Love him or hate him but you cannot ignore him. Indian filmmaker Priyadarshan, known for his remakes, was in Dubai recently for the screening of his film Kanchivaram. Anand Raj OK in conversation with the irrepressible director
He has made 77 films over the past 25 years, 28 of them in Hindi and the rest in various south Indian languages. And close to 80 per cent of all his movies have been hits. The rest have been super hits.
His movies have won 16 National Awards so far including the four that his period epic Kala Pani deservedly received in 1996. Quite a few of his movies have featured in international film festivals and his recent, Kanchivaram, "missed an international award by a whisker''.
Sipping coffee in a restaurant at the Jumeirah Beach Hotel, Indian filmmaker Priyadarshan is transparently proud of his achievements. "And why should I not be?'' he asks. "I have made 28 films in Bollywood – something not many veteran Hindi film directors can boast of."
Priyadarshan (Priyan to his fans and friends) was in Dubai to participate in the Dubai International Film Festival where his film Kanchivaram was screened. Set in the early 1940s, the film tells the story of a poor silk weaver in Kanjeevaram in Tamil Nadu, southern India, who is caught in a conflict between his political ideals (into which he is indoctrinated) and his personal dreams. Powerful and melodramatic by turns, the movie attempts to portray a facet of communism not often seen in these days of runaway capitalism.
Though the film drew a modest response in Dubai, Priyan is on cloud nine. "Without doubt, it is the finest movie I have made,'' he says. "When this film was shown in Toronto [it was the official selection at the 2008 Toronto International Film Festival] the entire international audience gave me a 10-minute standing ovation. That is the biggest award I could receive.
"Without doubt this is one of the 10 best films made in India,'' he says, clearly unwilling to be anything but super confident of his strengths as a filmmaker.
His career in films began as a scriptwriter for Malayalam movies and he tasted success fairly early. After the three consecutive films he wrote the scripts for – Kuyiline Thedi (In Search of a Cuckoo), Engane Nee Marakkum (How Could You Forget?) and Ente Kalithozhan (My Friend) – became box-office hits, he decided to turn director. His debut movie was a freefall in slapstick comedy.
Titled Poochakkoru Mookuthi (A Nosering For a Cat) it went on to set a record of sorts at the box office and the producers laughed all the way to the bank. It did not take long for other producers to beat a path to his door. "I did not really have to look back (after that),'' he says, taking off his sunglasses for a moment to massage the sleep out of his eyes (he was at a late-night screening of his film at Madinat Jumeirah, he explains).
Priyadarshan rarely removes his dark glasses in public and you are left to your own conclusions – perhaps he is self-conscious ever since he sustained an injury to his left eye while playing cricket during his college days? Though the injury affected the muscles of the upper eyelid leaving it in a permanent droop, he fortunately did not lose vision in the eye.
The mishap may have put paid to a career in sport but it also helped him devote more time to his pet passions – reading and writing. "My father was a librarian which meant I had access to a large number and variety of books," he says. "He used to encourage me to read and I used to devour everything I could lay my hands on – comics, epics, classics, even absolute trash."
When not reading, he could be found hanging around with a bunch of friends many of whom would go on to become leading actors, movie producers and film technicians. As youngsters, they would discuss and debate on the art of filmmaking, dreaming of bringing to audiences movies that would be unequivocally appreciated.
School of direction
After college Priyadarshan decided to pursue a career in films. "But I did not take up any structured course in film making,'' says Priyan. "I worked with [producer-director] Jijo of Navodaya (a major film production house that made India's first 3D film Chota Chetan). That was my school as far as filmmaking is concerned.
"When Jijo got busy with Chhota Chetan, I joined hands with my good friends producer Suresh Kumar and director Asok Kumar and worked on a couple of films. I also worked with [well-known directors] I. V. Sasi and Joshi in Chennai as a scriptwriter but the movies I made with them did not do well.'' One reason those films failed was "because I was writing what they wanted me to and not what I wanted to''. Dejected, Priyan returned to Kerala hoping to team up with his friends and make the kind of movies that were close to his heart.
"Around this time, Mohanlal's second movie, Manjil Virinja Pookal (Flowers That Blossomed in the Mist), was released and it was a big success. Mani, a Malayali film producer,
wanted to make a similar movie with Mohanlal playing the role of a villain. So we made Kuyiline Thedi which
was a success.''
He had found his foothold and he held on. "Of course, there were a few ups and downs – many hits, a few flops – but I persisted and today I am shooting my 77th film in Mumbai,''
he says.
To Bollywood
So why did he move away from regional cinema to take on Bollywood? "I had been making commercial films in Malayalam for a while and I wanted a break. Also, I realised that Hindi films would extend my reach,'' he says.
