PremiumDhoomam director Pawan Kumar: We took a soft approach to publicity, since we are confident about the story-telling
From not being able to get the film on floors for over a decade, to nearly making it with himself in the lead, director Pawan Kumar talks to us about all things Dhoomam
Last Updated: 06.56 PM, Jun 22, 2023
If things had gone Kannada filmmaker Pawan Kumar’s way long ago, he’d have made a film called C10H14N2 right after Lucia. But then it didn’t, and he instead had to wait more than a decade to finally get it going. Produced by Hombale Films, Pawan has now made it in Malayalam with Fahadh Faasil in the lead, and called it Dhoomam. The film opens in theatres tomorrow, June 23, with the Malayalam version mainly, while Karnataka also gets a Kannada-dubbed one. The Tamil, Telugu and Hindi versions will release on June 29.
In a brief chat about Dhoomam, Pawan tells us that he’d given up on trying to make the film in Kannada first long ago. “It not being Kannada anymore was a decision taken long back. I was not only attempting it in Kannada. After the first few attempts, when I saw that it wasn’t taking it off, it was pitched in all languages, literally, and I had spoken to many actors. Even in Malayalam, I had spoken to 2-3 actors, but it had not fallen in place. Then, when Hombale Films and I were to collaborate, they were aware of all the other scripts I had, and when they met Fahadh Faasil with the intention of working with him, he had said that he’d seen my earlier works. In fact, in some of his earlier interviews, he had shown interest in working with me. Fahadh had asked what I was up to and was told that I have a couple of scripts. Then I told him about this idea and he really liked it and that’s how it took off,” explains Pawan about the process of finally making his long-in-waiting film.
The best version of Dhoomam?
Dhoomam is a script that I have been toying with for many years, which has undergone multiple rewrites over the years. I got the core idea of it back in 2008, when I was still assisting Yogaraj Bhat. I wrote a page and called it C10H14N2 and everyone thought it was too crazy, so I did a traditional rom-com – Lifeu Ishtene- instead. I tried reviving it again, but no one was interested, so I did Lucia. After every project, I have tried to make it my next film. In fact, after Lucia, we publicized it as the next Pawan Kumar film. I kept pitching it to many actors, who’d listen to it and raise questions, but none of them were ever comfortable or found it something that would fall in their idea of what kind of cinema they wanted to do. Every time they had questions or there was a rejection, I would come back and tweak my script more and kept looking at how else I could make it interesting. The concept has stayed the same from 2008; it’s just that the narrative, the screenplay order, newer characters, changes in relationships, etc., was the kind of tweaking that happened.
By the time Fahadh got the script, I had nearly given up on it because I was sure that there was a reason that no one’s picked it up for over 10 years despite a hardbound 150-page script. Even big networks and studios had given it a hard pass. I thought maybe there is a flaw that I was not able to see and had kept it aside. But then Fahadh read it and got excited and that was all that Hombale Films needed. Once he was onboard, I did another rewrite, keeping all the current realities in mind and now, looking back between my first draft and this, we’ve come a long way. The rewrite was not about fine-tuning it for Fahadh’s image as an actor; it was my idea to update the script, based on how he’d reacted to it to be able to blend him into the character.
Fahadh is a kind of actor who does not ask for any changes. It was really fun doing this film with him and now when I see it, it feels like the saying that you have to wait for good things to happen. I waited for 13 years and finally got it.
On a lighter note, I must add that at some point along the way, when no one showed interest in this film, I considered directing and acting in it as an independent film, even though I am not so comfortable doing both simultaneously. It feels like two parts of my brain trying to work together, but I almost pushed it to that, but then the world was saved from that by the pandemic, when everything shut down.
Working in an unknown language
My experience of making U-turn in Telugu and Tamil helped. I was slightly familiar with Telugu, but Tamil I did not even know a word.I would first shoot a scene in Telugu and immediately switch to Tamil. One thing I realized is that the sound of the language is enough to know if the emotion is coming out right. The language, anyway, all the work would have been done in dialogue translations, so you know nothing’s lost in the process. I had assistants for both the Telugu and Tamil versions and they’d be next to me for each of the versions and correct me if the language has gone wrong, whereas I would only look at how it sounds – if the feel and emotion in the way they speak is correct. So, that kind of got familiar, but with Malayalam for Dhoomam, yes, it seemed like a challenge, but I did the same thing I had with U-turn and had two assistants – one to do all the translations, for which we spent nearly two months. We then did a reading for Fahadh with this version, and since he is very comfortable with English, I would tell him the gist of a line and ask if it comes across correctly in Malayalam. Something that I figured in this process is that it has given me the confidence to shoot a Korean or Russian film. The emotion lies in the sounding of the dialogues.
Having said that, I admit, it is a bit of a task working in a language that you don’t understand at all. It is not as simple as I would fare in a language that I know. But then the actors also adjust to the fact that the director is not familiar with the language, and when I tell them in English that this is what I am looking for, they adapt accordingly.
All about Dhoomam
When the trailer came out two weeks ago, most audiences loved that it brought in a sense of intrigue by not revealing much about the plot itself. I love cutting trailers and I prefer doing it in such a way that it makes you kind of want to figure out the puzzle in the theatre, rather than tell you what the storyline is. I give audiences a hint of everything and give them the opportunity to see if they can decode it; there are Easter eggs thrown around in the trailer, which, when you see the film, you will realize we’d already told you certain things.
But if you ask me, I’d say Dhoomam is a drama thriller; an urban story set in Bengaluru, a city where we speak quite a few languages, and, the story is set against a corporate world, so it also made sense to have a fair bit of English dialogues in the mix.
The cast of Dhoomam
In terms of casting, once Fahadh was onboard, it became a lot easier, because now it was no longer just a film that I was doing, but one that I was doing with Fahadh and with Hombale Films backing it. Suddenly, it interested a lot of actors, because if all these people have associated, it means that this script has some value. A lot of suggestions kept coming in and since I was not so familiar with Malayalam actors, Fahadh helped us a lot.
I had seen Roshan Mathew in C U Soon and when I suggested him for a role, Fahadh also agreed he was the right choice, but for a brief moment, we almost didn’t get him because of scheduling issues. I really like his work and he also didn’t want to give up on this film. Finally, after 3-4 weeks he figured out his dates and came back into the fold. When you see the film, you will realize that his casting in that role was spot on. Similarly, Vineeth was also a Fahadh suggestion; they were shooting for Pachuvum Athbhuthavilakkum at the time. His was a role that I was struggling to cast for and then Fahadh said that Vineeth would be the best option. Thankfully, all these guys were familiar with my work, especially Lucia; in fact, I was quite surprised how many people in the Malayalam industry knew of that film. So, it became easier casting the first layer of primary characters.
Lack of publicity for the film
Generally, the trend to publicize is to make a good film and then get word of mouth going. Otherwise, the market is flooded with publicity material and the audience is, frankly, confused what to trust and what not to. We are taking a very soft approach, since we are confident about how the story-telling has come out in Dhoomam.