Interview: Raja Menon, Director, Barah Aana article

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After a premier at the International Film Festival of India (IFFI), Goa, veteran ad filmmaker Raja Menon's Barah Aana is finally ready for a theatrical release this March. A comic thriller with a strong cast - Naseeruddin Shah, Vijay Raaz, Tannishtha Chatterjee and Italian actress Violante Placido, Barah Aana narrates a delightful story of three peripheral inhabitants of the city, Mumbai-Shukla, a driver, Yadav, a watchman and Aman, a waiter. Anirban Lahiri caught up with the director Raja Menon during a special screening in Mumbai.

Dear Cinema : You started your career in the ad film industry. Was that in Mumbai? And how did you shift to filmmaking?

Raja Menon : I'm basically from Kerala. I'm born and brought up there. But, I started my career in Bangalore, and soon shifted base to Mumbai. Nothing interesting was going on in Bangalore back in those days. I joined ad industry in ‘˜93, and started working as a runner.

But, at the back of my mind I always had the idea of making films. But, not hailing from a film school it was never easy to enter the industry.

DC : So you used your ad film career as a learning process? To know the apparatus of filmmaking? Because they are mostly the same...

RM : Yes. You can say so. In ‘˜97 I started making Hindi film trailers in Mumbai. I started getting close to Mukul Anand at that time. He always played an influential role afterwards, in my career path.

DC: Your first film came in 2003. It was seen and forgotten soon by people. How do you rate that film?

RM: Well, that was learning. You can't expect a first film to be fine in every aspect. But, it taught me a lot of things -- how to handle production, how to deal with actors, how to keep the budget low yet reach a certain minimum quality etc.

DC: So, it was sort of a scratch pad. Why did you take so long to make another film?

RM: The idea for this film was gradually taking shape in my head. It started in bits and pieces. For example, on passing I noticed apartments' watchmen like Yadav in the film. That was on the wake of globalization and feel-good economy, when I started thinking how these watchmen see a big metro like Bombay. I began seeing through their points-of-view -- watchmen, cab-drivers, household drivers. There are a lot of people here who live in the slums. They run the city everyday. And how do they feel? Are they any different in their feeling than us?

So, it struck me that at the core they are human beings only. Maybe they are concerned about gathering some five thousand bucks while that amount is five lakhs for you and me, and five crores for someone else. But, essentially, the concern is the same. We adorn our walls with a costly painting bought from the gallery, while they maybe buy some cheap idols, or plants for the same use. It's the purchasing power that makes them different, belonging to a different stratum. But, the basic concerns are the same. They are you and me. They mirror you and me, albeit in different scales. But, the mirroring is there.

So, such characters, in fragments, appear before my eyes. And finally the story began taking a shape.

DC: Did you do an extensive location research and recce for this film?

RM: Oh yes! We certainly did that. The slums shown in the film are actual slums in Dharavi. We tried to capture the feel of the real space as much as possible. So, we found the spaces, and put the characters there. And always it was my prime concern that people like you and me could identify with these characters. We live at home, they live in slums. But all the base emotions, ambitions and failures are the same. Only the level is different. So, this identification factor was very important for me.

DC: Coming to the structure of the film, we see the very basic Greek ideas of  hamarthia and hubris at work. How situation influences the decisions of a man. And how those decisions in turn create new situations for him where unknown sides to his character come out.

RM: Yes. It is really a matter of choice. Apparently nothing can force you take a choice. But, of course the circumstances play a big role in such choices. You can't evade all responsibilities for your actions. But, you're not the only responsible factor in the whole game. So, it's really an interesting pattern that always plays you out.

People are not black-and-white. They are never black-and-white. Everyone is good. Everyone wants to be good and happy. But, circumstances lead them to certain choices, and that in turn make them what they become. But, essentially they all are good, always veering between an ideal black and ideal white. Always in a gray area.

DC: So Aman finally chooses Rani because that's what the circumstances lead him to. By the way, the character of Kate. She is the only major character in the film for whom there is no closure. We don't come to know what happens to her really. Is she an impostor? Does she just vanish like that with Aman's money? Was this her only motivation in the film? She mentions things in the film, things like her screwed-up life, her job as an waitress in Italy, her broke condition in India. But, we never know who she is. We can have a fair guess for the other characters whose background is not clearly given. But, for Kate it is bit too blurry. Why is this so?

RM: That was intentional. You see such Europeans everywhere in the city. They come to discover India, and through that many of them claim to discover themselves. So, Kate is just a representation of them. Most of her character is made up in Aman's mind. She is a creature of Aman's fantasy. Although in objective reality she exists, she may be quite unlike how we see her in the film. That was Aman's point-of-view that we see. As I said, I present different points-of-view in the film, but always with an objective color. Make it too subjective and the audience finds difficulty in identifying with the players on the big screen.

DC: Did you pick up your cast in a very selective manner? I see Tannishtha Chatterjee here, in the role of Rani. How did you find her?

RM: Tannishtha was even in my first film, Bas Yun Hi. She is an old friend. And she is a superb actor! She gave out brilliant performances in films like Bibar and Shadows of Time. So, in this film she was with me since beginning. She suggested changes in the screenplay, in her character, and she was present in all major discussions. She is an insider to the production actually.

DC: This film is basically a thriller. You said Mukul Anand was an influence on you, And he was a big master of thrillers. Is that your favourite genre too?

RM: It has comedy sides to it too. The whole film shows the comic sides of life. Serious things are shown in satirical ways. So, I'll categorize this as a satire. Yes, I love satire. You can comment on the society in different ways through the forms of satire. I'm always interested in real life politics as a satire that happens before our eyes.

DC: Who else played influential roles on this film, or your filmmaking career in general?

RM: I like Almodovar's films. The way he shows the big drama -- the circumstances etching out characters from an otherwise regular life. I like human stories that move on an edge. The story of the margin.

DC: Are you happy with this film? Have you achieved what you wanted to?

RM: You can never really be satisfied. But, yes, I am happy in the sense that I've managed to tell the story in mostly the way I wanted to. I want to tell stories through the medium of cinema. Of course, like other media cinema can be put to different use -- to document life, to write essays etc. But, for me, storytelling is important. And as I said, the form that attracts me most is satire... about people whose lives move on edge.

DC: Now that you're a confirmed player in the Bollywood industry with this film, would you ever like to go back to your native language Malayalam and make films there?

RM: Malayalam cinema is really great, and they have so many excellent actors there. I would always love to make some film in that industry. But, I don't have much contact there, and I don't know their industry structure. Besides, they have a budget problem. Once you get used to certain ways of working, it's really difficult to make films in a much lower budget. I really don't know how they manage it.

DC: Unlike your debut work, you have at least one very senior big person in this. Naseerudin Shah. Was it difficult for you to deal with such an big actor?

RM: Initially I had misgivings about him too. But Nasserji was very helpful and accommodative from day one. It would have been really a tough job for Arjun (Mathur) to match Nasserji's performance hadn't he (Naseerji) helped him. In fact, this film was a total team-work. Unless everyone in the team thinks it his or her own film, unless that level of involvement is reached, it is very difficult to make a good one. I am really happy that I have such a wonderful team here.