From Script to Screen: An interview with Rahul Ravindran

Since the day that I watched Rahul Ravindran’s masterful, “The Girlfriend” in the theatre, I knew that I wanted to meet its creator.  I knew that I had not only watched something truly special but also that it was a film that merited a deep dive, given the depth of emotion and density of detail.  Thanks to Subha Jayanagaraja ma’am, I was able to meet Rahul in person.  The meeting was an absolute pleasure for me.  Rahul had uploaded the script of the film a few days prior.  And I had had the opportunity to read the 100-page document just in time for the meeting.  As a result, we structured the conversation on the theme of, “From Script to Screen.”  The following is the edited version of the interview.  The unabridged version has been posted on Youtube and Spotify, thanks to the herculean efforts of my friend Pratip Vijayakumar.  And another friend of mine, Srinivasan Sankar helped me hugely in getting a transcript that I could work off to transcribe the interview in full here.

Without further ado, here is the conversation, which I have divided into sections, should you wish to skip ahead to specific parts of the interview:

The Process of Extracting Performances

Ram Murali: In the introduction scene of Bhooma (played by Rashmika Mandanna), you could see how earnest of a girl she is even before she opens her mouth. The way she looks at her classmate Rupa with an admiring look, it was very nice.  And there's this pause – she almost ‘swallows’ her words for a second- that she gives between saying, “I might not be good enough” and saying, “I want to let go of that fear.” How prescriptive are you with performances?  Because the script does not say there is a pause, right?

Rahul Ravindran: No, you start getting a feel of it as you're shooting certain things.  Some things if you notice in the script, I do mention, like my parentheticals are very specifically written. The parentheticals are the brackets just below the character's name before the dialogue starts.  So, they are sometimes very precisely written and sometimes obviously on the set, you get a certain feel for things.  Something like that, like I already told you my process, I kind of figure out my entire film in my head, sometimes in great detail, to the point that I know the expression of the artist, I know how they would say it.  And sometimes you don't even know which actor's going to play it.  Like when I was writing the first draft of “The Girlfriend”, I didn't know which actors were going to play it, except I think the two roles which I was pretty sure that this is who I'll want and I will be able to go get them were Rao Ramesh Sir and Rohini Ma'am.

When it came to Vikram or Bhooma, I didn't know at that point who was going to be playing these roles.  But it's weird, it's sort of like how you see faces in your dreams.  That's how I see them in my head, and I know that there's a certain expression that will come and I know that this is where the re-recording (RR) will kick in and what kind of a vague RR will kick in and things like that.  So that then helps me decide how much to communicate through dialogue and what is not needed to be communicated through dialogue.  When you're talking about that specific scene, when I'm seeing it in my head, like I told you, I wrote “The Girlfriend” in 12 days because I had all this figured out.  That scene, I know that whoever plays Bhooma tomorrow, that's how they're going to be saying it, because I'm seeing the character living and breathing in my head.

Some of it, like how Bhooma says it, is exactly how I had it in my head when I was writing it.  But there are certain things that an actor brings or that we figure out together, or I get an idea when we're discussing it on the set.  The gulping down is something Rashmika brought.  

I remember there were a couple of other key things that Rashmika brought to the table.  If you remember the scene where she tries to ask him for a break, she keeps scratching the skin around her fingernails.  That was something she suggested.  She came to me and said, "Hey, can I do this?" And she said, "This is something I do automatically..."  She showed me her index finger's skin around the nails and she said, "This is my natural response to anxiety and I end up doing this. So can I do this?" And that's how she interpreted it, and it was such a powerful image for me.  It conveyed what she was going through so powerfully.  I immediately changed my shot division.  I told my cinematographer, "You know what, I want a close-up for that," and I started building the rhythm of the music and the edit around this one act.

Similarly, something very powerful, we were supposed to shoot the scene where Durga comes in and puts Bhooma on the bed and she says, "Let me go get some water. Are you going to be okay, Bhoo?"  And what is in the script is that she turns around, she looks at the table, she looks at the phone and the father's photo, she gets up, she considers it and calls the father.  On the day of the shoot, Rashmika came to me and said, "Can you put a knife there?"  And I immediately knew why.  I said, "Wow, okay. Are you sure? I mean, that's going into a really dark space. I don't want to trigger people. I don't want it to be the wrong kind of trigger."  She said, "No, I know for a fact that every girl who's been humiliated, it's a thought that crosses your mind and sometimes it crosses your mind in a way where it feels very real.  I know many, many girls who've been through that thought and then they snap out of it.  Just put a knife there."

