Mumbai, Sep 2: Four decades and nearly 100 films into his career, filmmaker Priyadarshan says he is trying to adapt himself to the changing tastes of younger audiences as he experiments with genres and storytelling styles.
The director, who has been prolific in both Malayalam and Hindi cinema, has earned acclaim for films such as “Kaalapani”, “Chithram”, “Virasat”, “Hera Pheri”, “Bhool Bhulaiyaa”, “Khatta Meetha” and “Chup Chup Ke” among others.
Priyadarshan is now gearing up for the release of his latest Hindi film, the crime thriller “Haiwaan”, which features Akshay Kumar and Saif Ali Khan.
The director said changing cinema landscape has made him reassess his approach to filmmaking.
“The new generation has come, new types of films are coming, there’s a new approach. There is no time for people to wait and see, like slow paced films are gone. So, you can’t test the patience of the audience,” Priyadarshan told PTI in an interview.
“I’m trying to update myself on how to catch up with these youngsters. So, I’m still in that race to catch up with them at least to reach 100 movies. I thought ‘Okay something unusual is always attractive’. So, that’s what I tried to do with my movies,” he said.
Despite his experience, Priyadarshan was quick to downplay his own standing in the industry, saying he is not such a “great filmmaker”.
“There are many who are better than me even today. But I’m trying to apply my 40 years of experience to see how I can hold on to today’s youngsters and this is my ongoing struggle. So, I’m making all these experiments,” he said.
The director sees “Haiwaan” as a departure from the kind of films he has made in recent years, describing it as an emotional thriller built around a “cat and mouse game” between two characters.
“This (‘Haiwaan’) is something I’ve not tried before,” he added.
The film is an adaptation of Priyadarshan’s own Malayalam film “Oppam”, but he isn’t simply reproducing the original film for Hindi-speaking audiences.
The 2016 neo-noir thriller follows Jayaraman (Mohanlal), a visually impaired elevator operator and caretaker who is falsely framed for a murder he did not commit.
For Priyadarshan, the decision to revisit “Oppam” after several years was also an opportunity to rethink his own material.
He said he was conscious of not repeating the mistakes of his earlier North Indian remakes like “Doli Saja Ke Rakhna” and “Yeh Teraa Ghar Yeh Meraa Ghar”, with which he admitted he had “failed miserably” because they retained too much of the regional flavour.
“I’ve seen a lot of these Tamil and Telugu remakes being made here and it looks exactly like those films and not like a Hindi film. So, that’s one lesson that I learned and I try to change the complete look of the film.
“I never make it the same way, and I always try to improvise and make it look like it is made for the North audience,” the director added.
In “Haiwaan”, Saif plays a visually challenged man and Akshay will be seen as the antagonist, portraying a cold-hearted psycho killer.
The film also gave Priyadarshan an opportunity to present Akshay, with whom he has collaborated on several popular comedies, in a different avatar. The filmmaker said he had initially approached several actors for the negative role, but they were apprehensive about playing an outright villain.
“My idea was not at all to have him (in this film) as I was looking for someone else. I casually mentioned it to him (Akshay) when he asked me about my next film. I told him that many actors had turned it down and to my shock, Akshay said, ‘I will do this role’.”
The film marks his first collaboration with Saif, and Priyadarshan said the experience felt “new and refreshing” after years of working with similar actors.
“When I was working with Saif, I just thought, ‘I’m making a new film.’ It was something new for me because it is away from what I have been trying before and I’m seeing Akshay differently. I got excited about it,” he said.
Priyadarshan believes he has often been “typecast as a comedy filmmaker”, a tag that has denied him “respect” despite the difficulty of the genre.
“I’ve been drowned in comedy for quite some time. I came out to breathe a little with serious films. Moreover, I really enjoy making serious movies. Whatever it is, if you ever make a comedy film, you are never considered a good director and critics always say, ‘What is a comedy? You can make people laugh easily’.
“But it is such a difficult thing to do,” the director said, adding that he got the tag of a good director and National Award for his Malayalam-language serious movies like “Kanchivaram”, and “Marakkar: Lion of the Arabian Sea”.
Produced by Venkat K Narayana and Shailaja Desai Fenn, “Haiwaan” will release in theatres worldwide on September 11. (PTI)