However, his first Hindi directorial attempt Muskurahat (a remake of a Malayalam film) flopped. So he returned to Kerala and met with Mohan, a well-known film producer. "Mohan asked me to direct a Malayalam film. 'If the movie is a hit, I will produce a Hindi film which you can direct,' he said to me.''
The Malayalam film was Kilukkam. It was a success. So Mohan kept his promise and asked Priyadarshan to direct Gardish (a remake of yet another Malayalam movie). In the Hindi version, it had leading actors of the time including Jackie Shroff, Amrish Puri and Dimple Kapadia.
"I worked hard to rewrite the script to suit the tastes of Hindi audiences,'' he says. The movie struck gold.
"Two days after its release, I was standing outside a theatre in Mumbai when Bollywood actor Sanjay Dutt came up to me and said, "Gardish is the best action film made in the country."
Soon, offers began to pour in. His next Hindi film Virasat (another remake) was appreciated by critics and viewers alike and even earned him a clutch of awards. But Lady Luck it seems needed a break. Consequently, "three of my movies bombed.
The setback gave me a jolt. It made me realise that when remaking a movie in another language, I had to tailormake it for the intended audience. I could not simply copy the original.''
He took a short break, reconsidered his strategies and when he was convinced that he had struck on the right formula for remakes, he decided to go to Bollywood with Hungama (loosely translated it means, A sensation!), a remake of his first Malayalam film Poochakkoru Mookuthi.
A rather hilarious tale of mix-ups, misunderstandings and comic mayhem, the film was replete with double entendres, puns, pie-throwing and other equally debatable 'comic' material. But put together, the patchwork parody turned out to be a huge succcess. "You know, noted film director Mani Ratnam once told me, 'Priyan, you can update the theme [of a movie], remake it every 20 years and it will still work.''
The success of Hungama spurred him to remake 20 other Malayalam films in Hindi and all enjoyed a fairly good run at the box office. "I now realise that all my Malayalam films that I remade in Hindi are better than the originals which I directed. Why? Because I had no budget restrictions in Bollywood. Technically and production-wise, all my films in Hindi are better than the Malayalam versions – except when it comes to performances,'' he says.
Recycling his own creativity
But doesn't it worry him that almost all his films are remakes or adaptations? Will he go down in history as one of the most successful directors, but with remakes? Would he like to be remembered only for his slapstick comedies?
"Well, it's wrong to say I've made only comedies. I've also tackled serious social issues, I've made satires, romantic films, action movies... even period films.
"There are many art house filmmakers who have not succeeded in commercial films and many commercial film makers who have not been able to make a good art film. I have succeeded at both.''
Then as if waking up to the sting in the tail, he says: "What's wrong with remakes? Let's talk of Martin Scorsese. He has made so many great movies. But for which movie did he win the Oscar? For Internal Affairs – a remake of a Hong Kong-Chinese movie titled The Departed. If Scorsese can win an Oscar for a remake …
"And as for making slapstick comedies, well, it is not an easy task as many believe. It is easier to scare an audience or make them cry or to tug at their heartstrings than it is to make them laugh. So if my movies are making people laugh, then I am doing a social service – people forget their pain, at least for some time.''
Is it easy to make people laugh?
Not really, he responds. "My first test of a good joke is whether it can tickle my funny bone. Only if it makes me laugh am I sure that the audience will also find it funny.''
Who or what is his inspiration?
"I have always been a big fan of cartoons. I still enjoy reading comics or cartoons of Mickey Mouse, Tom and Jerry... I used to spend hours watching them as a child.''
The filmmakers he looks up to? "If you visit my office or studios (he has state-of-the-art studios in Singapore and Chennai) you will be able to guess who my hero is. I have dozens of posters of David Lean plastered almost everywhere,'' he says. "I've watched his films more than 100 times. And in the field of scriptwriting I consider [two-time Oscar winner] Robert Bolt and [Malayalam scriptwriter/director] MT Vasudevan Nair as my muse.''
The future
Seventy-seven films later, his passion for making movies has not lost its lustre even a fleck. He has quite a few projects at hand.
One big idea he is working on is for Reliance Entertainment "on the lines of the Lord of the Rings''. The Rs1.2-billion venture will attempt to give a modern twist to the grand Indian epic, Mahabharata. "It will take a couple of years to complete it,'' he says. A film on the disturbing trend in India on female infanticide is also a possibility.
So does that mean it is curtains for remakes? "Yes,'' he says. "I've remade all my good movies in
Hindi. Now I have to come up with original scripts.''
– Anand Raj OK is Pages Editor, Friday
Priyadarshan's latest Bollywood film is Billoo Barber starring Shah Rukh Khan. And yes it's a remake of a Malayalam movie.
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