National Award-winning director Vetrimaaran talks about Dhanush, 'Kaaka Muttai' and 'Visaranai'

His latest film ‘Visaranai’ was premiered at the Venice International Film Festival and won the Amnesty International Italy’s Cinema for Human Rights Award. Winning accolades is not new for National Award-winning director Vetrimaaran who says he makes films for the common man. Collaborating with actor Dhanush (who won the National Award for Best Actor for Vetrimaaran’s film Aadukalam) in a production venture, the two have taken Tamil cinema to the international audience. Their previous collaboration Kaaka Muttai won two National Awards this year and was a box office success too.

In an exclusive chat with dna, Vetrimaaran talks about collaborating with Dhanush, his award-winning film 'Visaranai' and more.

How did you develop this relationship with Dhanush?

I don’t think you can plan to develop relationships especially relationships which don’t need commitment. You can’t plan for that, it just has to happen. For us, it’s happened mostly because of the mutual trust and respect we have for each other in our own respective fields and also as human beings. If I like a film, I refer it to him and vice versa. When you keep sharing and discussing ideas, films and books, without your knowledge you keep influencing the other person and vice-versa. Over a period of time if you keep doing this, you end up having people of the same wavelength and who have similar likes.

How confident were you about debutant director Manigandan and Kaaka Muttai?

Kaaka Muttai might be Manigandan’s first feature film, but he’s a very refined filmmaker who can cater to the international audience. I called him after I saw Wind and asked him for a script. Dhanush told me we have a script that will work in the international market as well as mainstream here. Dhanush was more confident than I was on the commercial success of Kaaka Muttai, but we didn’t expect this scale.

There’s a four-year gap since Aadukalam before you decided to direct Visaranai. Why?

I really don’t know. I’m still asking myself the same question! (Laughs) Every time I finish a film I promise myself that I’ll start my next film as early as possible, but I end up taking a long time. You invest so much of yourself into a film (e.g. the film language, the way the characters are approached, the way you write your scenes) that it takes time to get it out of your system. I spend at least two years on a film. While writing and executing a script as a film, I feel I need to evolve as a person. If a script doesn’t teach me anything, it’s really tough for me to be in that script for over a year. These are things I retrospectively think could be the reasons for the delay. Visaranai is not the same my previous two films and in fact, I am still working on it. 

Watch the official trailer of Visaranai:

What was Chandrakumar’s reaction to his novel Lock Up being made into a film?

The book was suggested to me by a friend of mine, Thangavelavan. He is my senior from when I was working with director Balu Mahendra. In fact, he will be directing a film soon. I was looking for good content to make a film in short span of time and that’s when Thangavelavan gave me this book to read. I immediately told him I’ll do it. Thangavelavan and Chandrakumar are friends and I was particular that Chandrakumar should come to Venice. After seeing the film, he told me, “We never thought our cries for justice would cross those four walls. Now, the world is going to hear our cries.” There were so many people in Venice who wanted to interview him more than us!

What was compelling about Lock Up?

The first thing about the book was it is a real-life documentation of a person who is alive and the kind of hardships he had to undergo. It’s a scream for justice. When I read Lock Up, I realised that this wasn’t an isolated incident but something which had been happening for a long time all over the world. Moreover, the story develops in a very subtle way and had a sense of intrigue to it which I liked. I felt it would make an interesting film.

Tell us about the premiere of Visaranai at Venice. 

We never expected the kind of response we got from the international audience. They were so emotionally moved after the screening and kept clapping. It was like a Mexican wave. Everyone got emotional. Chandrakumar, Samuthrakani and Dinesh were all crying and I didn’t know how to react. On the streets, people used to come and call Samuthirakani and Dinesh by their screen names and click photos with them. When your film can cross language barriers, you really believe in the language of films. 

Do awards put pressure on you as a director?

No. (Laughs) I always say that I don’t make films for awards. My priority is to tell the story to my people. I strongly believe that films are a common man’s medium. The first thing that comes to mind is that I need to get back the money invested by my producer. If I am unable to get the money from my common man then I have to look at other avenues to get back the money. In the process if my film gets national and international acclaim, then we are happy but that’s not a priority. 

What inspires you to make a film?

It should be about life or the hardships of life or the darker shades of life or a lifestyle. Like in Aadukalam, everyone is grey in that movie. A person, who is so good in one facet of his life, has so much darkness in him in another sphere of his life. This is something that excites me. A new lifestyle, a cult, a sub cult - these excite me. First, I choose a milieu., then I try to spend as much as time as possible in that milieu. In that process, I find a story. And that might be totally against the idea with which I went to make a film. But the life I see should inspire me to write something.

Is it a conscious decision not to work with big stars?

No, not at all. The content that we have should accommodate big stars. When you have a star, you have to accept that fact that you are dealing with a person who’s bigger than himself and who has a fan following that will expect certain things out of him. Now people will give us some leverage. But I don’t want to have a star and disappoint his fans. If we have a star in a film, we need to satisfy his requirement as well our requirement. That is a tricky point.  

What next?

I am starting my film Vada Chennai with Dhanush in February 2016. But everything will be determined after the release of Visaranai in November. I work purely on intuition. Before I started Visaranai, I started to shoot for my film Soothadi with Dhanush and Parthiepan. I shot with Parthiepan for five days and suddenly I thought I should do Visaranai. I told Dhanush, "Let’s finish Visaranai and then do our film". I don’t remember making any conscious decisions. As of now this is the plan.