From page to screen
GOWRI RAMNARAYAN
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Filmmaker Vasanth on his new telefilm ‘Visaranai Commission’…
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Vasanth
Filmmaker Vasanth is most animated when he talks of writers such as Ashokamitran, Sundara Ramasamy or Vanna Nilavan. A short story writer himself, his love for literature was sparked long before he entered the film industry as K. Balachander’s assistant. The screening of Vasanth’s new telefilm ‘Visaranai Commission’ (9 a.m., 4 July, Film Chamber), part of Doordarshan’s series on Indian classics, based on Sa Kandasamy’s Sahitya Akademi award-winning novel, will be followed by a discussion featuring Ashokamitran and Kanimozhi Karunanidhi.
Vasanth has happy memories of an earlier collaboration with Kandasamy, in the National Award winning short ‘Two Pairs of Eyes on a Fishing Float’ (‘Takkaiyin Meedu Nangu Kangal’). To transpose fiction on to his medium, “I read, absorb, put the book aside, and start shooting. That’s how I infuse the spirit of the original into any changes I make.” Dialogue, action, and shot are a single unit to be conceived before the camera rolls.
His debut film ‘Keladi Kanmani’ (1990) was loved by critics and viewers.
Vasanth’s love for parallel cinema was obvious in the risks he took here, as when he cast playback singer S.P.Balasubramaniam in the lead as a middle-aged widower. ‘Asai’, ‘Rhythm’ and ‘Sattham Podadhe’ proved that the arresting debut was no flash in the pan.
Unexpected flavours
His writer background ensures a detailed script but he is quick to point out, “Some magic has to happen between the page and the screen.”
Sometimes, adjustments to suit location, weather or actor may actually add unexpected flavours, as when he retained lead actor Teni Murugan’s Madurai dialect in ‘Visaranai Commission.’ “Trust your gut feelings. Sometimes you get satisfaction against expectations,” he laughs.
‘Visaranai Commission’ tracks a couple from a lower socio-economic strata — a school teacher and a bus conductor through 20 years of childlessness.
The better-educated woman is as sweet tempered as she is strong. The man is gullible, timid, kind-hearted in the workplace, but sometimes aggressive at home, especially under the influence of liquor.
The camera swings from impassivity to empathy as it records the couple’s growing affection and concern for one another. The film is really about inadequacies we have to reconcile with, the sadness and fears that make us who we are.
A single raga (Sarasangi) on the violin (Padma Shankar) runs through the film sparking dissonance in conformity. D.K. Pattammal’s voice on the radio backs the woman’s hand, leafing through a bookshelf stacked with contemporary fiction that questions smugness and apathy. A crow sits on a pole above the house, imaging the heat and dust of the cityscape, the dreary beats of its denizens. A long day of waiting for the husband turns into a ritual of the unsaid.
The tool of ambiguity
The director’s sure touch guides minor characters flitting in and out, each wholly credible, distinctly crafted, adding dimensions to the lead pair and widening the field of vision to include the larger world.
Vasanth’s face lights up when asked if ambiguity can be as sharp a tool in cinema as in writing. “I wanted to make a gripping film without a plot. Open ended. No cause and effect.” The novel’s election procession becomes a vague, indefinite menace throughout the film.
The police officers are universalised in their facelessness. The dispassionate filming of murder in police custody chills all the more because the incident is both specific and generic. The director refuses to do the thinking for his viewers.
“I am a strict vegetarian but in the film, you will taste perfect fish curry and rattha poriyal,” Vasanth laughs and adds seriously, “This is the first time I’ve got out of my middle-class grid. After the 15-day shoot, my actor Lakshmi said she had lived an entire life.”
Reluctant to talk about his next big project ‘Nadai Udai Bhavanai’, Vasanth switches to another small budget feature based on Thi. Janakiraman’s classic ‘Marappasu’, and a long dreamed project — Ashokamitran’s ‘Thanneer.’
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