And it just felt very powerful, but at the same time, I was constantly arguing with myself if it's responsible. I didn't want it to be the wrong kind of trigger in a film.  But it just made sense what she said, and I put a knife there.  And then I said, "Okay, then you do one thing, let's keep it very subtle. Just get up, look at the knife, look at the phone, look at the knife, look at the phone, and then pick the phone."  That was again something she brought to the script.  So yeah, the gulping down at that exact moment is something she did and full credit to her for that. 

There are lots of skillsets that a director needs to have and I know that there are certain skill sets I have that I feel like I need to massively improve.  But I know that there is one skill set that I'm pretty good at - I know I am good at working with my actors.  And that comes from being able to understand someone.  Over time and with age, I'd like to think I've developed reasonable empathy and that empathy comes in very handy when I'm working with an actor.

Each actor that I work with, male or female, by lunch of day one with them, I'm usually good at figuring out what buttons to push with a certain actor and which ones not to push.  Some people respond to a certain kind of communication very well.  Some people respond to a slightly different kind of communication very well.  Like some actors like to be very, very meticulously directed to the last inch, like exactly told what they're going to do within a shot.  Some actors feel suffocated if they're directed that way.  Some actors, if you act something out and show it to them, without them realizing it, they start mimicking you exactly.  I don't want that to happen.  I don't want all actors, you know, sounding and talking and intonating like me.  Whereas some actors, sometimes when they get stuck in a certain place, they need it. They want their director to come and act it out and show it to them. You size up each actor, you understand how they work, and then you start adapting how you direct each one of them.

One of the reasons it was an absolute joy for me to work with Rashmika is that we had an extremely synchronous working relationship.  How I naturally like to direct an actor, which I keep changing with each actor, I didn't have to change with her because it is also how naturally she likes being directed by a director.  So, there was a perfect fit there.  She absorbs words, and how, especially adjectives, she takes them in like a sponge.  The most natural way in which I like directing an actor is just sitting them down, talking to them for about 15-20 minutes, and taking them through the mindset of the character they're playing through that scene, everything that's going on in the headspace of that character, without having to act it out.  And Rashmika loves that.  She loves being sat down and spoken to.  She loves someone who takes the effort of putting her in the exact mind space of that character and what they're going to go through in that scene.

With Rashmika, that is what it is. She and I, we sit down, and we take about 20-25 minutes before we start a scene, and we discuss in great detail.  Like I remember, much before we went to the set, one of the first things I told her when we started prepping for the character was, I said most people, if they're asked very simple questions like, "Hey, would you like to eat at this restaurant? Would you like to buy these clothes?  Or would you like to watch this film?" their first reaction is, "Would I like to do that? Would I not like to do that? Do I like it? Do I not like it? Do I want to? Do I not want to?”

I told her, “With Bhooma, because of the way you were raised from the age of five or six, you've been conditioned in a way where your thought process is such that even if you're asked a very simple question like that, your first thought isn't whether you like it or not, whether you want to do it or not. It's whether you will get into trouble with your dad if you do this. Will your dad like it if you do this?  Will you have to explain yourself to your father if you do this? And because you've grown up with this thought process for so long, you've conditioned yourself this way that you're not even in touch with your own feelings. And when you're not in touch with your own feelings, how do you express them? But you are intelligent enough and you have a high enough EQ that they're there. You're not so ignorant that you don't even feel them. You feel them, you don't know what to do with them, you don't know how to process them, you don't know how to unpack them because you've constantly lived a life ignoring them, and therefore you're not able to express them.”

Flee or Freeze: Choice and Consent

Ram: In the kiss scene, in the script, it says she places her hands around his shoulders.  She does not in the film.  When I was reading it, I was glad that she didn't do that in the film because she wouldn't have been that confident, right?  She seemed more hesitant, like she is receiving the kiss more than actively kissing.

Rahul: There were two things.  One, even the way she puts her hand around the shoulders, in my head it was still very hesitating.  It was like, "Should I push him away?" and she doesn't find the strength to do that, so she kind of freezes.  But initially, that entire scene was written in a very nuanced way.  It actually ends with him picking her up, taking her to the bed, and the camera moves out of the room.  That's how it was written in the first draft.

And then there were lots of discussions that happened which made me realize one thing.  In my head, the nuance was that here is this girl who's never had physical intimacy with a guy.  On one hand, she's not prepared for this, that's not why she came to this room, and she least suspected that things would escalate and get here where he's actually about to kiss her.  And she's frozen.  Some people flee when they're scared, some people freeze when they're scared, and she freezes.  And then he starts kissing her.  And for about 10 seconds, she's extremely uncomfortable and nervous. She didn't expect to be kissed.  She doesn't know what to do.  And about 10 seconds later, it was very nuanced in the sense that the rush, the blood rush of dealing with physical intimacy for the first time in her life, she kind of gives in.  She doesn't even know if she willingly gives in or not, but the sheer blood rush of a young girl experiencing physical intimacy for the first time, she gives in.

That is how it was initially written.  And then with each subsequent draft, and I was watching some of the films that were coming out and I was watching reactions to those films, and I realized that is a nuance that will be held against her to crucify her by one section of the audiences.  And I didn't want to give them that.  I said it's okay if I cut down all the nuance in the film, but what we're trying to convey through the story shouldn't get muddled.  Even without that nuance, there are some people still blaming the victim there.  She takes responsibility for the fact that she wasn't able to stop him. She takes responsibility for the fact that she wasn't able to stand up for herself and say, "No, I don't want to be in a relationship with you."  And she never once blames him for it.

Then we realized that nuance might be a little too much for a certain section of the audience and it will be used against Bhooma.  And that is why if you notice, the staging was changed on the set.  I think by then, before we went to the set, I had already kind of made up my mind, and Rashmika and I would have conversations and she had the same fears.  And I said, "Yeah, you know what? I've been thinking about it myself and I've kind of done away with that."

The Superb Staging of the "I Love You" Moment

Ram: In the "I love you" scene, was that a dolly zoom?

Rahul: It was.

Ram: On the one hand, you have the dolly zoom and on the other hand, you have the heart-pounding BGM.  When you stage a scene like that, what's the kind of conversation you have with your DOP?  Because it's an "I love you" where it's not as though she's exhilarated.

Rahul: Not at all.  Actually, she's uncomfortable and doesn't know what to do with that "I love you." And she never once in the film reciprocates that "I love you," if you notice.  The truth is that she never fell in love with him.  She, at one point, convinces herself that, "Okay, this is my reality now, he is my boyfriend now, and I'm going to be a good girlfriend to him."  That's her extent of making peace with it.

The dolly zoom basically is a recurring theme in the film.  It's every time she's getting gaslit or every time she's put in a situation where she doesn't have a say in it, and she's being forced to do something that she's not interested in doing.  If you notice, I use the dolly zoom when she says "I'm sorry" to the father and goes and drinks that glass of water.  There's a dolly zoom there.  The dolly zoom happens here as well.  And the dolly zoom happens in the scene where she says she wants a break and Vikram simply pinches her cheek and says, "I know what you need. You need some Vik-love right now."  There's a dolly zoom there as well.

It was like a recurring theme in the film.  And yet, I didn't want people to go, "Oh, the director has put a dolly zoom shot there."  I wanted it to be a dolly zoom, but I didn't want it to be so pronounced and disorienting that the director or the cinematographer pops in the middle of the storytelling and yanks someone out.  I didn't want it to be so disorienting, and yet very subtly underline her disorientation.  And yeah, the fact that I would have heartbeat BGM there was almost always there in my head even when I wrote the first draft.  I knew this would be the kind of score playing there.

Prison Bars, Dhupattas and Constricting Walls: The place of symbolism

Ram: There are different types of symbolism in the film.  One is the obvious dupatta.  Then there's the walls closing in on her kind of imagery.  Then there are these more invisible kind of moments like the dolly zoom where it's barely noticeable.  How do you decide what kind of symbolism is needed and how much of it is enough?

Rahul: I am somebody who shudders at the thought of using symbolism.  Again, for the same reason. Like, for example, when I was making my first film, I remember there were discussions on, "Hey, since they're going to be wearing the same set of clothes throughout the film, should we go for a color that signifies her mindset and his mindset?"  And I was like, "No, don't do it. It's meant to be life, and in life we don't decide... you're not thematically coordinated, are you?"  I'm the kind of guy who usually avoids things like that.  But when it came to this film, I did make a few choices where I was stepping out of my comfort zone.

