Ram Gopal Varma’s Finest Turns 22

ram gopal varma’s finest turns 22

No, it isn’t Satya. According to this writer and Ramu as well, his best work is Company. Varma takes you to a world that is much-discussed and has become a part of our everyday life. One identifies instantly with the goings-on. Picking up incidents from newspaper and television news headlines, the narrative gives the viewer a microscopic view of how the mafia functions.

Company is an impressive, taut and riveting film about gang wars and the police, featuring Ajay Devgn, Mohanlal and Vivek Oberoi. Its world-class cinematography and editing, and superb performances from an ensemble cast, overcome a predictable story-line. A saga of two friends – Malik (Ajay Devgan) and Chandu (Vivek Oberoi) – the story travels from the streets of Mumbai to Hong Kong and then Nairobi. Malik is a trusted lieutenant of an underworld don. He recruits Chandu in the gang when the activities begin to expand. Differences between Malik and his colleagues surface when Malik starts siding Chandu. Malik decides to take the reins in his hands and together with Chandu, starts running the ‘company’.

Just when Mumbai tough cop Srinivasan (Mohanlal) gets hot on their trail, Chandu and boss Malik (Ajay Devgn) coolly shift base to Hong Kong. A misunderstanding between Malik and his loyal Chandu busts the blood dams in Mumbai. A gang war breaks out and corpses start littering the streets. In a bid to achieve supremacy, they decide to eliminate the other. Malik stays in Hong Kong with his close associates (Manisha Koirala, Ganesh Yadav, Rajpal Yadav), while Chandu shifts to Nairobi.

Ram Gopal said Company was a completely new experience for him. “When Karan Johar saw the film in portions he said he liked the main players Vivek and Antara. When he saw the whole film he liked even the passing shots. He said he could see my stamp in every frame.

To me, the film hinges on the one line that the cop Mohanlal speaks, “Samajhne ki koshish karo. Yeh sab kuch jo ho raha hai woh tumhare dhande ki jaat hai (Try to understand. What is happening is thanks to the nature of your job).” That is the crux of the film. If that line makes its point, the film makes its point, too.”

Some critics complained about Ajay Devgan’s death in the end.

Explained Ramu, “Had that character lived, the whole point of the film would be defeated. I think audiences react this way to Ajay’s character because by then they had begun to empathise with him. When a Rekha saw Company she said it was a truly romantic film and that I was romancing every aspect of life: from violence in the underworld to the police force. I thought that was an incredible summing up of the film’s style. In Company I had a tremendous amount of story to tell within 150 minutes. Unless I resorted to a flash-forward technique, I couldn’t pull it off. Hence I introduced a voiceover for quick time passages. At first, my team thought the audience wouldn’t be able to follow the narrative pattern. But I’ve always thought the audience to be far more receptive to new ideas than the film industry. The industry works in fear of failure while the audience approaches a film with no preconceived notions.”

After the film’s release Vivek Oberoi and Ajay Devgn seemed to have grabbed audiences’ attentions . “I’ll tell you something. Ajay’s character has been very carefully designed. A lot of behind-the-scenes work has gone into heightening the performance. The background music, shot compositions and editing patterns have all gone into making his performance very effective.In Vivek’s case the performance comes intuitively: from the brash arrogance in the beginning to the vulnerability in his eyes when he talks to Antara, to the betrayal midway through the film. By the end he exudes a Buddhist wisdom. This kind of a performance cannot be designed. For that you need a genuine performer.”

Ramu denied taking out incidents from newspaper headlines for Company. “When you live in Mumbai you keep hearing the underworld. Some of these are bound to stay in your mind . But I don’t think Company is about specific incidents. It’s about people placed in positions of power and how they use it. They’re bound to hear echoes of news reports in the film. The Chandu Nagre character (played by Vivek Oberoi) who kills for money is a known phenomenon. People keep reading and hearing about the underworld. This is the first film where they actually see what they have been hearing all along. If they suddenly put a face to a newspaper report, audiences are bound to start looking for parallels, and they may not be off-track.”

In Company, Ramu wanted to treat organised crime on a company management basis. “When a management takes a decision on behalf of a company it cannot favour one employee, as Malik (Ajay Devgan) favours Chandu. But the employee feels betrayed if his interests vary with company policies. Once a company recruits an employee, he becomes another cog in the wheel. What is the difference between a common man getting street goondas to evacuate tenants from his house and a politician using a trained terrorist to eliminate his rival? Everyone needs extra-constitutional power to do dirty work. Ultimately crime and the underworld are active because they fulfil a need in legitimate society. But even ganglords are victims of larger invisible forces that the common may not be aware of.”

For the first time a film showed the nexus between our cinema and the underworld.

Ramu explained, “Why should our cinema be distanced from the rest of the media? In a way I consider myself a journalist too. Just as you report a situation I’m putting an issue on celluloid in a dramatic manner. I don’t think I’ve shown anything that the audience doesn’t know. The audience knows from newspaper reports that film people have been talking to the underworld. I haven’t shown the film star actually talking to gangsters. When the cop says he has a taped conversation I depend on the audiences memory of newspaper reports.”

There are several direct references to real happenings in Company, like Salman Khan’s interrogation. “When I showed a film star being interrogated I didn’t have any particular star in mind. So many actors have been called to police headquarters for questioning. I wanted an actual leading man to do the role. But I don’t think any leading man would have done it. So I just signed any man I could find. The whole point of being courageous is you should be ready to face the consequences. There are so many things I have tried in Company. Take the shootout at the film mahurat. Once the scene is established I move on quickly. There were so many other issues to tackle. So I had a voiceover informing the audience of what happened after the shootout while moving on with the narrative. This discrepancy between what they see and hear could have confused the audience. But they got the point. I used several new narrative devices like jump-cut cutting and skipping frames between shots. Even the Khallas song is used as a narrative device.”

In Company Ramu said he pushed the envelope to the extreme. “That’s what filmmaking means to me. When I watch Martin Scorsese’s Cape Fear, I see him doing incredible things with cinematic grammar. Eventually cinema is about affect, the cinematic grammar isn’t an issue for the audience. When D W Griffith tried a closeup for the first time, the film industry was shaken. But the audience accepted it for what it was. Anything new in cinema is more readily accepted by the audience than the industry. How will I know if the audience likes a new idea unless I try it? I’ve progressed a lot since Satya. Then I was working on a very basic level. I was just beginning to understand the medium. Company has been made more cerebrally than instinctively. I knew exactly what my characters were about and what I wanted to say about them.”

Ramu is very proud of Company. “That I pulled it off does give me a high. This is the most expensive film I’ve ever made. But nothing is done to impress audiences. I haven’t used locations just to go to a foreign country. I went where my script took me. It’s a well mounted film. But the richness comes from actors and technicians. You’ll be surprised to know that my cameraman Hemant Chaturvedi had never held a feature film camera before Company. All he had shot was for television, including the popular Kaun Banega Crorepati. But I had not seen his work. I just liked his attitude. He wasn’t in awe of me, which I liked. And when I asked him why I should let him shoot this film, he said he couldn’t think of any reason why he shouldn’t. I found him sensible. So it stood to reason that the rest of his abilities would follow. I’m always asked how I stumble on to talented people like Vivek Oberoi and Hemant Chaturvedi. I guess I’m just plain lucky with my actors and technicians. Take Vivek Oberoi. My signing him might have attracted some attention towards him. But to be signed by so many people after that, he had to be seen and appreciated. I think the role in Company needed a very high degree of performing ability. That must have spread in the industry. From day one Vivek was known as a good actor.”