Book review – Conversations with Mani Ratnam – Straight from the heart!!

Myth:

The conversation format may not be suitable for an entire book.

The interviewees can go overboard and try to masquerade the narrative with their tailor-made analysis.

The interviewers can be restrained in their questions and try to sound forcibly amusing.

Reality:

Conversations with Mani Ratnam by Baradwaj Rangan strikes like a lightning and sheds all the aforesaid myths.

Right from the word go, the author and critic Barawaj Rangan prefers the tale to the teller, and he chose conversations format to know film director Mani Ratnam better. Rangan reinforces the distinct position of the director by saying “marry what you want to do with what the audience may be willing to accept”— this book has a rehearsed impulse. Following a different approach, the interviewer never really tries to pull YES or NO answers from the interviewee by placing him on a shaky terrain, and as the author traverses through the inner pages, a congenial casualness grows between the two.

 

It might have taken several sessions for the conversations to grow and expand. Rangan started the proceedings like a fanboy and eventually brought out the best from the film-maker. Mani Ratnam walks back in time and narrates his experiences, and Rangan gets connected to them for their amoral, artistic flair of 1980s. In the first few pages, Rangan sets the stage for the reader by introducing all the movies and narrating his personal experiences surrounding those films. He states Ratnam’s 80s films as Madras movies and labels Roja as a bridge between Tamil and Hindi films, and from there Mani Ratnam started painting on the national canvas. The director’s works re-defined the identity of Tamil cinema in that era, and Rangan has particular attachment with that identity.

Rangan is initially embarrassed to sit across the man who made Nayakan, Roja among others and ask why he makes films. Ratnam wears a satirical tone when he talked about his over-analysis of his screenplays and characters. When Rangan asked him about Mounaragam and the reason for no duet between Revathi and Karthik, he retorted saying Karthik’s character was not present in the original script Divya (the working title of Mounaragam) and was introduced later on. He thus opened a bag of surprises that revolved around making of the film, and reiterated his proximity to the institution of marriage and the sentiments attached to it.

Movie lovers fancy this book and make it an essential one in their collection. Rangan elucidates the great works of Ratnam – most of them belong to ‘personal genre’ (as stated by the author) - through 300 pages of conversations filled with detail. The director presents a practical approach of all his works and explains ‘why he did what he did.’ The book throws light on creative collaborations of Mani Ratnam with Balu Mahendra, P C Sriram, Santosh Sivan, Ilayaraja, A R Rahman, Ram Gopal Varma etc. Whether it’s on how the theme song of Nayakan changed from being rustic in the beginning to a more polished one in the middle or the different ways in which Ilayaraja and A R Rahman compose music, Ratnam strikes the right chord.

The book takes us through Ratnam’s understanding of human relationships and how he presents them to perfection on screen. The book also mentions his denial to use films as a medium for straight political comment. Ratnam says the political views that are present in the first draft gradually get diminished and what remains is “how much the film can take.” He is known for his commitment to aesthetic values in films and explains that he does not always want to communicate what he thinks. He says the most emancipating thing about being a film-maker is “You can be what you’re not.”

For Ratnam, the flights of fantasy come in the form of transition from the stage of script work to that of filming. He describes his association with actors and how he leaves certain liberties to them on the sets to glorify a scene. For example, in Nayakan when the cop drops Kamal Haasan off at the slum and leaves, there’s a very instinctive thing Kamal does, when the residents of the slum gather around him. He sprinkles his blood on the kids and makes them giggle. There is some magic that happens and Ratnam attributes this magic to Kamal Haasan. This is the heart and soul of Ratnam’s finesse. He said he never assisted anybody before, so he wanted to be sure that what he did was grammatically correct with proper punctuation. However, he wanted to be accepted or rejected for the substance (content) and not for the style (grammar).

The book is divided into 17 chapters – Ratnam’s first three films are part of chapter 1 and his other films are devoted a chapter each – and each chapter revolves around the director’s experiences during the film-making process. The foreword by Oscar winner A R Rahman is a perfect homage to his guru. Rangan takes the film-maker through scenes, music discussions, technical nuances, dialogues, transitions, and at times asking him to dissect a single shot and explain, thus offering a vicarious feeling to the reader. Some conversations entail the problems of translation, visualization of songs – he envisages musical score as something lateral and not just supportive – sound design aspects (esp. in Thiruda Thiruda) and using live sound in India.

Mani Ratnam’s odyssey gives out the influence of fine commercial cinema. Next time when you are stuck in the middle of a debate – Why simplicity does not essentially metamorphose to exquisite?, or why the mammoth Indian film with song and dance sequence is as dominant as a sober, subdued and sparse European one? – This book and the masterly works of Mani Ratnam come to your rescue. After reading the book you show reverence to Mani Ratnam for his worldly movies and also to Baradwaj Ranjan for unearthing such gems from an otherwise reserved director, impeccably striking a balance between a fanboy and a critic.

“Quote Unquote” from the book:

‘A superb addition to the library of books celebrating 100 years of Indian cinema. It’s a pleasure to see that Mani Sir, usually reticent, has spoken with such candour’ – Gulzar

‘Mani Ratnam designed the essential bridge between old and neo cinema that we all helped build… making possible the kind of cinema we really wanted to see” – Kamal Haasan

‘One of the international-standard film-makers in India. This wonderful book is a tribute to his genius’ – Rajnikanth.

‘Once I went to Mani Ratnam’s office to narrate a screenplay. I couldn’t look at him. I mean, how can you? He‘s the man who made Nayakan’ – Gautham Vasudev Menon

‘Mani Sir carefully selected the pearls in me and made a garland of them. Until three or four years ago, I would send him every album, like a student seeking his guru’s approval’ – A R Rahman

You can buy the book here:

http://www.flipkart.com/conversations-mani-ratnam-0670085200/p/itmddsyhzy676wud?pid=9780670085200&affid=rajasatgma