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Photo: S. Subramanium

A look at terrorism Ramgopal Varma in New Delhi

“I wouldn’t like to call the threesome – of ‘Satya’, ‘Company’ and ‘Contract’ – a trilogy on underworld. Trilogy sounds like a finale, while I would like to make a ‘hundredology’.” That is Ramgopal Varma, joking wryly about reports in sections of the media which has decided to call them a trilogy. And RGV is clear about marketing his latest film: ‘1998: Satya’ was an inside view of the underworld; ‘2002: Company’ an overview of underworld; and 2008: ‘Contract’ underworld meets terrorism. He reasons, “The nature of terrorism has changed over the last ten years, and I wanted to have a re-look at this change.” And he did it through his “sources in the police”.

“Contract” as the name suggests is about contract killers for which Ramu, as he is fondly called, has brought in for fresh faces “for they don’t have an image baggage”. These new faces include Adhvik Mahajan as Amaan, Sakshi Gulati as Iya, Sumeet Nijhawan as RD and Prasad Purandare as Ahmad Hussain.

“It doesn’t go deep into how terrorism happens but on how a carefree boy suffers as he signs a contract,” Ramu says of this fast-paced film in which he admits to have “broken many rules” again. “In the style of shooting and editing patterns I have done things not yet tried in Hindi films,” he says. “If ‘Sarkar Raj’ was subtle with focus on the ‘mood’, ‘Contract’ is haphazard, it is random with fixed flow in which you take out a film from the character than vice-versa”, he explains.

And he is both amused and amazed by the Indian audience who come up with “strange opinion” about his technique. “We always think that the audience is very simple and has to be spoon-fed when it comes to new techniques. It is not always true. I am both loved and hated for my technique. Some say my technique is too much in the face, it arrests. And I say this is what I make film for. I want to grab people by the throat and force them to feel in a certain way. I remember, once Govind Nihalani while seeing the editing of ‘Satya’ asked me, ‘why do you need so much of sound while there is a plenty of drama?’

But when he saw the film he agreed with my technique. It is basically, the intelligentsia and film students who see my film with certain notions of grammar in their minds. They find my technique overbearing. It offends their sensibility,” laughs Ramu.

He also has “amusing tales” of how some understand his technique. “A boy came up to me after watching ‘Company’ and said, “I saw your film but the cinema hall-wallahs cut your shots at many places”, he was actually referring to my skip frame technique. It amused me,” he relates, adding “certain people found ‘Company’ an avant-garde film.”

He admits that ‘Ramgopal Varma Ki Aag’ was “certainly a mistake” in which he “quibbled too much on the former ‘Sholay’. He has a blog www.rgv.zoomin where people can know what went wrong in it.

So, why there are no rural themes in today’s Bollywood films? “Do you think Bollywood is even interested in any theme?” he concludes, smiling mischievously.

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