⁤Anand Ekarshi’s debut feature film, Aattam (The Play, 2023), currently streaming on Prime Video, is a psychological chamber drama that explores the moral dilemmas of a group of people when confronted with a perplexing situation. ⁤⁤⁤⁤⁤⁤The underlying theme interrogates the main characters’ moral discernment through a meta-theatre structure. ⁤⁤As the protagonists deal with conflicting emotions, their commitment to ethical choices diminishes, and their pursuit of justice becomes more self-serving. In this interview, Ekarshi offers insight into each stage of the production process for Aattam.

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Dipankar Sarkar: What prompted your decision to pursue filmmaking?

Anand Ekarshi: The pivotal change occurred during my higher secondary years. Our school regularly organized theatre camps. But in my 12th standard, there was a film camp held during the vacation period.  Praful Gopinath, a filmmaker, visited our school to conduct a five-day workshop. I was selected as one of the students to direct a short film. Thus, my filmmaking journey began at the age of 17. Afterwards, I joined Gopinath and began working on advertisements and corporate films with him. I also had the opportunity to assist Imtiaz Ali on the set of Tamasha (2015). That’s how things moved forward.

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DS: How did you develop the idea for Aattam?

AE: All the actors you see in the movie are my friends. Since I was a part of the theatre group Lokadharmi, I’ve known them for the past 20 years, except for Kalabhavan Shajohn and Zarin Shihab, who play the characters Hari and Anjali, respectively. It so happened that during the COVID times, we went on a small trip. Vinay Fort, who is a renowned actor, was also part of this theatre group long ago, so he joined us. Vinay asked me if I could make a film with these actors because I was already writing something else. He wanted to showcase his theatre friends in the film industry so that they could earn their livelihood through acting. He knew that all his friends were talented, but they didn’t have a platform. He asked me if I could write something for them. That’s how it started. The cast was already set. I had to write a film for these 11 people. That’s how it began.

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DS: What did you intend to emphasize and explore through Aattam? 

AE: The basic story started with this whole idea of exploring the dynamics of a group seeking justice versus the dynamics of an individual. So, it began as a battle between a group and an individual, which is a psyche I wanted to explore. I wanted to delve into how people behave when they are part of a group or a mob, and how they behave when they are acting as individuals. So, the dynamics between the group and the individual were my primary focus. I wanted to see how a group of people would address justice and truth — how they would pursue it, compared to how an individual. So, the contrast between these two entities was something I wanted to explore thoroughly.

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DS: Every character in Aattam is multi-layered in their motivations. So, how did you approach sketching the traits of each of them?  

AE: That was the most challenging part because I wanted each of them to have a small story. Each one should have a certain arc — a beginning and an ending. We also needed continuity because their behavior in the story unfolds over a week. Each character should appear as an individual with distinct traits. I had to write individual stories for each one of them, [and conducted] a study before I started the script. I used to have photographs of all these people on my wall, and then I would develop a backstory for each of them, detailing their struggles. While not all of these details may directly appear in the movie, they add subtle hints and layers. So, for each person, I crafted a story and then expanded on that. That’s how the writing process unfolded, with a focus on maintaining the continuity of each character’s speech patterns, approach and even their accent or dialogue length. All these elements had to flow seamlessly. Writing for all 12 characters in every scene was always challenging. However, the backstory I had created for each character, both for my research and study, greatly helped overcome these challenges.

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DS: Aattam starts and concludes with a play, the former being mythological and the latter contemporary. What influenced this decision?

AE: The basic idea was to depict the dynamics of a theatre group and the camaraderie within it, as well as the unfolding of the play. I wanted the first play to be classical and rooted in mythology, as most plays in India derive from mythological stories. Therefore, I knew the film should end with a modern play to highlight this contrast effectively. When Anjali proceeds to stage a play, she employs modern methodologies and interpretations of what a play or theatre should be. So, the contrast was important. The first play drew inspiration from Girish Karnad’s Hayavadana (1975). I had chosen it because it revolves around one woman and one female character, and with so many men in it. It revolves around the woman’s dilemma about whom to choose, and what to choose. Another significant aspect was the presence of a European couple in the audience who appreciated the play. Hari informs the members of the group that they want to stage the play in Europe. Typically, Indian plays performed abroad are culturally rooted and often draw from mythological themes, which is why the first play was selected. The contrast to this was evident in the choice of the last play.

