Dulquer Salmaan, Mrunal Thakur and Rashmika Mandanna’s ‘Sita Ramam’ is a throwback to the period of letter writing and inside conflicts between characters, says director Hanu Raghavapudi
Dulquer Salmaan, Mrunal Thakur and Rashmika Mandanna’s ‘Sita Ramam’ is a throwback to the period of letter writing and inside conflicts between characters, says director Hanu Raghavapudi
An unopened inland letter Hanu Raghavapudi present in a e book he purchased from one of many many booksellers in Koti, Hyderabad, was a place to begin for his movie Sita Ramam. An unopened letter from the previous performs an important half within the romance drama starring Dulquer Salmaan, Mrunal Thakur and Rashmika Mandanna, set to launch in Telugu, Tamil and Malayalam on August 5.
“The letter I found in that book, in 2007, was from a mother to her son. I gathered that their family is from Vijayawada and the son is living in a hostel. She had enquired about his well being and asked when he would be home. It got me thinking, what if the contents of the letter had something crucial that could change the course of events?” Hanu reminisces.
Hanu’s debut movie as director was Andala Rakshasi in 2012. Years earlier than that, he had assisted director Chandra Sekhar Yeleti. In between tasks, he would write tales. He explored the thought of an unopened letter in several tales through the years.
It wasn’t till a few years in the past when one in all his new group members Rajkumar prompt an Army backdrop that the story of Sita Ramam took form: “Rajkumar is new to the film industry and hails from Eluru. He suggested an Army backdrop and after discussing it with my team, I knew we had something interesting.”
Hanu Raghavapudi on the units of ‘Sita Ramam’
| Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
The inside battle
Hanu, Rajkumar and Jay Krishna, one in all his earlier associates, bought collectively to put in writing the screenplay and dialogues. Hanu reiterates that Sita Ramam is greater than a interval love story: “A lot of people ask me if the story happens during the war since the tagline says ‘yuddham tho raasina prema katha’ (a love story written with war). Here, the war refers to the characters’ internal conflicts. The invisible war we wage within ourselves is the biggest in our lives.”
In the movie, Rashmika Mandanna has the onus of monitoring down Sita. Sita Ramam shifts between 1965, tracing the romance between Ram and Sita, and 1985 when Rashmika and Tharun Bhascker’s characters have to unravel the puzzle. The selection of actors, says Hanu, was meant to interrupt the norm. While he and producer Swapna Dutt of Vyjayanthi Movies felt Dulquer could be an apt selection for Ram, they zeroed in on Mrunal, wanting a contemporary face for Telugu cinema: “I wanted the actor who played Sita to not have an image baggage; but I also wanted someone with acting experience. Mrunal fit the bill.”
Rashmika Mandanna in ‘Sita Ramam’
As for Rashmika, Hanu states that she performs a rebellious, robust character known as Afreen. The search was on for one more Eighties character who would have a contemporary strategy to appearing and director Tharun Bhascker was roped in. The forged consists of Sumanth, Bhumika Chawla, Gautham Vasudev Menon, Murali Sharma and Prakash Raj.
Army within the Nineteen Sixties
Hanu, cinematographer P S Vinod and manufacturing designer Sunil Babu wished the movie to replicate a lived-in environment of the mid Nineteen Sixties and the 80s. “The easier aspect is to go through books, videos and talk to people to find authentic clothing and props that suit these decades. The tougher part was to understand how human relations worked within the Army back then. We spoke to officers to know the prevalent equations between officers of different ranks,” says Hanu, including that the color palette and shot divisions have been completely different for each the many years.
Alongside the visible aesthetics, Hanu was explicit in regards to the sound and music for the interval love story. Most usually, the songs from his movies flip into earworms which can be performed lengthy after the movie stops being within the information. However, Hanu wished to go additional: “I have seen how people listen to maestro Ilaiyaraaja’s melodies from the 1980s and 90s on music apps or YouTube and continue to be mesmerised. I wanted music of that quality and my friend Vishal Chandrasekhar has given us a wonderful album and background score.”
Taking inventory
Telugu movies Andala Rakshasi and Krishna Gaadi Veera Prema Gadha helped set up Hanu as a director to be careful for. LIE (Love, Intelligence, Enmity) and Padi Padi Leche Manasu, nevertheless, dampened that notice of promise. Hanu agrees, “LIE was initially written like a racy actioner emerging from a road trip. I wish I had stuck to that idea. In Padi Padi…, perhaps I should have revealed the girl’s medical condition (retrograde amnesia) a little earlier in the story so that the audience reacts to her actions with empathy. The many twists and turns didn’t cut it. These two films were learning experiences.”
On the units of Sita Ramam in Kashmir, Spiti Valley, Siddhpur in Gujarat, Russia and Hyderabad, Hanu earned the popularity of being so single-mindedly targeted on his work that he usually put private consolation because the final precedence. Dulquer talked about at an occasion how the director could be in flip-flops, unmindful of the freezing situations in Kashmir. Hanu laughs it off with, “When work has to be done, nothing else comes to mind.”
Hanu has a number of tasks lined up, together with two tales for internet collection. A Hindi movie with Sunny Deol and Nawazuddin Siddiqui, and a interval battle movie starring Nani are within the pipeline. Though he’s recognized for his romances and rom-coms, he asserts that he’s equally eager on exploring motion and thrillers.
At the second, he beams with satisfaction at Sita Ramam and vouches that it is going to be value a visit to the theatres: “There is something magical and pure about writing letters, which we have forgotten now. This has been one of my most satisfying films.”
Source: www.thehindu.com