Infusing realism into cinema

Bala, who has won the National Award for Best Director in 2008 for his film Naan Kadavul is one among a new crop of Tamil film makers who have done much to raise the status of Tamil cinema and to make it a force to reckon with in the national film firmament.

Although ecstatic at the national recognition for his undisputable talent, Bala expressed in a recent press conference that he would have been overjoyed if his lead stars Arya, Pooja and  cameraman Arthur Wilson had won national awards for they had strained every sinew to make the film a success.

Reed-like and unassuming, Bala has dedicated his award to his mentor Balu Mahendra — a National Award-winning cinematographer and director under whose tutelage he picked up the nuances of cinema.

Bala’s has not been a success story from the word go. In fact, he took a good two years ferrying the script of his debut film Sethu from producer to producer before one kind-hearted filmmaker decided to back his project. Sethu was a stark and brutal film with Vikram in the lead as a besotted lover who loses his marbles on being rejected by his sweetheart.

This film as well as the ones that followed like Nanda and Pithamagan, to the film which won him national honour — Naan Kadavul, could all fall under the film noir category as the themes delved deep into the underbelly of modern society inhabited by lesser mortals, the mentally deranged, gravediggers and the physically challenged.

Bala recently confided that he has promised his mentor Balu Mahendra and music director Ilayaraja that he would soon direct films that had a positive outlook, with elements like comedy thrown in. It now remains to be seen whether Bala will be as successful as he is now if he abandons a genre which has proved very fruitful
for him.

Nanda which had Surya and a Bala favourite Laila in the lead, was based on the life of a mercenary killer and explored the emotional bond between the killer and his mentor as well as a mother-son relationship. But it was Pithamagan for which Vikram won the national award for Best Actor that really established Bala as a director par excellence.

With virtuoso performances from his cast including Vikram, Surya, Laila and Sangeetha, Bala narrated the story of a mentally challenged gravedigger and the people around him and the film ending in a bloody climax with Vikram smashing the villain’s head with a boulder.

Violence in fact has been a strong undercurrent in all his films and in Naan Kadavul, which had as its backdrop the cannibalistic Agori tribe, violence and mayhem remained a strong element with the loose-limbed and agile Arya filling the role admirably, excelling in fight sequences which had an overdose of blood and gore.

Naan Kaduval had its bit of controversy too for it was Ajith who penciled in first for the lead role but later backed out with the word going round that the director had abducted the actor over some issue. But fortunately when the film was released, the controversy had died down and the film had a good run at the box office.

Bala who is now doing a film titled Avan Ivan with Vishal and Arya in the lead, is one director who takes his time choosing his films and takes even more time shooting, always aiming at perfection.

Almost all his films have made it to the international circuit and have elicited wholesome praise from viewers all over the world. A major part of the credit for the success of his films should be attributed to his assiduous research of the subjects he chooses to make films on.

Also, he has never spared any pains to make the films as down to earth as possible and it is virtually impossible to find Bala shooting inane songs or taking his unit to exotic locations all over the world, burning a deep hole in his producer’s pocket.

He selects powerful themes and works hard while canning his shots ensuring that they are as close to reality as possible. The character of Surya in the film Pithamagan is a case in point where. The lines spoken by the protagonist are so natural that it melds into the character with consummate ease.

In fact it is Bala who has given the lead to a whole lot of Tamil film-makers who are now making bold to come out with ventures that have very powerful story lines that can attract the discerning viewer and still sparkle at the box-office.

Bala’s films, many of his critics thought, would never recover their investments and would turn out to be damp squibs. On the contrary, his films not just elicited plaudits from his critics but also did fairly well at the box-office.

To put it in a nutshell, Bala who has made a name for himself as a serious film-maker, is passionate about cinema but is hardly willing to be a slave to the box office. He sets his own terms and his own pace but manages to come up with films that have realism written all over them. It is this realism that is verily his forte.