There is a certain kind of storytelling where I'm comfortable doing it because I know nobody will pick it up.  Like if you, once they get into a relationship, if you notice almost every scene where Bhooma and Vikram are in the scene, Vikram's almost always never in the scene to begin with and he walks into the scene with utter disregard for what mood she's in or what conversation she's in the middle of and he hijacks it.  And it's almost always a disturbance.  Now I know this is something nobody's going to pick up on, but it creates a certain response in you... it's always you're in the middle of something along with Bhooma through her perspective and he comes and disturbs it and that adds to your perception of how Bhooma and what is happening in her life is constantly getting undercut by... sort of rammed by a train.  So those are things I don't mind.

Certain things like obvious symbolisms, I'm very worried about.  Like for example, every time Vikram enters, if you go back, you'll see there is some red fabric in the background somewhere, signifying a red flag.  There is a red flag moment.  Now, that is something I was really arguing with myself over.  I was like, "No, the nature of the film that it is, it lends itself to that."  That somebody on second viewing and somebody on third viewing picks these things up and they realize, "Oh, he's been telling me from the beginning."  Because the structure of the screenplay was such that the first half an hour, if you notice, was written in a way where almost every scene is an extremely cliched scene that you've seen in 1,500 films before.  Be it him stepping in to protect the girl and bashing up that cop, or be it him being “cutesy” about it and walking into her room and she's not there, which is actually creepy.  When he enters the room, you'll see a red cloth in the background.  I'm subverting it, and I didn't want that subversion to be obvious till about the 40th minute for a certain section of the audiences.

One of the most common responses I got for the film is so many women in different words conveying the same thing that, "Thank you for making this film. You gave our silences words."  And which is why it was healing.  It is such a common response to the film that I used to keep getting. And that's something I knew that when you're gaslit, when the whole world thinks he's a great guy and you are convincing yourself that no, maybe you're being unnecessarily complicated, maybe you're overthinking, maybe you're being neurotic, and you start learning to silence yourself.  That silence is the greatest burden they carry.

When it comes to those specific things that you asked me about, most of it came from necessity. Like, for example, the scene between the mother and Bhooma, if you read the screenplay, I always knew in my head I was going to stage it where it was going to be one shot where I'm just shifting focus and she's going to be sitting in front of a mirror and she sees herself in the mirror.  What I didn't have initially was the change of the sari.  In the interval block, in one very disoriented image, she's walking towards that grilled gate in Vikram's house and she sees the mother turned away from her wearing a sari, and she taps on her shoulder gently and the mother turns and she realizes it's her, it's not the mother.  That's how the interval block was supposed to play out.  But one, it felt repetitive.  I felt like let me close that loop with the mother then and there.

So now suddenly, the sari thing in the interval, which was supposed to be the main symbolism in the interval block, was gone because I decided I was going to do it in the scene itself.  When it was gone, I was like, "But I need to do something else there."  When we were shooting the hostel sequences, just outside that hostel block, there was this fascinating tree which, either because of erosion of the soil there or because they built pavements around it, the roots were exposed.  The roots were all out on the ground rather than under.  And one day, I was just walking into the hostel for a scene we were supposed to shoot inside, and I saw that, and something just clicked.  And I said, "Hey, hang on a second.  What if I put Bhooma there and we have a Jimmy shot of, you know, an aerial shot going into her and then coming out from her?"  I felt like that would be great for the interval block.

Now, coming back to the walls closing in.  The one thing about women or men who are victims of a toxic relationship where they're constantly getting gaslit is that they suffer it in silence.  Now, a girl who's isolated, for her to suddenly go talk to someone and verbalize this felt like such a let-down.  I wanted to retain that.  I said, "Okay, how do I convey to the audience what she's going through and how it's suffocating her without this girl verbalizing it to anybody else?"  The only piece of privacy she will have will be in that girls' toilet, in the shower cubicle.  Once she was there, it came from necessity again, that how do I show the inner turmoil?  I said, "I'm going to make the walls close in." The symbolism came from necessity, not from, "Hey, let me do something cool."

Ram: What about the door of the Mom's house? It looks like a prison bar.

