Rossellini, Fellini and their sister Nalini

On the eve of the 9th Chennai International Film Festival, Kamal Haasan explains why these events are important and how they’ve changed his life.

Do you remember the first foreign film you saw?

I consider even Laurel and Hardy, Abbott and Costello, and the John Wayne movies as foreign films. That was probably the first full entertainment I experienced, where I could understand what was happening. But later on, when I became an assistant director, the first truly foreign film that shook me to the core was Bergman’s Touch. It was released as regular fare in Safire. I think they made a mistake. They must have thought it was something else, or maybe they got it cheap. I saw it with Mr. RC Sakthi, and after the film, we didn’t talk all the way back to my house, a distance of about two kilometres. Then we started talking about the film, and we went back and saw the film again at the night show, because the language was new to us, and the subtitles concept was new to us. We wanted to see it without the distraction of subtitles. Bibi Andersson’s performance made me a different actor, a different director. Of course, there were other films released – Puzzle of a Downfall Child, They Might Be Giants, The Passenger, along with regular American fare like Eyes of Laura Mars – but they were sporadic and there weren’t as many as we’d have liked. Our appetite was whetted but there wasn’t enough to eat.

Then in 1977, the International Film Festival of India, which was always held at Delhi, came to Madras. I became a very active participant. I even stopped shooting, and every year from then on they knew I wouldn’t be available in January. My mentor Mr. Ananthu and I would vie with each other. He was a sleepless man and would see five films a day, which is not possible the second day onwards. I used to see four films a day, which meant that my day would start at 8 a.m. We’d see the first film and then we’d go and talk quickly, over tea and samosas, and come back for the next film. It shaped me in a very different way. After the festival wound up, I would be hungry from February to December. So I started building my video library, with VHS cassettes. And now we’ve graduated to downloading, which is good, but I still think that the festival atmosphere is something else altogether. It’s like a TV dinner versus dining outside in an open-air restaurant with friends.

In this age of downloading and watching movies on the computer, is “shared movie-going experience” still a valid selling point of film festivals?

Yes, it is. You may have Venkatachalapathy at home on a calendar but going to Tirupathi is another thing altogether. Of course, for me both are boring experiences. The festival atmosphere, the people – it’s something else. Everybody has a kitchen. Why do they go to the hotel, then?

In the early days of film festivals, when video and DVD weren’t around, they were the only way you could see a certain kind of film. But that’s not the case today.

When you learn to operate a Mac with your friends, it’s easier than sitting with a tutorial. I’m like that. If you gave me a tutorial it would take me months to learn something, and I would probably fall asleep halfway through it. It looks like a lot of homework. But it’s easier when a friend slaps my wrist and says “Don’t touch that” or “Remember to save.” It’s like how a villager uses a cell phone. He doesn’t need a tutorial. Somebody shows him. And in a festival, they teach you film appreciation for free. Your understanding is enhanced, and your misunderstanding is allayed.

What, in your opinion, is the use of a film festival?

Cinema is a language. You have to practice it to understand it, to become more fluent with it – not just the critics but also the audience. There was an experiment done in Africa where they played films to the pygmies. They thought it would have a tremendous effect on their psyche and change their lives. The pygmies were curious for three minutes and then they went back to their own business. The film was just a hanging calendar. It was like a sunset for them, or a sunrise. They looked behind the curtain, window shopped, and never got in to buy it. So cinema is a language, and it is a new language. When Pudovkin came in with his cuts, I’m sure audiences must have found them very jerky and not easy to comprehend. But over time, we have come to accept cuts midway through scenes and narrations in reverse order. A film like Christopher Nolan’s Inception would not have been understood thirty years back by a general audience. The film’s success today means that this audience now understands the language of film. It’s like English. It’s taken 350 years, but now we write better in English than probably in our mother tongues. Cinema is a language, an international language – it’s not parochial – and a film festival is a great podium that teaches that language.

How can a country like India, whose filmmaking grammar is so different, benefit from film festivals? For instance, we’re stuck with the interval concept while writing screenplays…

In another five years, we’ll be laughing at this interview and say, “Remember, we were talking about intervals?” This interval concept is stupid. It’s been enforced by canteen people, who are actually equal partners in any theatre. I would say – and this is as much a whip crack at my own screenwriting as of others – make the film short, Make it only an hour-and-a-half long, as long as the bladder of even the worst diabetic can stand it. (Unless you’re a chronic diabetic, but then that’s his problem.) Allow audiences to buy food when they go into the theatre. That way, you conveniently do six shows in the same time you do four.

Let me word that question differently. You talked about cinema being a language. How would a Tamil filmmaker – let’s say a mainstream filmmaker, because the other kind is practically non-existent – use this language?

I don’t want to sound holier-than-thou, but the truth is that Tamil cinema is incestuous. The techniques are stunted because they inbreed so much, and the understanding of foreign films available to them through torrents or downloads is translated into their incestuous language. They take good material and cook it badly. They take a Chinese recipe and make it smell and taste like sambar. Just getting them exposed to foreign cinema is no good. You’ll have to really teach them hands-on. That’s why a festival becomes more important.

But who’s there to teach them?

