When did you come to realise that you have that creative element in you?
I don't know. You can never feel very excited about your own work. When others comment on your work, you realise (it). At first you might feel they are just praising you. When you win an award, you tend to feel that competition was very bad. When I see Bombay, I see only the mistakes that are there in the movie. It is difficult for me to completely comprehend the creative elements in my work.
Cinema is a very demanding job. It is not possible to say, such-and-such-a-shot is fantastic. It is so fragmented and then you put all the things together and some magic happens. It is very difficult for me to
say when I understood I have this creative element in me. It is a gradual process.
I passed out from the Institute when I was 21. I started firing really hard on the advertising scene by 26 or 27. I was recognised when I was 28, that is in Madras. I was recognised nationally when I was 29. I was working for Bombay when I was 30. I am 33 now. It has been a slow process. It is not that I got recognition overnight.
Was it a difficult process?
It was difficult. I don't know whether I have the strength to go through it again.
Was it that bad?
Circumstances played a major part in my life. When somebody comes and asks me, can I be as successful as you? I don't know what to answer. So many quirks of fate have happened in my life. I don't think it is completely in my hand. Take for instance, the Tu Hi Re...song in Bombay. It is considered a classic now. It is one of my works that I like myself. When I reached Bekkal Fort, I fell on my face and had to have four stitches. My whole face was swollen then. I couldn't shoot for one day.
It was also pouring that day. It rained continuously for two days and on the third day we decided to shoot. We shot for three days in the rain. Rain petered off by the time we finished the song. Believe me, I came back to the location after five days, and there was nothing, no rain. And it didn't have the drama.
When the storm wasn't lashing, it looked like any other fort. The storm in the sea, the howling winds... there was something bizarre about everything. It looked as if they (the lovers) were ready to take on the forces of nature when they declared their love. That concept would not have worked without the waves lashing at the rocks. It might have looked like a pretty picture, that's all.
Later on when I saw the fort and the song, I wondered who played a greater role, me or nature? I could not have created the rain, but I exploited the rain. So, you don't know whether you deserve the praise, or nature.
You were more interested in cinema, but you went into advertising after your institute days. Did it help you satisfy your creative urge?
I didn't know anybody in the film industry. I don't think I could have entered the film industry straightaway. I don't think I could have made Minsara Kanavu when I was 25. I have learnt a lot through the years. I have learnt to focus very clearly on what I have to say. Advertising helps you tell something very precisely in a small period of time. You are only a part of the communication process. It teaches you humility; it teaches you that somebody else can change your work.
I don't feel I am indispensable, I don't feel I am making a piece of art which nobody has seen before. I am doing something to make a few people laugh. I am just like a Kathakali artist, a performer. I am only that important to the society. You are nothing, you are not immortal. You are not going to create an immortal work. If I want to create immortal art, I should have done it in granite. Because in a film, colours fade away in ten years's time. The medium fades away.
But there are classics in the field of cinema.
But they are shot in black and white.
There are colour classics too.
You have to digitally restore it. I am talking about the medium as such. The quaintness of the costume, the quaintness of the narration, the music, everything gets dated after sometime. You
are a product of your time. If your film survives, you cannot do it intentionally.
Agreed. Nobody can create classics. But certain things survive time to become classics.
You cannot be presumptuous to believe that it will survive time. But if a film does not run today, you will not get a second chance. Art has to have an immediacy. It has to work. So, state-funded art films do not work because they do not obey the basic rule. It is not what people want, it is what intellectuals want. It is what a few self effacing people think is art. If my film does not succeed today, I cannot make another film today.
What about the films of Aravindan, for example? His films were not commercially successful, but he made several films. Adoor's film also were not very successful commercially.
But they are state-funded art. Carnatic music is also state-funded. It is not the art of the people. It is the art of the aristocracy. It is stored in museums and godowns. But the art of the people change with time. Folk arts have lost their meaning once cinema entered. Folk arts are worthless now. They try to say, they are pro-poor. Actually they are not. Otherwise, it would have become popular. We like to cry, we like to laugh, we like to shout., we like to see all the nava rasas on screen. We don't like to see people just walking.
Do you like the idea of compartmentalising movies into 'art' and commercial'?
Compartmentalisation was done by them to survive. Art film makers have created the art film movement to survive.
They are definitely more realistic.
No, they are phony and fake. I don't believe in art films at all. They are badly directed, they are badly edited, they are badly cut. If you ask me about Aravindan, I think he is fantastic. He is the person who inspired me to work. If you look at them in today's context, they are amateurish. We have not made a film of international quality after Satyajit Ray. They might grow beards and walk, but their films do not ignite passion. They say it is not meant for the ordinary people, it is meant only for intellectual debate! Bullshit! They get money from the state and make movies. Can they collect money from people and make a movie?
You are quite unlike a person who studied in a film institute where you watch different kinds of films, not the run of the mill movies. When did you come to this conclusion that art films are phony?
I have been thinking a lot about it. I strongly believe that you, as an individual, are not that important. You create art because you enjoy it. If you stop enjoying it and start pretending that you are doing it with something else in mind, I was told if I have a song in the movie, I wouldn't be able to go to international
festivals. If I want to hear a song, I must hear a song.
Music is Indian. When you see that there are no songs in the white man's movies, you avoid them. The truth is you (the art film-makers) cannot picturise a song. Cinema is not realism.
Photographs: Sanjay Ghosh
Rajiv Menon, continued
