Detective thrillers overtake romances

Over the past year, murder-mystery films in Kannada have done well at the box office

The success of Kannada crime thrillers over the past year has brought the focus back on a question: is there a large audience for the genre?

‘Kavaludaari’, ‘Bell Bottom’, ‘Kavacha’ and ‘Avane Srimannarayana’, released last year, become hits. Though Kavacha wasn’t a box office hit, it was critically acclaimed.

“The success of Shivaji Surathkal again proves that audiences are passionate about detective movies,” says Ramesh Aravind.

Ramesh grew up reading Arthur Conan Doyle’s ‘Sherlock Holmes’ and Agatha Christie’s ‘Hercule Poirot’, besides detective stories in Kannada.

In high school, he had watched an English film in which the protagonist solves a murder case after the body is found on the seashore.

“I always thought of making such a film in Kannada and it came out in form of Shivaji Surathkal,” he reveals.

He says detective films are doing well all over the world.

“Passion for musicals and romances is decreasing. Demand for thrillers and detectives in increasing on Netflix and Amazon Prime,” he observes.

The actor says an inborn quality of a human being is to find out the truth after seeing something suspect. “The curiosity doesn’t end till the truth is revealed. The mind begins to think logically. There is no satisfaction until the end is reached. This quality plays a significant role in the success of detective movies,” he explains.

For him, Alfred Hitchcock is the model any filmmaker attempting a detective film.

“An audience wanting to see a movie in gold class comfortably should be made to sit on the edge of the seat till the last scene. A great director makes his audience sit on the edge of the seat,” he says.

Ramesh ravind says that a director needs to know how to handle a plot: it calls for projecting innocent characters as suspicious so that the audience is misled. This technique known as planting a red herring (something that misleads or distracts from a relevant or important question) is extremely important.

“For a detective, a murder is a mystery. He focuses on the assailant rather than the emotion. For the audience, life is most important, while death is unpardonable. They expect him to solve the mystery. Hence, they like such plots,” he analyses.

With every scene, the audience should be compelled to guess the next scene, he adds.

“We created Shivaji Surathkal like Sherlock Holmes. About 75 actors have donned Sherlock Holmes’ role in 200 movies. These were considered before finalising mannerisms and body language of Shivaji Surathkal,” he says.

Certain psychological disorders like depression and insomnia were deliberately added to his character so that the character became strong.

The actor reveals that Shivaji Surathkal’s adventures will continue. “Shivaji Surathal will soon appear in different roles. The tagline for the first film is ‘Ranagiriya Rahasya 101st case’. The next adventure may be about case number 105 or even 43. His wife is killed in case number 101. Was she his girlfriend before the wedding? Was there a girlfriend in his life before the wedding? These angles will be explored in sequels,” he says.

Thrillers that clicked

Kavaludaari

Bell Bottom

Avane Srimannarayana

Kavacha (critically acclaimed)

Shivaji Surathkal

Thrillers that clicked

Kavaludaari

Bell Bottom

Avane Srimannarayana

Kavacha (critically acclaimed)

Shivaji Surathkal