The festivals will do it, in a subtle way. Critics aren’t there to bash films alone. They should. It’s like a public nuisance system – somebody should be reprimanded. But others should be appreciated. Filmmakers are like children. You must reward them for the good they’ve done. So a critic has that important parenting duty also. To use the language of cinema in Tamil cinema, we first need to know the grammar. The handwriting needs to be good. All this means that you go back to school. If there’s no school, like when I came in, that’s fine – but I still went to a school. I think the first rule in Tamil cinema should be, like in any business, the expectation of some level of education in the field, something more than just assisting another director. Otherwise, it’s like taking a compounder and making him a surgeon. Let’s leave the present crop. Future directors will have to learn cinema and then only come to make it. If you want to be an electrician, first learn the trade.

And you’re saying that these festivals provide a great platform to do this learning.

No. It’s only a peripheral platform. But it’s a good platform from which to enter deeper and enhance further. A festival is like a gymnasium. An athlete will always know a better way to use it. But even if you’re beginner, it will at least induce you to take care of your health. That’s all it is. You cannot give it more credit than due. It is not a film school. It will not make you a filmmaker. But it will whet your appetite. It will even whet the appetite of a filmmaker to make a film.

Long ago, the film world was fascinated by names like Bergman, Fellini, Antonioni. Do you think that was a different culture back then, which allowed art film directors to evolve into international superstars?

I fear that there’s a nostalgic element here – a little too much reverence for Bergman and Fellini. They’re dead. A classic can be made today. Classics are being made today. No Man’s Land is a classic. My friends would tease me when I used to drop names like Rossellini or Fellini. “Avanga sister peru Nalini,” they’d joke. They thought that this was madness and not useful at all. Even as late as Kieślowski nobody understood what we were so excited about, because the moment it was not cooked like a dosa it was not palatable. Even if you told them that there’s something called pancake, something called pita bread, they wanted only a dosa. Since these films didn’t have songs they thought they were not commercially viable. And then they started sporadically picking up things, without understanding the language, and making their own dishes. Mr. Rajkumar Kohli was a regular visitor to the festival. But he picked up a translation that was his own language. He says Nagin – or probably some other film – came from The Bride Wore Black. And you wonder how that connection was made at all.

Do you believe in the art-film versus commercial-film divide? After all, the audiences for the two aren’t always the same. And in India, you cannot afford to ignore the commercial element.

I am always making films to satisfy me, the market, and the discerning audience. There are three elements involved, and the three don’t see eye to eye. I will never make a film just so that 10 people will go and see it. I’m a limelight moth, and I will die in it – or at least die trying to get into it. When I say limelight, I don’t mean the starry aspect. But I need an audience. Even if I become a small theatre actor, I’d like to see the house full. I’d like to see smiling faces or shaking heads. That’s very important for me, and if that doesn’t happen I should retire and sit with the audience.

But yes, there are different kinds of films. I knew that Unnaipol Oruvan will only have a limited audience. The audience that came to Dasavatharam will not come to it. But the cost justifies the film and I truly believe that audiences will have to be educated. Because they’re too busy doing other things. You’ll have to tell them that a film is releasing. You’ll have to tell them what it’s about. You’ll have to tell them it’s good, try it. I have the right to talk about this because I failed to do it with Hey Ram. I assumed that everyone knew the history of India. But one of the musicians working on the background score – I don’t want to name him – said, “Oh, Godse is an Indian? I thought it was a European name.” So you cannot approach history with logic. You have to know the details. And suddenly I realised that I hadn’t informed my audience about what they’re seeing. If they know the Ramayana, they understand what’s happening the minute Shabari brings a bowl of fruit, or what Shurpanakha is thinking, what she’s going to do. So the moment Lakshman gets angry and cuts off her nose, they know that the climax is coming through. And they still enjoy it. When Benegal saab made Kalyug, there was a childish excitement in finding out who was who. “Oh, that’s Arjun. Oh, that’s Karna.” That initiates more interest in the film. I failed to do that. Now, belatedly, they say they understood the film.

Looking back, then, would you say Hey Ram is a commercial film?

It is a commercial film. If Moondram Pirai is a commercial film, why not Hey Ram?

Do you think major Indian filmmakers are recognised to a large extent in the international festival circuit?

That’s what IIFA and other people are trying to do, introduce foreigners to the taste of Indian cinema. It’s a stunning cultural shock for them. So someone we consider a good director does not translate well. It happened to me with Virumaandi. Somebody at a film festival asked me to reduce the noise levels in the jallikattu scene. I asked why. He said there was too much cacophony. I said, “No, that’s the volume level for this scene.” He said he couldn’t take it. And you know how Europe is. It’s so silent. It was a paid festival. He’d bought his ticket. I told him, “It will not be done. I am the director. You are the audience. You don’t like it. I’ll return your money.” He took his money and walked away. I stood my ground because India is like that. You cannot ask me to wear soft colours. There will be saffron. There will be red.

How do you think the average audience that frequents the multiplex can be persuaded to attend festival films?

They can be. But you have to whet their appetite – through television, for instance. Many people are surprised by the international films coming on TV. The audience is growing slowly, but there are takers. The Internet can do it. Keep a Facebook page open and spread the news.

How have your experiences with foreign cinema and festivals contributed to your films – say, Viswaroopam, which you’re making now?

Viswaroopam itself is proof of that. It is not the regular Tamil cinema fare. But it will satisfy my people. I know it. Thevar Magan is not the regular fare. You can see I am a man exposed to international cinema – the way I shoot, the way I write, the way the characters are, the way a scene ends or begins abruptly, it’s all the influence of world masters on me.

An edited version of this piece can be found here.

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Posted in: Cinema, Cinema: Festivals, Cinema: Hindi, Cinema: Tamil