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Posted in: Cinema: Tamil, Interview
Interview: Mari Selvaraj – Part 1
Posted on June 9, 2020
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Baradwaj Rangan 
brangan
June 10, 2020
The interview is up…
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bart
June 10, 2020
This was a lovely interview.. Nothing to take away from you but he was just flowing like a crystal clear river with his thoughts…
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brangan
June 10, 2020
bart: flowing like a crystal clear river with his thoughts…
Give some credit to our editing, too, no? 😀
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bart
June 11, 2020
Ha ha… Saar, It was so seamless that I didn’t even think about it 😁
I loved the way he was able to paint his village and childhood so vividly. Also that he was able to reason most things very logically..
But I see your team’s invisible hand of God play now.. Thank you 🙏
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jvb
June 11, 2020
No lockdown anymore?
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Varsha Ganesh
June 11, 2020
Absolutely lovely interview. Did full justice to the journey theme. He keeps mentioning how reading changed his life. I`d love to have heard more about what books were the most transformative for him.
Also ROFLed at one comment on YouTube saying ‘Get someone who looks at you the way BR looks at Mari Selvaraj’
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brangan
June 11, 2020
bart: It was so seamless that I didn’t even think about it
That is the whole point of editing. You are not supposed to see/feel it 🙂
But the reason I pointed this out goes back to my Mani Ratnam book, for which someone said “you just asked a bunch of questions and he answered and you wrote it out”
The reader/viewer only sees the “stitched together” version, unaware of what we deleted, or the point he made at the 34-minute park that actually belongs with something he said at the 19-minute mark and so we move it and “disguise” the cut (just an example)…
All this takes nothing away from Mari Selvaraj’s deep passion and conviction and fluency. I just wanted to point out that we made an already beautiful thing a tad more beautiful 🙂
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Amit Joki
June 11, 2020
It was a beautiful interview. Hoping the next part has some tidbits about Karnan!
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brangan
June 11, 2020
PS: When I mean “delete”, it’s not content.
But I may have to ask a question and he’ll say something and I’ll realise that’s not where I want him to go and so prod him a few times, until we are both on the same page and he launches into the answer.
All this is not needed for the viewer, so the prepping/prodding is deleted, so you just see a “clean” question and a “clean” answer.
Just some behind-the-scenes stuff 🙂
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brangan
June 11, 2020
One interview. Many interpretations 🙂
“The way this director has seen Devarmagan is absolutely wrong”
“BR, I don’t see why you;re defending Kamal for Thevarmagan”
“Rangar ayya Devarmagan question la Kamal ku muttu kuduka try pani badhiladi vaangiteengale”
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Satya
June 11, 2020
Rangar ayya. Your surname is Rangan, I believe. Either way, that phrase sounds ominous, in a good way. 🙂
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krishikari
June 12, 2020
Beautiful interview with this amazing film maker. I wish there were subtitles though, I’m sure, like me, many who saw Pariyerum Perumal are not native Tamil speakers and would love to understand better.
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krishikari
June 12, 2020
Oops, I see the subtitles are there now!
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brangan
June 12, 2020
Yeah, we just added it today.
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deepakm1989
June 12, 2020
When is part 2 releasing, sir
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Enna koduka sir pera
June 13, 2020
Really nice interview BR. Wonderful questions put forth by you in a sensitive way and I admire Mari Selvaraj’s philosophy of reacting to caste atrocities as a systemic problem, and not an individual revenge issue. Something really great about holding back personal revenge to slowly seed a social revolution.
I was a little bit confused about the last part of the interview after the discussion on Thevar Magan starts. To the question of Jo’s caste, he very nicely said that if they show only one community as the oppressor, then the others go scott-free and also that the oppressor is really anyone who wants adhigaram. I am curious what you tried to get at after that about the portrait of Pasumpon and artistic freedom.
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brangan
June 13, 2020
Enna koduka sir pera: Are you talking about the Ramarajan film song? I was trying to say that even if you don’t SAY the ‘jaadhi name’, you have other ways of telling the audience… So how do you look at that?
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Honest Raj
June 14, 2020
Even in PP, Jo’s brother is named ‘Bose Paandi’. No prizes for guessing the community to which the family belongs. In Subramaniapuram, the heroine’s house has a portrait of V.O.C and Bharathi Kannamma makes an explicit mention of the oppressors’ caste.
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Enna koduka sir pera
June 15, 2020
BR: Thank you for clarifying.
I rewatched those portions again – what a beautiful philosophy! “I don’t want to use my art as an aruva, but as a reference for how things could be in the future..” With so many caste levels in the society, I see the importance of not naming one caste as an oppressive caste, but still signify the cruelties of caste oppression and let people reflect and change. I see this as a major difference from the Dravidian/Periyar movement – where Brahmins were the main ones labeled as the oppressive caste, leaving the other ones after them in the caste hierarchy out of the equation and hence, not questioning continuing oppression from other castes. Although there was no doubt a power hierarchy, with Brahmins being the most powerful at that time, I see it as something that the movement missed to achieve equality among all masses, but rather result only in a a shift in the power equation. Or perhaps the movement was a starting point, but did not extend beyond the first line of oppression. I look forward to supporting more Mari Selvarajs in the future advocating against all levels of oppression.
I also hope a strong Dalit movement will start in India, in wake of the Black Lives Matter protests. How are we as a nation allowing disgusting forms of oppression/untouchability happen even in this day and age? What will it take to stand in solidarity with the Dalits in a movement against all forms of oppression? Are we all complicit in this, although being non-casteist ourselves, yet not being anti-casteist? I am reminded of the recent quotes from the BLM movement – it is not enough to be non-racist, you have to be actively anti-racist.
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Varsha Ganesh
June 16, 2020
There`s a short film doing the rounds called ‘Modi and a Beer’. It was a good watch and goes on to talk about what Enna Koduka sir pera talks about. Varying hierarchies of oppression and how the oppressed also look for ways to oppress others who they may consider to be lower down the pole from them.
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