Sriram Raghavan’s Merry Christmas will likely be launched in mid-January, 4 days earlier than the twentieth anniversary of his characteristic debut Ek Hasina Thi. Merry Christmas stars Vijay Sethupathi and Katrina Kaif as strangers whose paths cross on Christmas Eve in Mumbai. The film guarantees deception, intrigue and homicide, parts which have recurred in 4 of Raghavan’s earlier 5 motion pictures, together with Johnny Gaddaar, Badlapur and Andhadhun.
The Hindi-language film additionally stars Sanjay Kapoor, Vinay Pathak, Pratima Kazmi and Radhika Apte. Raghavan made Merry Christmas concurrently in Tamil with the identical leads and totally different actors, together with Radikaa Sarathkumar, Kavin Jay Basu and Shanmugarajan.
Each variations will likely be launched on January 12. Raghavan has already begun taking pictures Ikkis, starring Agastya Nanda. The biopic revisits the heroism displayed by Indian Military soldier Arun Khetarpal throughout the 1971 Indo-Pak Struggle. Ikkis, which additionally stars Dharmendra, will likely be launched in 2025.
Raghavan started his profession in 1991 with Raman Raghav, a documentary-fiction hybrid concerning the Mumbai serial killer. Ek Hasina Thi got here out on January 16, 2004. In an interview with Scroll, 63-year-old Raghavan talks concerning the concepts that went into his new film in addition to the making of his first characteristic. Listed below are edited excerpts.
Merry Christmas is customized from a French novel that you simply don’t wish to title simply but.
The ebook relies on a ebook that’s talked about within the titles. I don’t wish to title it for apparent causes. When Alfred Hitchcock determined to make Psycho, he informed his guys to purchase each out there copy of Robert Bloch’s ebook on which the movie relies. I too have purchased all of the copies out there on Amazon, which I’ll give my associates after the film is out.
The ebook is a thriller however can be about relationships. After Andhadhun, I didn’t wish to do the twist-and-turns factor once more. Merry Christmas is quieter. It’s the costliest low-budget movie ever made.
I additionally love one-night tales, in which there’s compression of time and house and what you understand of the characters is simply inside a time-frame. The primary such movie I noticed was Yash Chopra’s Ittefaq. I felt it was extra visceral than the movie it was taken from, Signpost to Homicide. Ittefaq has a lovely sequence through which Rajesh Khanna and Nanda are sitting in a room and speaking for a very long time.
With out giving something about Merry Christmas away, what are you able to inform us concerning the movie?
It begins like a romance after which issues go loopy. It has a slow-burn starting that progressively turns into a wild experience.
Andhadhun had a sure finish that went in our favour, within the sense that individuals have been discussing it. Right here too, we have now tried one thing experimental. I’m interested by how folks will react, and whether or not they are going to settle for the tempo.
The look is nearly not like an actual film – it’s a greeting card sort of factor. One in every of my favorite administrators is Jean-Pierre Melville who stated, take care that movies are by no means practical.
Realism is just too scary a phrase. Cinema itself is unreal. Even when I’m doing a movie like Raman Raghav, which relies on an actual story, there must be a stylised presentation or a temper that makes it stand out. Merry Christmas has that ingredient too.
Why did you make the movie in Tamil in addition to Hindi?
One of many causes is that I’m a Tamilian. One in every of my goals is to make a Marathi movie, since I’ve lived in Bombay, and one other is to make a Tamil movie.
After I made a decision to forged Sethupathi, I might have made a whole Tamil movie that would have been remade in Hindi. However as a result of we have been taking pictures throughout Covid, I felt I might amortise the price of the manufacturing by making two movies as an alternative of 1. So at the least half my dream was taken care of.
Vijay might converse Hindi. Katrina was dubbed within the Tamil model. We devised a sort of gibberish language for her. While you say the gibberish, the lip actions are just like the Tamil dialogue.
What was behind the bizarre pairing of Katrina Kaif and Vijay Sethupathi?
Katrina and I had been interacting even earlier than Andhadhun. She wished a job out of her consolation zone. As soon as she was forged, the subsequent query was, who reverse her?
I had seen a number of of Vijay’s movies – Soodhu Kavvum, Naduvula Konjam Pakkatha Kaanom, Tremendous Deluxe, Vikram Vedha. In 2019, I used to be on my solution to the Melbourne Worldwide Movie Competition, the place Tabu was being given an award for Andhadhun. I noticed 96 [Prem Kumar’s 2018 film] on the flight. I liked the movie, I liked the alternatives made, particularly in the direction of the top.
In Melbourne, on the lodge, I met Vijay. I requested him, do you converse Hindi. He replied, “Important teen saal Dubai mein raha hoon” (I lived in Dubai for 3 years).
Vijay is stuffed with tales, experiences and anecdotes. Once I would narrate a scene to him, he would inform me a narrative that will current one other standpoint. It might have been one thing I hadn’t considered.
Vijay was intuitive, whereas Katrina was extraordinarily ready. Halfway throughout the movie, there was a variety of interplay between them.
You could have a popularity for casting actors in opposition to kind, akin to giving Saif Ali Khan his Baazigar second in Ek Hasina Thi or re-imagining Varun Dhawan as a grey-shaded character in Badlapur. How do you’re employed with actors?
I’ve chats with them on the units and past it. I’ve been fortunate with the actors I’ve labored with.
Varun was new and preferred the identical sort of cinema as me – edgy, noir movies. On the time of Badlapur, I puzzled if he knew what he was agreeing to.
Saif too was on the cusp. He hadn’t performed memorable movies earlier than Ek Hasina Thi, besides maybe Dil Chahta Hai. However in interviews, he got here throughout as articulate. Plus he had this Charles Sobhraj high quality, like a thug. Why wasn’t this high quality there in his movies, I puzzled.
