‘Por Thozhil’ director Vignesh Raja on the making of his Tamil serial-killer blockbuster film

Vignesh Raja (right), director of the new Tamil film 'Por Thazhil'. (Photo Twitter)

A thriller that arrived without much fanfare, debut director Vignesh Raja’s Por Thozhil quickly picked up after great reviews and word-of-mouth. The film is about a senior police officer and his mentee who have to hunt down a serial killer in Tiruchirappalli, Tamil Nadu. With a tightly-knit plot and a suspenseful screenplay, Por Thozhil doesn’t depend on jump scares and gory violence to deliver its thrills.

Starring veteran actor Sarathkumar, Ashok Selvan and Nikhila Vimal in pivotal roles, Por Thozhil has, according to reports, collected around Rs 10 crore in just five days — an impressive feat for a film of its genre that doesn’t have any of the major superstars of the current generation.

In an interview, Vignesh Raja talks about the film’s success, the writing choices he made with co-writer Alfred Prakash and how some of its best scenes were staged. Edited excerpts:

Congratulations on the success of Por Thozhil. Has it sunk in yet?

It hasn’t. I’m still running around because we aren’t done with the promotions yet. We’re expanding this week with new centres where the film will be released. It hasn’t even hit me yet for it to sink in.

Where did the idea for Por Thozhil begin?

Gautam Menon’s Vettaiyaadu Vilaiyaadu (2006) was a very important film for me when I was in school. I really like Gautam sir and Kamal sir (Kamal Haasan who starred in the film as the lead investigator), and so when they came together, it had a deep impact on me. I became fascinated with serial-killer films after that.

When I was working at Puthiya Thalaimurai, I met my co-writer Alfred Prakash and it so happened that he also had a liking for serial-killer films. We were bouncing ideas off each other and that’s how we arrived at the idea of doing a buddy cop serial killer film.

A wide variety of serial killer films and web-series have come out since Vettaiyaadu Vilaiyaadu. What did you absolutely want to avoid when making Por Thozhil?

Since we’d seen it all, we knew what’s been done before. Every time we had to make a decision, we were conscious about not repeating something that had been done earlier. We knew that we had a plot and a serial-killer hunt, but we were particular that the characterisation of the two cops stands out. We wanted to establish the personalities of the two protagonists and what they learn from each other across the film. We wanted to do that arc well. That’s not something we’ve seen often, and we felt having the same soul for this buddy cop relationship and the serial killer hunt would work.

The advantage of this genre is that people have a lot of expectations on what will happen. That makes it possible to subvert them and surprise the audience.

The senior police officer in an investigative thriller is usually a supercop who knows it all. But Loganathan (played by Sarathkumar) has a very human face. Were you confident that this would work with the audience?

We wanted the audience to align with the characters, and this meant that we created rooted and flawed characters. They should have their fair share of idiosyncrasies and insecurities. The audience has changed now. They appreciate vulnerability in rooted cinema. A star vehicle is a different ballgame. We didn’t think of it as a risk.

Ashok Selvan’s Prakash serves as a counterpoint to Sarathkumar’s Loganathan. He’s overenthusiastic and tries to show off his knowledge. That’s how we wanted to establish the contrast between them.

Why is the film set in 2010? Is it because you didn’t want to get too caught up with the influence of technology in crime-solving?

Yes, that is the reason. We now have satellite tracking, CCTV, video calls — and making a thriller with all this will give it a different flavour. Personally, I don’t find showing screens to be cinematically exciting. We didn’t want to make a big thing of it being set in the past either. It’s just suggested through the costumes, props, vehicles and so on.

What sort of research went into piecing together the serial killer’s profile?

We spoke to a couple of criminologists just to understand what goes behind these criminals. We also read books and research papers. To get the lingo right — of how a doctor would speak to a cop, for instance — we spoke to some retired forensic doctors and police officers.

Did you already have the actors in mind when you were writing the characters?

Ashok Selvan was always on board because he’s a friend from college. We thought of Sarath sir for the senior officer’s role for two reasons. One, he has an intimidating air about him. He’s a very nice person but if he isn’t smiling when you meet him, you do feel intimidated! Two, he is a classy person — the way he speaks and moves. We felt that was just what this role needed.

Without revealing any spoilers, can you tell us about that terrific scene at the railway crossing where a policeman interrogates a suspect? How did you stage it and did you expect it to have such an impact?

