Sriram Raghavan at SCREEN Academy Masterclass: ‘Film logic and cinema logic are different’

Sriram Raghavan has made a career out of crafting thrillers. But there’s one piece of advice from his first producer, Ram Gopal Varma, that has stayed with him since his 2004 directorial debut feature Ek Hasina Thi. “Sriram, just shoot it convincingly,” Varma told him while he was scratching his head over how to pull off the climactic twist and change in setting of the film. Sriram divulged many such anecdotes to demonstrate the art of crafting a thriller during the SCREEN Academy Masterclass at Whistling Woods International, Mumbai.

SCREEN Academy is a pioneering not-for-profit initiative launched by The Indian Express Group and SCREEN to identify, nurture, and showcase the next generation of Indian filmmakers and storytellers.

Ek Hasina Thi

“Real-life logic takes over in your early films. ‘This is not logical,’ you tell yourself,” said Sriram Raghavan, addressing dozens of filmmaking students during the masterclass. He recalled shooting a scene in which Urmila Matondkar’s character takes Saif Ali Khan’s charming gangster character at gunpoint to a cave on the outskirts of the city. His worry was, “But there’ll be so many check posts on the way!” Rm Gopal Varma, who happened to visit the office at that point, resolved the confusion with his golden advice, “Sriram, just shoot it convincingly.”

“That’s the only way to do it,” said Sriram. “Nobody’s asked me how they went there. They ask me ten other questions, but not this one. Film logic and cinema logic are two different things. If you’re convinced yourself, you can convince the audience. But convincing yourself is the hardest part,” he added.

Urmila Matondkar and Saif Ali Khan in a still from Ek Hasina Thi.

Johnny Gaddaar

Sriram Raghavan had another veteran filmmaker, Kundan Shah, who was also his senior at the Film Institute of India (FTII) Pune, dole out yet another piece of advice that’s stayed with him since. Kundan, best known for helming the 1983 seminal satire Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro and the 1994 romantic comedy Kabhi Haan Kabhi Naa, wasn’t an expert at thrillers, but his advice on life, art, and their relationship with each other went a long way in informing Sriram’s 2007 sophomore directorial, Johnny Gaddaar.

Having taken the basic plot from Alain Reynaud-Fourton’s 1958 French novel Les Mystifies, he narrated the story to Kundan, hoping the filmmaker would introduce him to Saif Ali Khan, with whom Kundan had worked on the 2000 romantic film Kya Kehna! “I thought he’d love it, but he actually said, ‘It’s a horrible story. Why do you want to make it?’ I was quite zapped. So, Kundan said, ‘This is the plot. It has no life. And life has no plot. You don’t know what’d happen. So, you’ve to get that life-has-no-plot into this kind of a story,” recounted Sriram, who then came up with his own interpretation of the source material.

Agent Vinod

Another standout moment in Sriram Raghavan’s filmography is a stylised, single-take action sequence set to the romantic song “Raabta” in his 2012 spy thriller Agent Vinod, starring Saif Ali Khan and Kareena Kapoor. “Pritam was doing the music, and he gave me the tune of the ‘Raabta’ song. I loved the tune, but since we’d already shot 70% of the film, we had no situation to include this beautiful love song,” recalled Sriram. It was him getting bored of shooting one relentless action sequence after another for the second half that prompted him to come up with a “mad thought” — “Why don’t we shoot this action sequence as a song?”

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The single take was also an accident, he revealed. Agent Vinod was shot across a long span of two years with gaps in between — which made the crew sigh and remark, “Kya Mughal-E-Azam chal raha hai!” That’s when a trick by another filmmaking great, John Woo, came in handy. In order to reenergize his crew on the set of his 1992 Hong Kong action film Hard Boiled, he pulled off a one-take action sequence. That’s what Sriram did with the “Raabta” song as well, canning it within two days. “The movie got many good, harsh reviews, but everyone loved that song,” said Sriram, grinning.

Saif Ali Khan in Agent Vinod.

Since Agent Vinod continues to be his most noble failure, Sriram Raghavan acknowledged that he wasn’t equipped with the expertise to make a James Bond-like film. “Eventually, it may be a little exhausting to watch in one go,” reasoned Sriram, adding, “I can cook well for five to six people, but if I have to cook for 5,000 people, that’s a different art. It needs another kind of thinking.” He also warned the film students against casting stars in the future only on the basis of their “market viability”. “That has a limited value. Their last film may have been a big hit, but whether the next one works or not, we wouldn’t know. So, I just go with the actor’s interest in it, and how suitable they are in it,” said Sriram.

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Another misstep Sriram, a film nerd, made with Agent Vinod was packing the film with too many pop culture references. “I didn’t know there were so many references in Johnny Gaddaar until I read a review which said so. Later on, when I was making Agent Vinod, I was conscious I was using a lot of these references. So, sometimes, you can go overboard,” he confessed. But he warned the film students against incorporating pop culture references today, given it’s now a logistical nightmare. “It’s too expensive. I wouldn’t do it today. If you want to use a song, instead of buying the rights, you can make an Obsession. Your love for films would come out on its own. You can’t be like, ‘Since this is my first film, let me doff my hat to the five people I like. If you overdo it, it’s only for you. It’s an inside joke nobody would understand,” added Sriram.