There have been sufficient actors who’ve rejected my movies too. They may not get the movie, or assume the character is just too darkish, or say that they don’t just like the character. I’m not on the lookout for heroes.
You are inclined to repeat actors, akin to Pratima Kazmi, Ashwini Kalsekar and Zakir Hussain.
I had learn someplace when you zoom into a specific character, there ought to be a complete movie attainable about that character. So I felt I ought to do one thing like that in my movies.
It’s nice enjoyable working with the identical actors. You might be extra conversant in them somewhat than attempting out with new actors. I even have folks brainstorming with me, writing and collaborating with me. You may’t do every thing on a movie.
Ek Hasina Thi, produced by Ram Gopal Varma and starring Urmila Matondkar and Saif Ali Khan, was launched almost 20 years in the past. How did the movie a few lady searching for revenge in opposition to the lover who framed her come collectively?
Anurag Kashyap had handed on a videotape of Raman Raghav to Ramu [Varma]. Ramu stated he preferred the slowness of Raman Raghav. He informed me, you might be an inch away from making a film, why aren’t you?
He was engaged on one thing a few nuclear bomb planted in Bombay, with a giant star forged. I began engaged on that. After a number of months, he moved on to a movie a few stalking fan, which ultimately grew to become Mast. Later, Ramu wished me to direct Shool, however that didn’t occur.
I had a script a producer was alleged to make, for which I had written solely the primary half. I even bought a 50,000-rupee advance, which I took residence in an auto-rickshaw. I nonetheless have two previous 500-rupee notes from that signing quantity that I haven’t spent.
That film didn’t occur both. Lastly, Anurag re-connected me to Ramu. He was planning a movie on the Mumbai encounter cop Daya Nayak, referred to as Daya. The mission didn’t take off at the moment, however Ramu handed me the script that Pooja Ladha Surti had written, which grew to become Ek Hasina Thi. I preferred the weather – the trickster, the romance, the jail, revenge.
What contributions did Varma make as a producer?
One of many issues he informed me was: in Raman Raghav, you have got taken a variety of pictures that I’ve by no means seen. Don’t fear, don’t attempt to make Ek Hasina Thi conventionally.
Ramu taught me one thing essential – the one-line writing thought. The entire movie is there like a synoptic screenplay, in bullet factors. Economic system was essential for Ramu. He would cancel out pages of dialogue and preserve one line. The scene could be conveyed with that one line.
He was taking pictures Bhoot whereas I used to be making Ek Hasina Thi. He would give me alternate scenes that will typically make me burst out laughing.
I gives you two examples. One is when Sarika escapes jail and goes to the lawyer’s home to make him converse the reality about her innocence. What we had was that she shoots the lawyer with a gun within the legs after which kills him.
Ramu stated, look, it’s darkish. You don’t know who’s there in the home. There’s this man sleeping and immediately a rod smashes his legs. We see Sarika standing there. It shattered the dialogue we had written, however it additionally grew to become very visible.
In what different methods did Varma affect the script?
When the movie was accomplished, he seemed on the edit by himself. He made the movie crisper in a lovely method. He gave me the tone of the movie.
Ramu advised the scene of the rat within the kitchen that frightens Sarika. The rat grew to become a motif. There’s a rat lure when Sarika is cleansing the home whilst information of Karan’s id is flashed on TV. In jail, there are rats, and at last within the climax.
For those who have a look at it, the climax is illogical. Ramu stated that even when a scene feels unbelievable, simply shoot it convincingly. If it really works emotionally, you don’t consider the logic.
Did you argue about scenes?
All through the movie, there had been solely useful concepts and no interference. However we had an argument when the sound mixing was being performed by Hitendra Ghosh.
There was a scene between Seema Biswas’s cop and Sarika’s mother and father. Seema is telling the mother and father, you don’t know what working girls are as much as today. That scene connects to the later scene within the courtroom, the place Seema realises that Sarika has certainly been tricked into pleading responsible.
Ramu stated, take away the scene, it’s not required. Pooja and I have been combating to maintain the scene. When he requested Hitendra for his opinion, Hitendra replied, Ramu, kuch farak nahin padta hai (what does it matter). Ramu let it go then.
Ek Hasina Thi can be the most effective motion pictures about jail life.
We visited a bunch of prisons. We shot parts on the jail in Thane and created units for Sarika’s cell. We additionally visited Arthur Street jail in Bombay.
I requested if any escapes had occurred. I used to be informed that painters who had been working on the jail had left behind a ladder, which a number of prisoners used for his or her escape. If I had proven it within the film, no one would have purchased it.
How was Ek Hasina Thi acquired when it was launched?
After Ramu noticed the ultimate edit, he hugged Pooja and me. He took us to a bar and informed us, you have got made movie. Was the method was gratifying for you, or is what occurs after its launch the principle factor for you? That’s so that you can resolve.
That’s an incredible factor to say. It has caught with me. The movie didn’t do nice, however it was appreciated by the commerce.
What are you able to inform us about Ikkis, whose shoot has begun?
Ikkis hasn’t been handled like a biopic. It’s two tales, one set in 1971, and one set in 2001. Aside from the younger man’s heroism, I preferred a facet of the story that’s within the public area. Thirty years after Arun’s loss of life, the daddy went to Lahore. The daddy was born in Sargodha in undivided India. He was hosted by a Pakistani Military officer, who occurred to be the person who had killed his son. That caught my consideration.
Agastya Nanda was forged in Ikkis earlier than The Archies.
We have been on the lookout for an actor who might play a 21-year-old character, who had that innocence. Once I met Agastya one-and-a-half years in the past, he jogged my memory of Amitabh Bachchan from Saat Hindustani. Then he started working in The Archies. I see a variety of promise in him.