Incidentally, when Alfred and I were writing the screenplay, we got stuck exactly at this point. This is when the police miss the suspect and they don’t know where he is. We didn’t know how to move the plot forward and we were stuck for almost a month. We were getting frustrated and it finally came to us.

In the initial draft, the scene was like a random police check for drunken driving. That’s how we started writing it, but we realised that this was an opportunity to add more drama. When we decided to shoot it, we thought of a railway crossing because it adds to the tension with the train and the distant horn. I narrated the script to several people before the project was greenlit and across the board, I was able to see that they were glued to their seats for this scene.

Shooting the scene was another task. It’s difficult to get permission from the railways. You can’t control the trains. The story happens in Trichy but this scene was shot in Chennai. We used Google Maps to locate a remote train track and followed it to find the crossing. This isn’t a very busy crossing. We got the train chart to find out how many trains would cross on this side of the track. We shot the sequence around it.

Kalaiselvan, the cinematographer, Sreejith Sarang, the editor, and I designed the sequence very carefully. The tempo of the shot duration keeps increasing, and it builds to the release — which is the train crossing. We knew at the edit stage that this would work well. And of course, after the sound design (Sync Cinema), mixing (Radhakrishnan) and Jakes Bejoy’s minimalistic score, it became a proper synergy.

So you had to work with the train’s timing to shoot this scene…how long did it take for you to do it?

We had the location from 6 pm to 5 am the next day. So, we had 11 hours in total. What’s usually done is to storyboard the scene and divide it into shots. Let’s say the scene has 50 shots, it’s only five-seven shots that will have the train. If we map these shots, the rest of it is under our control. We also had a dummy railway gate to suggest that the crossing was closed because the actual gate would be opened by the railways at intervals.

Though all the victims are women, the camera doesn’t feel voyeuristic. This is unusual in films of this genre where the violence is thrust upon the audience for shock value. Was this a conscious decision?

I always believe that it’s better to leave such things to the imagination of the audience rather than show it. What the human mind can conjure up is way more terrifying than what a filmmaker can choose to show. There are quite a few close-ups, shots of blood and sounds of people getting hit but perhaps it’s more palatable. It wasn’t consciously done, but I guess that’s how I look at violence.

When we spoke to criminologists, we realised that in nearly 100 per cent of the cases, the violence stems from their formative years

It’s one of my core beliefs. Not just when things reach such an extreme — all of our insecurities, quirks…they’re all shaped in our formative years. You may not be a psychopath or have any psychological disorder, but the formative years of your life will have a huge influence on what sort of adult you become. This is perpetuated because you have a family of your own after that. I think it’s a very vicious cycle and it’s important that people are aware of it. Moreover, when we spoke to criminologists, we realised that in nearly 100 per cent of the cases, the violence stems from their formative years.

This is also why we didn’t want two random cops as the characters. Family is important to both of them. Ashok Selvan’s Prakash becomes a cop for his family, but he comes from a very loving home. That’s why he’s introduced like that. He even wears light colours. In contrast, Sarathkumar’s Loganathan is introduced with a certain darkness.

Por Thozhil is actually a pretty risky film on paper. There’s no heroine, no romance, no songs, no humour...the screenplay is full of spoilers. E4 Entertainment greenlit it and Applause Entertainment bankrolled it. You need a good marriage between good content and the people who back it.

The first film is quite challenging because you have nothing to show. You can show ad films and short films, but then people tell you that it’s easy to tell a story in a few minutes and that to hold the audience’s attention for over 2 hours is difficult. Making them believe in you is the hardest. But as a writer-director, if you have good material, things will work out if you keep trying. There are many new producers now, and the audience has also changed. You need to be patient.

I feel we don’t credit producers enough. Por Thozhil is actually a pretty risky film on paper. There’s no heroine as such, no romance, no songs, no humour. How do you promote it when the screenplay is so full of spoilers? It requires a certain conviction from the producer’s end. E4 Entertainment was the first production house to greenlight it and they then took it to Applause (Entertainment) which bankrolled it. You need a good marriage between good content and the people who back it.

You must be flooded with calls and messages from the industry. Are you already thinking about the next film?

To be honest, I had some plans before the release. But I didn’t expect so much love for the film. The people and the press have made the film their own and put it out there. I feel there’s more responsibility on me now. As the years pass, the stories get exhausted because people tell them before you can. It’s only through the screenplay or a high concept that you can come up with something new. So, I’m going to take my time to work on my next script and come up with an equally strong film.