Rahul: Again, that house that we shot in, it didn't actually have that grill door.  I asked for it.  The first thing I asked them was, "I need a grill door there," because I had this imagery in my head that the last time we see Vikram's mother is behind those bars and Rashmika leaves.  She chooses to escape that prison; the mother's stuck there.  For me, it was always a very powerful image.  But I remember on the day we were shooting, I'm like, "But is it too obvious?"  But I was like, "but it just makes sense."

Durga, the perfect ally

Ram: You mentioned Durga a couple of times.  She is a fascinating character.  And you also do the subversion there too.  First 30 minutes, the audience is made to feel a certain way about her.  And then in the scene where she says, "Oh my God, you're so sweet," and then in the way she holds her hand, it was a pleasant surprise.  Anu Emmanuel was fantastic in that role.  The character of Durga is not there for the majority of the second half except the climax.  Help me understand your choice there.

Rahul: Well, the reason she's absent in the film for the longest time is quite simply that the biggest irony, like I told you, is that Vikram cuts everybody else out of her life.  But ironically, the one person who Bhooma herself cuts out of her life is Durga.  I wanted to keep that going, so the isolation deepens, and it deepens to the point that she's got this large, looming shadow in her life, and that's the only presence in her life.  That isolation is very important.

From Durga's point of view, she has too much self-respect to force herself into someone else's life when that person has actively chosen to cut them out.  It comes not from a place of ego, but from a place of empathy, because Durga knows she's not ready to trust her over Vikram yet.  She knows that there is nothing she can tell her now.  She's probably been keeping a watchful eye from a distance, and the day she realizes someone's come and told her this has happened... even there, if you notice, she doesn't knock on the door and go talk to Bhooma.  All she wants to do is clean that door.  And if Bhooma hadn't come and opened the door, she would have probably finished cleaning the door and walked away.  The most beautiful thing about friends like that is that they know when to give you space.  And they know that when you've made a choice, "I will respect it and I'll give you space, but that's not going to change my feelings for you."  Those are the best kind of friends. That's the kind of friend Durga is.

For the longest time in South Indian cinema, the minute it's a “college babe”, it's always a very fair skinned North Indian looking girl.  And I said I want to break that stereotype.  I want to cast an actual South Indian girl who's dusky and yet convince you so thoroughly that she's the college babe that you don't even think that I've broken a stereotype there.  

A ‘heavy’ foam pit and the auditorium: The choice of locations

Ram: I want to ask you about two location choices.  One is the foam pit, which is the place where Durga makes an important confession.  And the other is the choice of the auditorium, which is not the location in your script - it is her room - for the breakup scene.

Rahul: The auditorium came from the simple fact that by then, I knew how much time we had spent in Bhooma's room.  And I felt like there's been too many scenes in Bhooma's room.  It is, as it is, a very limited locations film, and I'm simply adding to that by now shooting another very lengthy scene in again in that same location.  I felt like there's a certain visual monotony that will kick in.

The next question became, where then do I shoot it?  During the recce, I suddenly remember that someone had showed me the seminar hall.  And suddenly, it just made sense to me that this vast, vast space and yet there's solitude there.  I felt like these two being alone in a bigger room just felt right.  Just instinctively.  I can't even explain why.

Ram: In that scene, your direction of the actors was fantastic.

Rahul: See, the one thing with Rashmika, the two differences in the processes of Deekshith's process and Rashmika's process is that Deekshith's a method actor.  Rashmika works best without a method.  I figured this very early with her.  By day two, I realized that she's going to give you 50 great takes, no doubt about it, everything's going to be in place.  But there is some magic that comes from the spontaneity of the first two, three takes. Then I started telling my DOP, whatever the scene, no matter how inconvenient it is, we shoot her angle first.

Because with Deekshith, he has a method.  With him, it might take him sometimes one take, sometimes three, four takes, sometimes five takes to get to what we want, what he wants to bring and what I want him to bring to the scene.  Once he's nailed it, once he knows he's got it, he will give you 55 takes that are exactly the same, that are just as powerful and just as effective because he has a method.  For him, it's about finding that right take.  Once he's found it, he will give you that as many times as you need.  With Rashmika, she's going to give it to you, but her method is her spontaneity.  

I would never give her instructions like, "In that line, I want your voice to break."  Because I knew if I give her an instruction like that, then I am occupying 5% of her mind for Rashmika's thoughts, that as Bhooma she needs to deliver this in that line.  I realized it's counterproductive with her, that there is a certain magic that when you got her mind 100% occupied only with Bhooma's thoughts just before I would call action, there was instinctively there were so many things she was doing right.  

