Suresh Triveni: ‘Actors Like Anil Kapoor, Madhuri Dixit Are Hungry’

‘I’ve asked them so many times that after going through gruelling shoot sessions for 30-40 years, what keeps your passion alive? I think it’s the discipline to show up.’

As they say, comedy is serious business.

With Maa Behen, Director Suresh Triveni strikes that delicate balance with a story that mixes humour with sharp social commentary.

The result is a refreshingly feminist story that shows that serious ideas can be presented with a smile.

Since his debut film Tumhari Sulu, Triveni has built a body of work that refuses to stick to one genre.

From the warmth and humour of Tumhari Sulu to the dramatic tension of Jalsa, and from the grim world of Daldal to the grittiness of Subedaar, Triveni has preferred to constantly explore new storytelling spaces.

“As a filmmaker, if I get into a comfort zone, I will become lazy. I want to be nervous while making a film,” Triveni tells Mayur Sanap/Rediff. “Maybe after five-six films, I’ll know what am I good at and what am I terrible at.”

What have the last few days been like for you since Maa Behen released?

It’s been extremely overwhelming.

My process is very simple. On release day, I watch it with my friends and the crew. We have food while the film is playing. It’s like a party. So even if the reviews are extreme, at least I have people around me (Laughs).

I don’t read reviews in the first two days. I tell my team to not send me any reviews.

The chatter around Maa Behen is very encouraging. The reviews are very positive. More than that, I’m overwhelmed with the reaction from the public.

I’m not just saying it’s about only good chatter, all kinds of chatter are welcome. My phone has been ringing continuously. That’s the biggest relief.

While watching Maa Behen, I kept wondering: Did the feminist tale come first or did it evolve as an extension of the plot?

I never go with messaging first. That would be the biggest disservice to the film.

In fact, with this story in particular, it was actually ulta (reverse).

All of us have had that one family in the lane that we constantly judge. And that’s a guilt we carry. Because all of us have judged at some particular point or other, I found that to be very, very interesting.

I always wanted to know what happened in that house. This gave me the opportunity to peek in, and then what follows is the politics of it.

Because why she’s being judged? What happens to her? What does the world want? What are the choices she makes?

A lot of it is inferred from childhood because I grew up in Ranchi. I stayed in a colony and we had many such moments in our life where I was sitting as a boy in the culvert and discussing and talking about, ‘Uss ghar mein na pata hain yeh ho raha hain.’ And actually, you have no idea what is happening. I found that thread very interesting.

That’s why if you see all the flashbacks (in the film), they are all exaggerated. They don’t have any details. Just like rumours don’t have details.

The casting of Madhuri Dixit feels particularly significant because age-appropriate roles remain rare in Hindi cinema, especially for women. Was that a conscious choice?

I’m very greedy to work with fantastic actors, and above all, good human beings.

I have been very lucky in my career that I’ve had Vidya Balan, Shefali Shah, Bhumi Pednekar, Anil Kapoor, Madhuri Dixit, Triptii Dimri. They are all phenomenal actors.

I wanted to work with Madhuri ma’am for a while. As a fan and as a maker, you are constantly greedy to see them in a different light. They are certified legends. The kind of stature that Madhuri ma’am has, she doesn’t need to prove anything to anyone.

I think she is enjoying it, be it what she did in Maa Behen or the other roles she is doing.

When you tap an actor there, you get 110 per cent support and 110 per cent dedication. They go all out.

Be it Anil Kapoor, or Madhuri Dixit, they all are hungry.

I’ve asked them so many times that after going through gruelling shoot sessions for 30-40 years, what keeps your passion alive? I think it’s the discipline to show up.

Secondly, (the presence of a star) helps me mount my film. If I’m announcing a film that has got Madhuri Dixit, Triptii Dimri, Ravi Kishan and Geetanjali Kulkarni, I am sure people will watch it.

I think 70 per cent of the job is done, if you get the casting right.

How did the title come about?

For some strange reasons, titles always come to me first. Like in this particular film, when I started writing it in 2018, I’d written the telephone call scene (the one where Madhuri Dixit in panic calls her daughters).

It is a dysfunctional family. There’s a mother who’s absolutely not perfect. Then there are two sisters who have problems with each other, and the daughters have a problem with the mother.

For me, I just reacted to the sequence with these characters: Maa and Behen. And that became my title.

At the same time, I was careful because I didn’t want to be frivolous about it. I thought it needs to be justified.

What started off as a small gimmick, and ended up very meaningful.

Drawing inspiration from the Nirma commercial for the characters’ names was a nice touch.

I’m the product of the ’70s. I’ve seen television commercials in the late ’80s and early ’90s.

Rekha, Jaya, Sushma have become pop culture, and we have always used it in our day to day communication.

Initially, their names were not that. It’s actually while I was jamming with Pooja (Tolani, writer) and one day I just said what if you name them as Rekha, Jaya, Sushma, and then we started searching for Hema.

It’s great, because look at the power of the brand, yaar. Look at the power of unique pop culture that still resonates.

They are perfect women, right? Jaya, Rekha, Sushma were the perfect women. Now put them into an imperfect situation, you get conflict straight up there.

Your women characters often feel authentic, and not idealised. How did your collaboration with Pooja Tolani, who also wrote a standout segment The Mirror in Lust Stories 2, influence that?

I do not start in the morning that I need to write a female protagonist. It just happens. Four of my outings, including Daldal, just happened to be with women as lead.