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DS: Mid-way into Aattam, there is a montage sequence where viewers receive brief insight into the lives of each character, and Aji’s (Aji Thiruvamkulam) saccular aneurysm is referenced within two scenes. What inspired this choice?

AE: Particularly in the case of Aji, through his interactions with the doctor, I wanted to illustrate what his problem is, what he is going through and his perspective on life. Even when he’s hearing something so fatal and alarming that his life could be gone at any moment if the aneurysm breaks, he’s still easy with it. He tells the doctor to leave it like that, and that’s interesting because, at any moment, death can happen. So, he has a different perspective on it — a philosophical one. Also, he has problems with money, and he cannot afford surgery. In the second half, we explore how perspectives, even deeply philosophical ones, can shift. [Aji] is now slipping into the idea of wanting to go to Europe and wanting to die in a place like that because, all his life, he has never been to any other place. This shift demonstrates many dimensions of life when there are sudden opportunities for hopes and desires. So, people change when personal stakes come in. Despite being close to Anjali, now Aji’s views on what justice entails for her begin to change. 

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DS: Towards Aattam’s climax, Vinay (Vinay Fort) attempts to justify the antagonistic behavior of other theatre members by suggesting to Anjali that an offer simply swayed them. Is this observation genuine, or is Vinay employing manipulative tactics to persuade Anjali to join the trip?

AE: That was the most interesting part of writing Vinay’s character. Right up to the final scene, I wanted the audience to remain uncertain about what truly motivates him. Is he genuinely sincere, or is he simply acting in his self-interest? So, it was a complex character to write. Even when we were shooting the film, Vinay was asking me what was going on inside the character. I said, you know, both of these things are going inside you. On one side, you want to fight for Anjali, and on the other side, you’re absolutely a manipulative person. You are self-centered, and you are ambitious. You also want to go on the Europe trip, and you’re also thinking about the money that could come your way. So, both of these conflicting things are happening inside your head. Towards the last scene, he has both of these things on one side. [Vinay] wants his relationship with Anjali to continue. He has a lot of love for her on one side. But on the other side, he cannot help but eventually slip to the side of manipulation. So, the last dialogue is, of course, coming from a space of manipulation where he wants to make Anjali have empathy for other people and then slightly manipulate her.

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DS: Finding a producer for a debutante filmmaker is one of the toughest achievements. What is your experience in this regard?

AE: It is indeed very difficult for a debutant filmmaker to find a producer. But if you are prepared, know your craft well and have done your homework, it is not tough at all. My experience was not tough because I knew that almost 95 percent of my cast was new, [and that it was] going to be difficult to get a producer. So, I made a pilot scene by collecting money from my friends and shot it like a film. So, when I went to the producer Dr. Ajith Joy, I had a 10-minute scene, and he was directly seeing what I’m capable of. After that, I narrated the story, and he immediately saw whether this guy could direct, whether this guy had an idea and whether these actors could act. Thereby, he’s getting a clear idea of how I’m conceiving the film. My producer was the first guy to whom I had narrated the idea. He agreed to the film in 20 minutes after seeing the pilot, and that is how it happened. So, I guess it is difficult in a way. But if you’re prepared, and if you are sure about your craft and the film that you want to make, it is relatively easy.  

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DS: Aattam has professional actors from films, along with theatre actors performing for the first time in front of the camera. 

