Director Aashiq Abu had created a huge splash in Malayalam cinema with his runaway hit movie Salt n Pepper way back in 2011. The movie stood out for a new approach to story-telling and direction and cemented his place as a director with immense potential. His latest movie Neelavelicham, based on a well-known short story, will hit the screens on April 20, and by his own admission, it has been the most challenging work in his career so far.
Excerpts from an interview:
Your latest offering Neelavelicham starring Tovino Thomas, Rima Kallingal and Roshan Mathew, is based on a story penned by the legendary Malayalam writer Vaikom Muhammad Basheer. You have produced it under your banner OPM Cinemas. When was the project conceived and how was it brought to life?
Script writer Syam Pushkaran and I had planned a horror movie some time ago but eventually dropped the idea because we didn’t want to do a flick that would go against science. Many years later, I read the new edition of the Basheer novel. My reading habit had come down to reading stuff on the phone but this novel had an immediate impact. It was so descriptive. It talks in detail about even the sound of a moving door, leaves rumbling in the wind, the moon, the sky and even a dog in the frame. It was a very Basheerian world.
It's about a young writer who stays in a mansion, haunted by the apparition of a young woman who committed suicide. Basheer, in his foreword, refers to the theme as a wonder bubble which he has tried to burst with a scientific needle and couldn’t. He says maybe the reader could. The horror, triggered by hallucination, may even appeal to the scientific mind.
Have you tried to make changes to the original script?
The story of Neelavelicham was made into a movie called Bhargavi Nilayam in 1964. Since we are releasing the movie again in 2023, we had to make changes to suit today’s sensibilities, otherwise we felt it may look like we are mocking it. Bhargavi Nilayam was some sort of a classic. However, I have taken some cinematic liberties to adapt the story to today’s times.
Do you see this as a test of your calibre as a director, since it’s the first time you are basing a movie on a well-known story?
It’s not just my effort alone. I have tried to guide it through. Some of the best people are involved in this project, be it the actors or the technicians. It has been a very challenging movie, but very exciting at the same time.
Aashiq, you have never tried to stick to one pattern of movie making. Whether it is 22FK, Idukki Gold or Mayanadi, all your movies have stood out with their differentiated content and direction. Was that a conscious strategy?
That’s my survival strategy. The fact that I have not tried to do another movie on similar lines is to ensure that viewers always get a surprise. The effort is always to get maximum viewers into the theatre and from that perspective I have always been a commercial director. I just try to deal with varied subjects and bring in quality into each of them.
I know that if I try to repeat the subject or treatment, the movie could fail. For my own survival, I have to find something new all the time or else people will get bored. They keep pushing us to reinvent ourselves.
Over the last decade, Malayalam cinema has seen a number of gifted directors (Dileesh Pothan, Anwar Rasheed, Anjali Menon, Alphonse Puthran etc) coming through the ranks. How has it benefited you as a filmmaker?
It’s an opportunity for me to get educated further about cinema. All these new filmmakers are making movies in and around you, and you get to see them. Frankly, it’s cinema that’s most important and not who is making it.
Directors and writers get celebrated here in the Malayalam movie industry and not just actors. So, it’s exciting for us to experiment in Malayalam as we get enough support and recognition here. This has helped the new generation of directors too.
Acting in Malayalam movies has also seen a big shift.
European cinema has been a big influence here. Most of our actors are exposed to high quality work in the international movie industry (not just Hollywood) and pick up cues. Fahad Fazil is a good example of an actor who has benefited through constant feedback and encouragement received from a very educated audience. Our audience understands fresh cinematic language and techniques and the actors try to keep up to those standards.
With the internet, movie education is free for all. Viewers are getting updated about new ways of acting as they have access to data and phones. While there is nothing called ‘realistic acting’, our actors try to keep their craft as real as possible. Competition is growing and other actors who can’t match up to these standards will struggle.
However, we need more script writers who understand screenwriting and I believe the same is the case globally.
The new OTT platforms are providing regional cinema a great business opportunity.
With the advent of digital platforms, movie watching is essentially now in two buckets - community viewing and personal viewing. People choose between the two. When they want a larger-than-life spectacle, they prefer watching it in a theatre and if they want a more emotional engagement they look towards OTT.
Malayalam cinema can now make bigger movies mounted on bigger budgets, thanks to a bigger market opportunity. Regional is now international due to the internet and the next generation of movie makers will keep pushing the envelope further. One can expect large scale movies like RRR or KGF from Malayalam in the near future.
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