Arvind Kamath: Initially I was afraid of misrepresenting women’s emotions in Arishadvarga

In the first segment of the three-part interview with Kannada filmmaker, he talked about his inspiration for getting into films and his debut feature film, Innuendo. In this second segment, he breaks down the scenes and characters of his acclaimed film Arishadvarga, which is streaming on Amazon Prime Video.

A story like Arishadvarga must have gone through multiple drafts before it was finalised.

Fourteen drafts before the shoot. I also kept rewriting during filming and while editing. About 90% of the framework was there in the final script but there were a few nuances we kept changing during the shoot and edit phases. 

Because you mention the edit phase, four editors including yourself and Bina Paul had worked on the film. A lot of mixing and chopping must have gone into the movie. Could you tell us about that?

I am an editor myself but with your own film, which you have written over one-and-half years and shot for 45 days over a period of six months, you start losing objectivity during the editing. It gets difficult to kill your darlings. Initially, I was editing it myself, there were no plans to get anyone else onboard. I kept cutting it but I felt it was an incomplete film. I was worried about that and that’s when I approached Bina ma’am. Also, it is a female-centric film; I am talking about a female character, her sexual deprivation and what she goes through. No matter what I do I cannot be a woman. There will always be a bit of a male gaze and I didn’t want women to hate me after watching the film. I was afraid of misrepresenting facts and emotions. So, I went to Bina ma’am in Thiruvananthapuram thrice and we would discuss and argue vehemently on why not this and why not that. She gave me a different perspective and that helped me recut the film. After that I got Bharath and Divya Raghuram to bring down the duration without affecting the film’s rhythm. 

At the end of the movie, Manasa’s character is introduced to establish that Ashok (Nanda Gopal) was not in charge. But was Manasa part of the script from the beginning?

Yes, she was. Many people didn’t get that. What usually happens is we have our plans and we try and scheme to achieve that. But nature has bigger plans. Also, in the movie, Mahesh’s character of Anish has his own plans but this is overpowered by Kruthi Bhat and when you think that she is going to win, Ashok gets the upper hand. In the end when Ashok is about to get away with it, Manasa comes. All other characters are introduced and you have seen them in flesh and blood but you don’t know who Manjunath’s first wife Manasa is. So, politically, she is a neutral character. But gender-politics-wise, my empathy lies with Kruthi; having told the story the way I wanted to, I was sure that I didn’t want people to judge Kruthi or Anish. Also, I didn’t want a man to win in the end, and wanted to pass the agency to a woman. 

With Kruthi and Anish, you had sensitively depicted women’s sexual desires and lives of gigolos, respectively. Were these the toughest characters to create?

I would say everyone was complicated in their own ways. I create characters and then start talking to them to see where they want to go with the situations given. Creating all of them was enjoyable. For instance, Ashok Kalburgi is a docile cop, who doesn’t get good food to eat and hates his loner life. He wants to put an end to it but there are Easter eggs here and there that hint what will happen in the end. He uses his power to fulfil his lonely life. It’s not just about sex or money. Some people misconstrue that he went there just because of money. I haven’t shown him as a corrupt cop. He’s not able to decide what food to cook or what to buy in the supermarket, so, in the end he goes there to fill that void. 

I had a certain reaction to each of these characters. I had empathy for Kruthi and sympathy for Anish. That’s the reason why his character ends up crying, his parents disown him and he is raped in the jail. Those acts were to create sympathy for him and not punish him as some people thought. With Sakshi’s character, it’s indifference. 

The film had grey characters. Was that the reason you had to introduce Rajanna as a moral compass of sorts?

I wouldn’t say these characters are grey; they are more humane. You don’t find anyone black or white, it’s absolute rubbish what the films show us. Nobody is extremely good or bad. What the tenet Arishadvarga says is that if you have control over these six desires, you become a better human being. All I am saying is a counter comment that only if you have these six emotions, you are a human being. If a stranger I meet is extremely good to me or begins yelling at me for no reason, I will have my doubts about them. So, these are human characters and Rajanna among them has a moral compass. Personally, he isn’t affected like the rest of them. But he is also part of the scheme of things because the cop says that the lock-up death case is still not resolved. So, did he kill that person? If you see when the inspector gives Anish eight fatal blows and then hands over the baton to Rajanna, for the last two beatings. So, in the past too, the inspector could have killed the person and Rajanna might be carrying the baggage. He is also like a clock on the wall; time watches all things but it has to move on. 

Arishadvarga is a neo-noir thriller but it also has a lot of dark humour in it, for instance, the cupboard investigation scene or when Sakshi corrects the cop’s pronunciation of gigolo. You had earlier mentioned that Memories of Murder is one of your favourites in the genre that again uses humour organically. How important is that for a movie with this tone?

It’s important because there is comedy in tragedy. Even during my father’s death, at home, people would ask around for coffee. I find it funny and insensitive also at times. On the 13th day of a person’s death, people are invited to have a feast remembering them. I find these dark and funny at the same time. With this film, the intent was not to include humour; it happened very organically. For instance, my associate director, who is also a close friend, is a well-read man but he keeps mispronouncing gigolo. However, I never corrected him as I found it amusing and used that for the scene. 

The scene where the constable jumps out of wardrobe happened during the shoot. I told the actor that he has to get into the cupboard and when the inspector opens it, he has to fall. I assumed that he understood that he has to fall like a body, without inertia; but instead he leapt like a monkey and I ended up laughing. At that moment, I thought it was illogical but then I figured that if I laughed now, then I will just build on this. So, the next shot of Ashok lighting a cigarette wasn’t initially part of the scene but I added that so that the constable can get up and light it up for Ashok. To beat the logic part of the scene, we sustained it for that one extra beat. 

Also, for Sakshi’s audition, I didn’t know that Samyukta’s Hindi wasn’t all that great. I had put a Hindi scene from Rab De Bana Di Jodi because a lot of people here want to be in a film with Shah Rukh Khan. So, I put that scene there because I find that film also stupid, where a husband shaves his moustache and the wife doesn’t recognise him. I find it highly demeaning to the audience’s intelligence. So, I used that scene and asked Samyukta to do it as robotic as possible. She was finding hard to remember the lines and she fumbled. It was the first time, I heard her diction of Hindi and I was smiling behind the camera. She said let’s go for one more and I said no we will build on this. That’s what led to the scene where she goes home and she keeps mocking these lines because she’s bad at it. When the mother asks, she says, ‘Mera audition thi, tha… thu’.

In the third segment of the three-part interview, Arvind talks about his upcoming projects and how working in film festivals helped refine his skill.