AE: That was a very tricky part. As I said, almost seven of them had never been to a film set before this film, and all of them were theatre actors. Except for Vinay Fort, Kalabhavan Shajohn and Zarin Shihab, the rest of the cast is new to the film. So, the transition in acting had to happen from acting in the theatre to acting in front of a camera. We had to conceive of something like behavioral acting, where it should look like you’re just behaving. You’re not even acting at all. It was a difficult process, and I shot the entire 35 days of rehearsals on DSLR cameras. That helped them understand what it is to act in front of a camera and how to act for a shot — how to catch the angle, how to do the movements and how to do the continuity part… how to do the same thing over and over again for different angles. After the rehearsal was over, they had gotten their lines into their subconscious. They were never intimidated when they came onto the set with 60 to 70 people around them. Thus, it became very smooth. We also did seven days of rehearsals on the set in that house before the shoot. So, the process of rehearsals helped them with the transition from the theatre space to the space of cinema. But, at the same time, you also have other challenges. They’re not very used to the technical aspects of cinema, especially when it comes to holding on to a position, acting for a particular lens or working on continuity.  I had to work on them individually. That was also interesting because you have 12 to 13 actors in every scene. Each actor will have a different spacing and a different method of understanding a feeling, an emotion or a scene. So, you have to go individually to each person, talk to them and make them understand. The entire process was interesting and challenging in both ways. 

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DS: Framing and composing scenes to generate drama is a critical technical aspect when filming with multiple characters. How did you and your cinematographer, Anurudh Aneesh, coordinate your planning in this regard?

AE: I believe that cinematography should behave like the actors themselves. It should look very realistic. However, no movie can truly be deemed realistic. When you’re creating a movie, you’re also creating a story. There is nothing called a realistic situation. You’re making it look like realism. So, it was very difficult and challenging to make the film look like there was no camera. [My cinematographer and I] used to sit and discuss for long hours that we were not going to use any cinematic shots — like a track and trolley shot, a jib shot, a crane shot,or anything of that sort. We said that we’ll have a breathing method where, more often than not, the camera is handheld, and we will have to cover multiple angles. We will also use two cameras in most scenes because that is how we can get the continuity right and not make it difficult for the actors, and also to get certain reactions that you will get naturally.

Further, we had decided that we would, until the last act, use only wide lenses, as we wanted an open depth of field. So, until Anjali came to that house, we used only lenses ranging from 18mm to 24mm — 50mm is the maximum. In the last sequence, we get closer to the characters and how their minds are working. That is when we started using 50mm, 85mm and portrait lenses. If you closely watch the movie in its entirety, you will see that in the last act, people are looking very good during the night sequence because we have started using portrait lenses. The film has been shot in that way because, as a director, you’re not judging the characters. You are not highlighting the characters. You are not telling the audience to understand this particular person in this particular way. So, technically, the cinematography department was a very crucial character in the movie and not just a technical team. 

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DS: How did Aattam shape up during the process of editing?

AE: Editing is something that I enjoyed the most. It is something that I love the most — something that I believe is my forte or that I have a stronghold on. Whenever I’m writing the script, I think of the edit. People say that you should not do something like that. Since I am the director of the movie, I tend to write for that. In terms of editing, this movie was extremely challenging. In every scene, you had 12 to 13 characters, and it takes a lot of patience to work in a film like this. You have to sit with the footage. You have to go into the story of the things you know. You’re not looking for a certain technical achievement. You’re looking for how to narrate the story and how to keep the edit in a particular way so that the audience is engrossed in it. This is a chamber drama, and there is every possibility that the movie can get boring because it is so dialogue-intensive and completely placed in a couple of locations. The danger was very much there. So, Mahesh, the editor and I conceived of this as an action film with just dialogue, like a verbal action film. We thought that it should have its own pace, and the whole focus was to narrate the emotion and make the audience think that there is a certain reaction at a certain point. We wanted the audience to experience a sense of suspicion when a particular reaction was shown, indicating someone as a potential suspect. By holding the shot for a longer duration, we intended to evoke different emotions. If we cut the scene before the audience anticipated it, we are withholding information from them. So, we began the editing process intending to play with the audience’s minds.

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DS: Off-screen sounds such as coconuts falling on a roof, the roll of thunder echoing or a porn clip accidentally playing on Bluetooth speakers create the feeling of an oncoming tension. What was your approach to the sound design for Aattam?