Ram: I liked another writing choice in that scene, that there was an economy of words there.

Rahul: There was a little more written.  Some of it was actually shot also, and I took it out.  I took it out in the edit because I felt even this is too much.  This is a girl finally expressing herself, she's not going to be able to express herself with so much lucidity.  It was like point A to point B to point C, and she wants to make a point because you could sense that she wanted to get out of it in as reasonably quick a time as possible, and yet land that blow as softly as possible.

And the foam pit sequence.  It was written as a coffee shop on paper, and we had started doing location recce for where we would shoot the montage leading up to that conversation.  I wanted a few other activities that they were doing, a few things that were a little more physical and also just visually interesting, which is the trampoline place.  We'd gone to do the location recce of the trampoline place.  When we went and did that location recce, then I saw that foam pit.  And suddenly, like, "Hey, hang on a second.  You know what?  I don't want to do this in the coffee shop anymore.  I like this place so much better."

Suddenly I saw that place and I was like, imagine her walking away from here, it would be so much more dramatic without unnecessary drama.  And it underlined the irony even more, where she's putting in so much effort to walk away from the one girl who could have saved her sooner.  It just felt so much more dramatic. 

A happy accident: The Intercut Sequence

Ram: Your (as Professor Sudheer) walk to the hostel with Bhooma is intercut with the scene where Vikram is arguing with that friend of his that tries to support Bhooma.  It's not done that way in the script.  It wasn't an intercut in the script. What made you do it that way?

Rahul: It came out of necessity.  The scene where he pours that boiling hot Maggi on his friend's face... one day before that shoot day, we were supposed to shoot with Rashmika.  And that evening, I remember the Pushpa team calling us and they wanted Rashmika for the next day.  At 4:30 in the evening, we're taking a call that Rashmika is not going to be available for us tomorrow and we can't shoot the scene we were supposed to shoot.  So we decided to advance the shoot of that scene, which was supposed to happen on a much later date.

It was done in a bit of a rush.  Most of that scene was actually shot in the night, brilliantly lit by Krishnan Vasanth where you won't even realize it's shot in the night.  There was a particular shot that I had taken when we were still fighting against time to finish it before daylight is gone.  I never shoot like that, but I felt like, "No, I have what I need. I've got it."  And then I come to edit and I realize the length of the track-in into Vikram... it just felt not enough.  It just felt like I hadn't caught the right rhythm.  And because I was shooting in such a rush to finish that shot before we lost sunlight, in hindsight I felt like I hadn't made the right decision.

It kept irking me.  I was like, "What do I do about this?" I don't want to ask for a reshoot for this one thing.  I've never done a reshoot in my life, never.  I've made three films, I've never re-shot anything. And then suddenly I had this idea one day, I was like, "What if I intercut the two scenes?" And suddenly it felt like I have enough, the sustain was enough.  If I go somewhere else and come back there... having gone somewhere else and come back to it, it felt like that sustain was suddenly enough.  This is why I did the intercut.  But having done the intercut, I suddenly said, "Wow, it's working much better as an intercut."  I'm not intelligent enough to have cracked it at a paper level, but having done it, I was like, "Hey, both the scenes work so much better because they're now being intercut."

Ram: I firmly believe that when you're passionate about something, happy accidents will happen.

Thematic Exposition: Professor Sudheer’s advice

Ram: There was one scene with Professor Sudheer where you do a reasonable amount of editorializing.  How do you decide when you need to have that one final push to deliver the intended messages of a film?  I mean, do you feel like there is this need to convey all of this in one scene to make sure that every member of the audience gets the message?

Rahul: No, the truth is that I wasn't thinking the audience needs to hear this.  I was only thinking Bhooma needs to hear this.  It's after I finished writing that scene that I felt it's expositionary.  When I was writing it, I didn't realize it.  I remember finishing writing that scene and I felt, "Oh, am I speaking too much here? Is it getting a little pedantic?"  That fear kicked in after.  But I trusted my instincts in terms of I knew it came from a very honest, organic place.

I showed Rashmika the film and I was still having issues with this scene.  I remember her watching the film, and that scene happened.  She was crying, she was smiling, she had forgotten she was in the film, and she was watching it like an audience.  And at the end, she spoke about 20 minutes about that one scene.  And she said, "You have no idea what that scene is going to do to so many young girls. I wish someone had told me those words when I was younger. I wish someone had told me those words when I was in school, when I was in college."