Now, why they look real is because I think the more chinks the person has, the more you’re able to dwell into the characters. They need to be real. And when they’re put in unreal situations, they react to it in certain way.

Over here, what happens is that because the protagonists are women, the gender politics will surely come into the picture. That is where I think a lot of messaging happens.

Pooja Tolani came into Maa Behen at a time when I was lost while writing my first draft. I have a careless way of writing, I just keep writing without a big structure.

Pooja came into the picture during the COVID times and took over the script. Then came her maturity and dexterity, and she put a very fine structure to it. She was willing to experiment.

Between our discussions, we landed up at a space where both came into picture: Gender and character. There are a lot of touches that she brought in, which helped me take the story forward.

You produced Pooja Tolani’s short film Razaa.

Yes. I’ve known her for the last five years. She’s a very brave writer. I think she is one of the strongest writers of our times. I’m so happy that she’s being discovered.

All your projects so far are markedly different in genre. Are you intentionally trying to avoid being confined to a single genre?

As a filmmaker, if I get into a comfort zone, I will become lazy. I want to be nervous while making a film. I have to feel that it’s like my first film.

With every film, because you’re spending so much time and you’re kind of bringing so many people together, I think you’re responsible, and you can’t go complacent. That’s one of the reasons I’m kind of jumping genres, not for the heck of it, but I am also making films that I want to watch.

It keeps you abreast with your craft, and you keep pushing your limits. Maybe after five-six films, I’ll know what am I good at and what am I terrible at.

Is there any genre you are consciously trying to avoid?

(Thinks) I am not too much into the fantastical world, which is actually a lot of things happening around that right now. I don’t know whether I’ll be able to make a fantastical film.

I don’t watch horror, but I’m very keen to do horror. I think the craft of horror constantly attracts me.

I don’t think I will be able to do a rom-com very good because I think with my dry sense of humor, I don’t know whether I’ll be able to do justice to that.

Apart from that, I think I will venture into everything.

Your characters are always complex by nature, and many of their journeys revolve around personal conflicts.

I find morality a very interesting subject.

If you look at Tumhari Sulu, the entire family questions her about why she is stepping out in the night for being a late night RJ and speaking in a certain manner.

In Jalsa, a journalist runs over something and then how do you find yourself with that particular place of morality?

And so is with this particular film.

I find it a very exciting human emotion because it’s what we live with every day.

All of us in every action of ours, we are guided by morality. I find it very exciting. In fact, what’s funny is that Manav Kaul once told me, ‘Sir, you think you are making different kinds of films, but actually your films are the same. Women go out at night and something unfolds there.’

There’s something about the night, and I think it’s some deep stigma I am carrying (Laughs).

You began your career in advertising before moving into films. What habits from advertising have you retained in filmmaking, and what have you consciously avoided?

I take my craft very, very seriously in advertising.

I do not take it like my part time. It’s something I still pursue. When I’m doing a feature film, I do not do ad films because advertising films need an equal amount of interest and attention. It’s taught me a lot.

It completely engrains a certain approach in pre-production. You are extremely planned. You have a method to the madness.

Also, our training is such that they’re so deadline-oriented, we get time-oriented. Deadline-oriented helps me make a film in a scheduled amount of time.

Time-oriented, because it helps me in the edit that I can look at a scene and see how crisply you can say it without it looking like an ad.

All the flashback sequences in Maa Behen have been treated like a commercial. It’s brought a lot of discipline in how I approach my craft. Advertising also gives me a lot of restraint, especially when it comes to duration.

What I have not taken from advertising is that there, we have a tendency to close every scene.

In feature filmmaking, we don’t close everything, we keep it a little open, so that the story flows beautifully. You don’t need to complete every scene, you can leave it a little open-ended.

You can’t have gimmicks through and through in a film. You need to be conscious of the two hour timeline vis-a-vis a 30 second timeline, which is a very, very big deal.

What was the influence of cinema on you while growing up in Ranchi?

I am a Malayali who grew up in a small colony in HEC (Heavy Engineering Corporation) in Ranchi. It was a beautiful colony. I have some fondest memories there. It was a cosmopolitan culture because a lot of public sector companies were there.

My dad used to be a stenographer.

What cinema meant was hiring a VCR, first the VCP, then the VCR during the summer breaks, or in the vacations, going and standing in a video parlour.

During Durga Puja, they used to play movies in the open ground, but I was not allowed every time to sit in the ground, being a conservative South Indian boy. So I used to hear the sounds, and imagine what’s happening on screen.

Subedaar was a product of that.

When I went to college, the theatre culture happened. We would watch films with friends and fight for a ticket.

Initial influences were like Manmohan Desai and Prakash Mehra. Later came Mani Ratnam and Ram Gopal Varma. I saw their cinema and was blown out of my head. Bombay‘s opening title sequence still blows my head. What sound it had!

Then, I moved to Chennai and discovered international cinema. I was very weak in English, coming from a small town, speaking English was a taboo there.

Watching movies was the only form of entertainment that we had. We would watch anything and everything. Those are the times when you would not read reviews (Laughs).

What part of filmmaking still gives you butterflies when you are walking to the set?

I have an imposter syndrome.

I walk into a set, and when I see 200 people waiting to listen to what I’m trying to say, I think that, are you serious? Are these guys actually going to believe what I’m going to do and they’re going to do exactly like the way I want to?

I find it very overwhelming.

But everyone is so warm. My set is a very happy place.

I find that still burdening because now I am responsible for their day. And I better make a good day out of that.