A note on Baradwaj Rangan’s ‘Conversations with Mani Ratnam’

In a wonderfully laconic moment midway through the Kannathil Muthamittal exchange Rangan gently if slyly chides Ratnam for resorting to the very theoretical approach that otherwise makes him unhappy in interpretations of his work. An ‘aha!’ riff that the subject concedes. The reader can only imagine Ratnam’s eyes twinkling at this point. The flavor and tone of this near-aside make for perhaps a privileged access point into the very rich and precise conversations that unfold before and after. Like all important artists in any field Ratnam too is wary of offering overarching views on his work that with the passage of time risk becoming so many ‘authorized’ or imprisoning readings. But with the kind of skill that is often on display in his films the director superbly manages to walk through this minefield of autobiography and interpretation with surprising comprehensiveness and at the same time continually delicate evasion. It is an act of choreography worthy of the man who is still adding to an important and prophetic oeuvre. But these ‘conversations’ also offer vignettes into the mind of the formidably insightful Baradwaj Rangan, really the peerless Indian film critic. From his own charmingly presented autobiographical raison d’etre for this work’s inception to his unmatched familiarity with the Ratnam corpus and perhaps most significantly his lucid interventions in every chapter Rangan is simply the ideal man for the task. To read these conversations is to hear a fascinating set of questions and responses but equally a series of comments pregnant with suggestion. If, and to paraphrase from somewhere, words are meaningful sounds stolen from silence, Rangan’s encounters with Ratnam provide both kinds of music, the strains less heard and those unheard.

Interesting ironies become apparent throughout the text. Rangan beautifully narrates his attachment to early or from his perspective Madras-oriented Ratnam and his initial disappointment with later or ‘global’ Ratnam. He sees Roja as the “pivot” film or the one that marks the transition from the naturalistic more culturally rooted worlds of the 80s to the more expansively imagined and abstractly represented ones of the 90s and beyond. As Ratnam himself sometimes points out there are films on each side of this equation that complicate this ordering. But the schema is still a useful window into a body of work which is not very easy to pin down using this or any other ‘handle’. The director is most comfortable throughout offering little thematic glimpses into his films or occasionally wider-lensed perspectives. Additionally he frequently highlights the production decisions or technical and other contingencies that shape so many choices on any set. Adroit as Ratnam is at performing this dance which involves saying a lot that is meaningful and yet not much that is definitive he nonetheless, and against his instincts, lends himself to a portrait of the filmmaker as thinker or at least a very conscious(ly) thinking artist. This comes through almost climactically in the later stages of the book, those concerned with the later works. The three possibly most fascinating chapters in the work revolve around Kannathil Muthamittal, Guru and finally Raavan/Raavanan. Conversely the one on Iruvar, a film Ratnam calls his best, despite some sparkling insights is a bit underwhelming. Perversely the very canonization the film has undergone since its initial release possibly made the ‘exploration’ a bit more tame.

It is also a bit of a gap in the text to have almost no involved discussion on the actors. Ratnam throws in little nuggets here and there ranging from his praise of Kamalahasan’s skills as actor and more comprehensive ones as film artist to his sense of Abhishek’s career-best performance in Raavan or asides on Om Puri (Yuva) and Jaya Sudha (Alaipayuthey) but by and large there is limited formal discussion of the actors who have so profoundly laced his film journey. Somewhat puzzlingly Rangan too does not come up with these cues. The single biggest lacuna is really the absence of any opinion on Mohanlal (Iruvar). Admittedly the book is centrally concerned with the narratives, mechanics and formal choices of the films but an incoherence is risked when the actors very centrally connected with many of these films are also not thematized in the same fashion. This is less a statement about Ratnam or Rangan, both of whom clearly value all the actors associated with these works, and something they allude to from time to time, and more one about how the chance to add another layer of meaning to these discussions might have been missed. In an odd way both interlocutors conspire to produce the ‘Hitchcock theory’ with actors being incidental participants in the director’s larger vision.

The book ultimately manages to pierce a great deal of the subject’s enigma. But as this journey is completed Rangan too seems to shed his initial ‘Madras boy’ self that was so enamored with the earlier works and becomes an interlocutor much more challenged by (even if conflicted with) not just the later works but even moreso the ones in Hindi.* In various instances then the trajectories cross. Ratnam confirms some of Rangan’s deepest insights about his craft and thought while Rangan in turn testifies to the longer continuities of the director’s work. The critic authentically reveals the director’s intellect and the director makes the progression of his career more unified in the critic’s understanding. These are therefore true conversations because both participants complete a journey. Like all great journeys these exchanges too remain provisional at both ends. The reader can join the conversation. The discussion is conducted with a modesty and generosity on either side that invites newer participants and re-framing of the exchanges. Rangan started out with the ambition of creating the equivalent of Truffaut’s fabled conversations with Hitchcock**. He has done at least as much here. One now hopes for a collection of his film essays to follow this up…

*Rangan does concede at the outset that discussions around Raavan/Raavanan led him to the germ of this book’s idea.

**This model possibly explains the less involved discussion of actors.