AE: When it comes to sound design, that is something that I am not very familiar with. Before my debut film, I was working on small ad films and music videos and never used to work a lot with sound design. So, I thought that I wanted someone very talented and very experienced. That is how I brought in Renganaath Ravee, who’s a three-time Kerala state award winner and a national award winner. The film is completely happening in a chamber, in a house, and you cannot change the location. But you can change the ambience of the location, and that is where the sound comes into play. One cannot change the visual, but you can continuously change the ambient sound. So, that’s why we decided to incorporate certain elements into the film. If you were watching it in a theatre or with a 5.1 surround sound system, you’d notice the presence of an election campaign happening around the house. Although we don’t always explicitly show it, campaign songs and announcements play in the background. Then there’s a particular detail with a coconut falling on the roof. It serves as both an alarming and playful element, hinting at something unexpected to come. It’s akin to a symbol in a play, signalling a shift in the narrative or capturing the sudden attention of the audience. Despite being seemingly trivial, such small details draw the audience’s attention. So, that is how the falling of the coconut was brought in. I also thought about how to convey the act of someone watching porn without directly showing it or revealing the person watching. I  understood that you can usually play it via Bluetooth speaker, and the sound is enough to decipher that somebody is watching porn. These audio cues play a significant role in the story’s development. 

Again, the change in the climatic condition is accompanied by shifts in sound design. The film begins with discussions under sunny weather. But when Hari enters, he brings with him desire, and so the wind picks up, symbolizing this change. So, I was discussing with Renganaath how we could incorporate the theme of desire into the sound design. I explained to him that the wind becomes a metaphor for desire because, like a strong wind, desire can sway you in different directions. Just as the characters’ opinions sway back and forth, so does the wind in the film. That is how the rain, thunder and lightning were introduced into the sound design. While these elements may not always be visually present on screen, their presence in the sound creates an impact when you become part of that room. That is how an audience will feel that they are inside that room, being one of them. So, the sound design was a very important aspect of this film. 

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DS:  Aattam began its journey through various film festivals, followed by a theatrical release, and it’s now streaming on an OTT platform. How would you describe this journey? 

AE: I would describe it as something fantastic and something that I had already imagined. When I wrote the script and discussed it with the producer, we found that this film has a universal appeal because the [topic] is very universal. If executed well, this has a very sweet spot where it can travel to the festival audience and appeal to the international audience. Also, there is a good possibility that it will work in theatres with filmgoers whose general appetite is for commercial movies. It is neither a commercial masala kind of movie nor a slow-paced arthouse movie. When we started sending it to the festivals, it was working well. It won the grand jury award for the best film at the International Film Festival of Los Angeles, the NETPAC Award for the best Malayalam film at the International Film Festival of Kerala and was the opening film of the International Film Festival of Kerala, Goa. We then decided to release the film theatrically. But there is also a problem. The normal theatre-going people, when they know that this movie was part of a lot of festivals and has won awards, will have the prejudice that this is an arthouse, possibly slow-moving, boring movie. This worked against us in a certain way for the first few days. But overall, it performed decently well in theatres, and now that it has come onto the OTT platform, it is creating a huge wave. It’s also been released in the UK, Ireland and the US, and people around the world are getting to watch it, which is very good for me, all the actors involved and the producer. Also, it makes the situation easy for my next movie as well.

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DS: What are your thoughts on the commercial prosperity of a film and the pursuit of artistic integrity for the director?

AE: I think that a writer and director — whoever is making any movie — should be aware of both of these things. You cannot drift to just one side. Both the artistic aesthetics and the return of money to the producer are critical because there is a lot of money and commerce involved. Unless and until the money comes back, the producer will not be able to make another movie, and the industry will not run. So, you cannot completely be delusional and believe that this is completely an artistic process. You cannot think that I just want to make it a personal kind of movie. No, you cannot be completely on one side. Also, you cannot consider this as something like absolute business, even if you are a producer or a director. You cannot completely consider this as a formula where you can make something, give it to people and then make money out of it. Even that will not work. So, there is an essential risk that needs to be involved. A movie can work with people and bring the money back, or it may not. So, the risk is always there, and understanding the risk is very important. At the same time, it’s also important to recognize that filmmaking is an art form. Essentially, it should be approached with artistic appreciation while also understanding its business aspects. Both aspects are crucial for filmmakers.

Dipankar Sarkar (@Dipankar_Tezpur) is a graduate in film editing from the Film and Television Institute of India and currently based in Mumbai. As a freelancer, he frequently contributes to various Indian publications on cinema-related topics.

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