The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : The power of love

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Nov 06, 2007
ePaper

Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

The power of love

Rasheed Kappan

‘A film is about bringing to life what you dream, and everyone dreams’

Laudable effort: Alexis Dias and other members of the team.

BANGALORE: Armed with a Sony PD-150 handycam, software engineer Alexis Dias set out to change his small world. And the amateur documentary film-maker’s five-minute work on child labour pitch-forked him to virtual online stardom.

Viewed by about 10,000 people, his video on YouTube.com had struck a chord with the Netizens. Its very human subject, symbolised tellingly in the title Do We Accept Truth, told a story of toil through crisp, arresting camera work.

Harsh reality

Enthused by the success of his first work, Mr. Dias is now back with an even more dramatic video: a 12-minute film about the harsh reality of terrorism. He does not take sides nor say a word in the film and lets Jeysekar’s stirring music fill the audio gaps. But the message in “Love Versus Evil” gets louder with every frame: Terror’s deadly tentacles could be frozen with love.

As the silent protagonist, Mr. Dias plays up the dilemma with fierce intensity. Tracing the terrorist’s transformation from someone who plants a bomb in a racecourse to a humanist in a tearing hurry to defuse the explosive, Mr. Dias captures the essence of love’s mighty power.

Yet, the film showed no violence. The subtle mix of actors in radiant life and lying lifeless on the ground was Mr. Dias’s method to drive home the message. “I could have shown people with their limbs cut off. But that would have been gross. It had to be subtle,” explained the producer-director, who spent about Rs. 1 lakh on the project. That sensitivity echoed in his decision to let the film free on the Net. “You could freely download the entire film on ( www.love-dias.com) and the older film on child labour at ( www.pukar-dias.com).”

Final frontier

Thirty-four-year-old Mr. Dias, originally from Madurai, started work on the terror film project in February. But with only one day of shooting possible in a month, he had to wait till July to complete the project. The team was much bigger, 40 to be precise.

With his friend Sandeep K.S. from Mysore taking care of the critical cinematography and editing, autorickshaw driver Raja arranging the actors, Mr. Dias’s team was ready. The movie was shot mainly in Hesarghatta, St. Xavier’s Church and the Bangalore Turf Club in Bangalore and Jog Falls.

Once the movie was converted to digital format and uploaded to the Net, Mr. Dias was back where he began: the World Wide Web, the final frontier where he had won over thousands last summer.

The camera focussed on his expressive visage, the video pans the colourful world of a church wedding, a picnic near the Jog Falls before settling at the racecourse, the stage for the final drama. The free flowing images of the racing horses echoes the transformed protagonist’s relief at seeing a world at peace. This ending powers the film’s message of love, strong enough to conquer terror.

No formal training

Before his amateur foray into celluloid, Mr. Dias had no formal training in films. But the medium excited him. “Good movies are like good tonic, they are very much required,” with such a viewpoint, he was bound to dwell deep into movie-making.

His potential for something big was acknowledged by the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) officials themselves, who awarded the video a “Universal” certificate. Yet, he was modest. “Everyone has the capacity to make films. Film is about bringing to life what you dream, and everyone dreams.”

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