And I went by her instinct. I said, "Okay, for someone that scene worked so much for her, it moved her so much."

For me, it was very clear about one thing, right, that this is not a film where I'm getting pats on the back from people who anyway agree with the politics of this film.  That was one thing I was very clear about.  I don't want it to stop there.  I want this film to reach out broad, provoke, force people to think and reflect beyond that crowd who will anyway be in agreement with the politics of the film. I knew that there was no point in making this film if it doesn't reach out to them.

Crafting the Climax: Bhooma Devi becomes Durga Devi

Ram: The climax monologue was incredibly powerful.  In there, the touches are so woven into the scene. When she “obliterates the phone” (as you wrote in the script), you see a flash of red, which was nice.  You even showed her grabbing a water bottle to underline her transformation.

Rahul: Full credit to my cinematographer.  He's said, "Hey, there is a carnival going there. There are lights in play. Can I have those lights roving around the room from the beginning so that when the phone explodes, I'd like an explosion of red light?"  I responded, "Fantastic idea. That sounds great." 

Ram: By the time like she uses the guitar to just take that light away, I thought to myself that this is clever filmmaking because Rahul used every little prop in the carnival to bring to life a scene.  

Rahul: Regarding the water bottle, there is an interesting story.  I love Sujith's visual style (the director of “OG”).  He's a very dear friend of mine.  I remember calling him to my edit and I showed him the phone call scene with the father.  And I said, "Visually, I know what I want to do. I want fire, and one thing I figured out is that I need to go to a more cramped space, but there's something that I know is missing.  What do you think?"  He said, "Anna, I remember after we read the script, you telling me it's the story of Bhooma Devi who becomes a Durga by the end."  He said, "Anna, treat it like... you anyway have this fire element.  Imagine like Durga Devi is walking out of the room and you're giving her a haarati and an abhishekam before you take her to the stage." I exclaimed, "Wow, that makes so much sense."

And it just unlocked something in my head.  My point of view had changed, and the shot division had changed with it.  And suddenly it had meaning.  The fire was now a haarati.  And the water, interestingly, was there's this guy drinking water, she snatches it, and she was actually supposed to pour it on her head, which was supposed to be the abhishekam.  Just before we were going to shoot that shot, I tell Rashmika, "Just snatch that bottle and take a sip, pour it on your head. That becomes your abhishekam, and throw the bottle away."  Her makeup artist came running to me and she said, "Sir, there's a problem there. If she pours the water on her head, all the color is going to go away. We've used a color where it's not waterproof."  I didn't want that because to me, he uses those colors to shame her and humiliate her.  She's now got it on her, and I was very clear about that she goes there in all her glory.  I wanted those colors on her. I said, "No, I can't have the colors wash off." So I said, "Okay, you know what? Just drink it and throw it off, Rashmika."

If you notice, there is a particular scene when he talks about Vikram in the first half, that's the first time he starts gaslighting her, the camera slowly moves up above her eye level.  From that point in the film, nowhere does the camera ever come down below her eye level.  The camera is always looking down on her, except when she's with Durga.  The first time the camera actually comes below eye level is in the climax when she's holding that guitar and standing in front of him.  For me, the guitar felt more like a trishul.

I had a massive issue with one thing.  Bhooma is not the kind of person who will disrespect a musical instrument and the fact that somebody spent money to buy it.  On the day of the shoot, in my new script, I had written a line where just as she's grabbing his guitar, she says, "I'm really sorry, I will buy you a new one."  In dubbing, I got Rashmika to say it, it just didn't feel right.  It was really diluting the mood.  In my head, I told Rashmika, "It's okay, we'll not have that line now because it's just not working there. But between you and me, we should know that Bhooma later got that guy a new guitar!"

Concluding Remarks

Ram: Those are all the questions that I had for you.

Rahul: I had a beautiful conversation.  Now I'm thinking how I wish we had shot this actually.  For people who love the film, I think they would have loved to have heard this conversation.  I don't think anybody went into this level of detailing.

Ram: Thank you so much.  You made such a deep film.  To dive deep into it along with you was my pleasure.

***

A true fanboy moment for me!  Thanks, Rahul!