Inside Nag Ashwin’s Mind

The place where Mahabharata ends is where Nag Ashwin’s imagination takes off. The director of the record-breaking Kalki 2898 AD had always felt that Ashwatthama’s story was unfinished. “He is cursed for his sin, loses his gem and walks off into the forest. Then there was the story of the tenth avatar of Vishnu. I was excited by these two ideas,” he says. Kalki 2898 AD is like a fan fiction of the Mahabharata, he says. Growing up, he watched Telugu cinema’s interpretation of the Mahabharata and was equally stunned by the believable world of Star Wars. Mixing the two was something that seemed possible. Then there was the eternal question of Karna vs Arjuna, both great warriors, brothers. “It’s amazing to me that people are still discussing it,” says Ashwin. He adds that one of the themes of Kalki 2898 AD is immortality—there is Ashwatthama, kept alive by faith, and Supreme Yaskin, who is kept alive by science. Bibek Debroy’s ten-volume translation of the Mahabharata was his go-to book for research but some of the writing they did about masks, oxygen bars and synthetic food, seems all too real. Fertility is a major theme in the film, a metaphor for the world becoming barren. “It’s a new experience for the diaspora,” he says. “It looks like an Indian film but has high quality CGI and no song and dance (except a light moment when Prabhas’ character gatecrashes a party),” says Ashwin who made the wonderful Mahanati (2018). He’s already shot 20 days of Kalki 2 and will commence writing and storyboarding soon.

Roshan Mathew Is Everywhere

Roshan Mathew is the star of Paradise, Prasanna Vithanage’s dark drama set in Sri Lanka. He was the down-to-earth herpetologist in Richie Mehta’s Poacher. And he will soon be seen in the Hindi thriller Ulajh. Mathew spent the early part of his childhood in Ferozepur where his banker father was posted, thought he would do engineering in Kochi but gave it up for Madras Christian College, Chennai. That was where he discovered theatre and went on to Drama School Mumbai. “That was followed by the usual auditions in Aram Nagar,” he says, referring to the popular Mumbai area where young actors hang out. Mathew’s performances are as subtle as they are exciting whether it is his joyous love for Shamshunissa in Darlings (2022) or his gradual unravelling of the good guy when in a crisis as in Paradise. Mathew is easily able to switch between different languages and film industries but is still surprised by the different operating protocol. “Choked, my first Hindi film, was the first time I stepped outside a vanity van and an assistant director escorted me on set with a walkie talkie. And I thought, what is this military operation I am part of? In Malayalam cinema, we normally hang around on the set even when we are not performing. We go into the vanity van only to change or for specific purposes,” he says. Malayalam cinema is limited by its audience which means there is a certain simplicity in the way they work, often bypassing other channels. “But I am not sure the same system would be practical in Bollywood or even Telugu or Tamil cinema which are much bigger,” he adds. Malayalam cinema operates on relationships, allowing most stars to stand up for each other. They are at each other’s premieres, they are constantly inviting each other to be part of their films, and supporting movies in other ways—for instance Mathew dubbed for Arjun Radhakrishnan’s part in the latest hit, Ullozhukku (undercurrent). “We love movies and will go to watch them in a cinema hall and nine out of ten times there will be a friend associated with it,” he says.

Adarsh Gourav Has Arrived

Adarsh Gourav has just wrapped the shooting for Alien, a prequel series set three decades before the iconic 1979 film. The series was shot in Thailand on and off due to the SAG-AFTRA strike. Noah Hawley, the showrunner, has said the series will be tied more into the style and mythology of the Ridley Scott film rather than the prequel films Prometheus (2012), and Alien: Covenant (2017). What is it about Scott’s work that remains so relevant? This year will see the much-hyped Gladiator 2, directed by Scott himself at 86. Is it the lack of original content or the wish to build easily identifiable franchises? As for Gourav, he wrote on his Instagram post after completing his six-month-long shoot in Bangkok: “I rejoiced, wondered, opened up to, cribbed and dreamt of a tomorrow all in a short span of time with people who were names when I met then but now are so much more.”

About The Author

Kaveree Bamzai

Kaveree Bamzai is an author and a contributing writer with Open

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