Single takes require good actors to hold them: Vetrimaaran

In the final segment of a three-part masterclass, the filmmaker discusses the reasoning behind repeating the same actors, single takes, the emotions behind the opening scenes of Asuran and Viduthalai-Part 1, and more…

Edited excerpts:

Repeating the same actors.

Actually, I don’t want to repeat it. It happens such that there are certain people with whom I like to work. The actors I opt for are more about the characters and the actual people they are. When I see them in real life in ordinary situations, they’re being themselves. I like to put them in extraordinary situations. They’re very convincing in ordinary situations whereas in extraordinary ones, we really don’t know what they would do. And there are certain people I like to see on screen.

The reasoning behind the use of the single shot in Vada Chennai.

Since I was fresh out of Visaranai, I knew how all these actors could hold it. You need good actors to hold single takes, especially to pull off high-emotional drama. They have to express all their pressure, anxiety, fears and finally come to a conclusion. And we had edited a six-day footage in one night. But all the things that happened before — that took five nights. It’s a very slow process.

Conceiving the opening scenes of Asuran and Viduthalai-Part 1.

Asuran opening:

In the Asuran opening (influenced by Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s Once Upon a Time in Anatolia), one family is on the run, another has had a big loss, and the latter wants to take revenge on the former… It helped me convey the ironies of the characters. We were writing one day, I was dictating and my assistant Varsha was writing it down. After the first six scenes were done, I informed Mani (second unit director) that we’d got it, that we had a very good opening, and that we’d end up making a decent film. The opening… felt so promising and engaging. I’ve not had that kind of opening since then, be it in Viduthalai or its sequel. In that way, that opening was very special.

Viduthalai-Part 1 opening:

The opening long shot… what happened was, I went to block the scene on the first day. It was a massive scene so I thought about blocking it and rehearsing it once. I was trying to figure out each block for around thirty minutes. Then I decided that we’d do it as a single take. The problem with a cutting approach is that we would’ve reiterated individual calamities. To convey the magnitude of the loss, we just have to see them and go by, like the loss registers in your mind slowly; whereas, if we used cuts, we tell this story and the next story, and so on… There are so many, and so much pain. So I just wanted to give an overview of the losses, instead of going to the minute details.

Watch the full interview at: