IMTIAZ ALI gets candid on CHAMKILA: Success is becoming a much better filmmaker
In an exclusive interview with ETimes, Imtaiz Ali opens up about his conversations with Rahman over music and how the film should shape up.Imtiaz said, “Rehman sir was very enthusiastic about doing an all Punjabi album. Not that the songs had to be in the Punjabi language, but the world of the music would definitely be Punjabi.
Recalling his first meeting with Rahman, Imtiaz shared, “In the first meeting that I had with him, he asked me, What are we going to do differently?” So I said, What do you think we should do? So he said, Can we do this style of musical theater? Where people are talking directly to the camera, they’re singing directly to the camera. And this was a golden opportunity for me to latch on. Because I had this in mind that when people come to watch this film, they will not know anything about Chamkila and it is the duty of the film to inform people who Chankila was. So that they can enjoy his story, they will care about him. So if you see, as the film begins, the first song, there are various kinds of people from Punjab who are singing directly to the camera. Some people are saying he was a good man. Some people are saying he was a horrible person. He was vulgar; he was cheap. Some people were saying he was a messiah, all kinds of things. So the various concepts, the various truths and untruths about life, and the myth of Chamkila get revealed. So musical theater was the first thing that he said. Then there’s another song called Naram Kaalja, where we see women singing it to the camera. So that style we adopted, and we were very happy about it.”
“Rahman sir also said, Let’s not make it a heavy film, and that was exactly in line with my thinking of not making a sad film. And that was because Chamkila’s music was never sad; he was always celebrating. So I thought, Let’s not make a sad film and call it Chamkila. That’ll just be wrong. Although the story has its fair share of tragic incidents, it starts with the killing of your protagonists. And then it also ends in a way where you feel their pain a little bit. But I wanted to go with the flow of Chamkila’s life in a happy manner, in a jaunty fashion,” he concluded.
