Those who have read my FAQs on RGV ka Aag, might be aware of my close candid relationship with RGV.
Whenever RGV is done with his latest experiment I am there to experience it. Thus, I went to watch **Sarkar Raj **with obvious & high expectations, generated from its prequel **Sarkar
**& inspiration, **The Godfather**
& **Enron**. So, we met again at the abandoned factory, after sundown, over a drink. We chatted for some two & a half hours about the movie. Let me present you the excerpts of the enlightening discussion. When I discuss with RGV mostly all stones are unturned, hence there would be worms & spoilers for the careful readers. Read at your own risk.
**Me:** Clearly Sarkar Raj is highly
influenced & inspired by the Enron Issue & The Godfather. Is there any
other factor you were driven by?
**RGV:** You are right. I also wanted to
bring the Bachchan family together on screen after the marriage of Abhi-Aish.
That was a very compelling reason.
**Me:** Was there any script to start with?
Noting it was a sequel of Sarkar which ended with lot of promise.
**RGV:** Oh sure! There was one indeed by **Prashant Pandey** which was very crisp,
full of twist, turns & suspense drama. Unfortunately, my office ran out of
toilet paper & accidentally many of the pages went missing! Mysterious, I
must say. We did not have much time to fill the gaps in the story so we added
few blasts, murders & killed most of the characters. See, the best way to
end a suspense crime drama is to kill everyone- example Kill Bill, Last Man standing. However we were unsure whether the
audience would be able to decipher the suspense & the twists, so we had
Amitabh to narrate the whole story at the end. Though we were sure, by the time
the audience with average IQ would able to bridge the missing links we would
kill the remaining characters & end the movie…………..*laughs hysterically*
**Me:** You are a mean guy! What about the
cast? I tend to believe you have successfully gathered all the honed baddies of
silver screen.
**RGV:** That was one huge accomplishment.
Ravi Kale as Chander had to be there as he was not killed in Sarkar. After we killed Zakir Hussain in
Sarkar, I had to bring the next best
ones- Govind Namdeo, Sayaji Shinde & Upendra Limaye. These guys have been
unusually crooked in Satya, Shool & I don’t know exactly what Upendra did
as a lame beggar in Traffic Signal…..
. Then there was this guy as a sidekick of Shankar, who was exceptional in
looking stone cold (after Aishwarya), so we did not give any dialogue to him. All
he had to do is stare without batting his eyelids for once.
**Me: **Honestly, I see a lot of
experimentation with the camera & cinematography. Was this intentional?
**RGV:** You remember we had a discussion
about one of the broken tripod during the shooting of Aag? We had to place the
camera on floor in the film to show an ‘ant’s eye view’ to the audience. This
time another tripod broke. So we innovated & tied the cameras to a cat
& a crow respectively. You will see lot of camerawork under the pajamas,
top of the head & sudden & drastic change in the angles. It was going
quite well till the cat & the crow started chasing & fighting with each
other. Fortunately, the accidental output was not bad in the dark, so we decided
to retain the portion unedited on the movie. You must have enjoyed it.
** **
**Me: **Quite unique but understandable. But
tell me; was it absolutely necessary to show the close-up of ears, nostrils,
eyebrows, lips & other parts of the face of ALL the characters?
**RGV:** It was pretty obvious. We didn’t
retain the costumes of Sarkar, except few suits, jazzy shirts for Qazi &
the black kurta of Sarkar. If you
notice 80% of the shots are extreme close-ups. We were unable to provide
costumes for all the characters. We had to only focus on the faces of the
characters while they were on their own dress. ****
** **
**Me: **Hmm….. Buy why do you take ‘dark
movie’ is the literal sense? Many of the scenes are just so dark we can’t see
anyone on the screen except a zero watt bulb. And that melancholic loud background
tune of the flute, seemed as if chewing gums are stuck on few of it’s holes.
Honestly, since Nishabd that heavy,
gloomy background score is more suffocating than putting popcorns inside our nostrils.
I have experimented.
**RGV: **You are highlighting the obvious. We
did not have any lightman this time. The night shots were done using a 1.5V pencil
torch. It saved us lots of Electricity bills & that money was used to bring
chai for the crew. We have indeed
broken the monotony of the flute tunes by the Govinda…govinda… govinda…govinda…chant,
that is currently by the Bachchans while they gurgle with Betadine syrup.
**Me: **Chai ...aaah! That reminds me, why
everyone seems to drink only & only tea in cups, saucers, patilas, mugs,
jugs & any container whatsoever? Even the last dialogue of the movie is ‘ek cup chai lana’ to the audience?
**RGV: **I wanted to promote tea as the
official drink of the underworld. It’s a completely wrong belief that criminals
& corrupt politicians plan their twisted motive over scotch whiskeys. Teas,
when drunk in sufficient quantities have evil powers too. We wanted the
audience to participate in the tea drinking celebration, hence the last
dialogue.
** **
**Me: **Certain observations on the
supporting roles- **Supriya Pathak** is
too fat & dumb to be Sarkar’s wife, **Victor
Banerjee** looks too untidy & poorly dressed as owner of Sheppard Power
Plant, **Aishwarya** sheds too much
tear as a go-getter CEO, ** Dilip Prabhavalka****r **has lots of gyan, **Rajesh Shringarpore**, very
impressive as Sanjay Somji, drinks huge quantities of bottled water !
**RGV:** Supriya is good in making
idlis. Victor’s suit had to be duller than Abhisake’s. If you notice Abhisake
wore great fabrics throughout the movie. In fact, here’s only the village sampaign scene
where he is without a suit. Aish overused glycerin at her own cost,
Dilip is yet to come out of the Gandhiji
mode. Somji’s character was meant to be power-thirsty, so we asked him to drink
3 litres of water per screen presence a symbolic
representation.
** **
**Me:** Like Marlon Brando kept marbles in
his mouth while speaking in **The
Godfather**, did you do anything special for your cast in Sarkar Raj ?
**RGV:** Not much. We have asked most of the
baddie characters to stare in a stone cold manner without moving there eyelids
for hours. The rest was done by the camera & Govinda…govinda… govinda…govinda…chant.
Oh yes, we drew a line above the lips of **Govind
Namdeo** with a marker to make him the Hasan
Qazi character.
** **
**Me: **Last question. You haven’t shown
the face of the hired killer, who’s gloved fingers were shown only. Are we
supposed to believe that was cameo appearance of you?
**RGV:**(laughs out loud)…….keep guessing. Cheers!