we have to realize that the trends are changing and we have always taken unique initiatives while marketing our films. The way a film is designed and presented has always been a passion for me. But now it is not just about the designs and publicity, we have a social networking space. It is a space where the film’s first look and a glimpse of your film and your product is being revealed. So the promotions better be in line with your film, it can’t be lying on a different tangent. Dear Mani Ratnam! Thanks for the time you spent with us, it was an honor!
