lights, camera, action, authenticity

In what kind of marriageHe is the last active farmer in a small village near Usilampatti in Madurai, where he is torn between modernity and tradition. In the closing part of the film, he turns to Veshti and joins a group of villagers to revive the damaged crops on their land. Watch illusionary closely and you’ll see how much of a difference it makes in the way it turns Vesti And the work goes on and on the way stars do in films with rural backgrounds.

For one, this authenticity can be attributed to the fact that illusionary Nalandi, a real farmer, who unfortunately died before the film’s release. Filmmaker M. Manikandan says the decision to cast Nalandi over a professional actor was pragmatic. “Of course, our first choice was to go for actors. But for this film, I needed someone who also knows agriculture because I wanted to show the various processes involved in farming and the gaps between them. Suppose it takes six months for a crop to arrive. I wanted someone to travel with the film in the meantime. Since we could not find any, the second best option was to choose a non-actor, who is a real farmer, given the budget and subject material,” says Manikandan.

Casting non-actors in films is not a recent phenomenon; Bharathiraja, Balu Mahendra and Bala have done all this in the past. But Tamil filmmakers today are emphasizing on working with non-actors from a particular region or community to bring a sense of authenticity and realism to the film’s ambience. Manikandan worked with the rag pickers boys in his acclaimed debut, Kaka Muttai (2014). of Lenin Bharti Merku Thodarchi Malai The shoot was done with people who live in the foothills of the Western Ghats. Last year Sarpatta Parambrai, Kärnan And Jai Bheem All the cast had non-actors. Some of them even went viral on social media after their release. Sarpatta Parambrai’One such example was Beedi Raippan, played by Gajapati Vathiyar, a real-life boxer who coached students at Mogpayer. Pa Ranjith had earlier approached Gajapati to learn boxing. gallop… and discussed his desire to film the boxing scene in northern Madras. “Ranjeet told me that he would cast me in a small role. I couldn’t believe it until I got a call from him one day. Beedi Raippan is, in fact, based on a real person,” says 67-year-old Gajapati.

Gajapati as Beedi Raippan is the one who fixes Kaabilan (Arya) for the final showdown. A boxer for more than four decades, Gajapati has known players from both boxing clans: Sarpatta Parambrai and Idiyappa Parambrai. He says that he was not scared of the camera and was even dubbed for some scenes. “Ranjeet was there to guide me. It was he who suggested that I ask Arya to catch the crabs as part of her training to sing ‘Ney Oli’,” he says. But I am old now,” he added.

For Jai BheemIn , a courtroom drama about the systematic violence faced by the Irula community, director TJ Gyanvel visited Irula settlements in search of non-actors for minor roles. Since most of them were daily wage earners, they were provided compensation and trained for about a month along with the lead actors. “We did not train them to take action; It was like an icebreaker between him and the camera so that they could stay natural. Similarly, actors Rajkannu (Manikandan) and Sengeni (Lijomol Jose) playing the main Irula characters were able to portray them authentically as they interacted with the people of Irula community for a month and a half. So, it was a two-way training; For a non-actor to be an actor and for an actor to be a non-actor,” says Gyanvel.

democratization cinema

Farming was not a prerequisite when Manikandan cast Nalandi in the lead role. He clarifies that actors cannot be expected to master other areas to bring authenticity to the screen. “For Uncle Muttai, I cast those two boys because I wanted two people who would be familiar with that environment. In fact, I would say Kaka Muttai was more challenging than what kind of marriage Because we shot it in the film. it was not how ever… thanks to technology and digital filmmaking. We had the luxury of retakes and adjustments done on the sets,” he says.

Although for review what kind of marriage Praising Nalandi for playing the role, Manikandan says that Nalandi too had to ‘act’ for scenes like court proceedings. “The difference is that his ‘act’ is not visible on screen,” he says. Gunwell believes that having non-actors in the crew helps shape the film better. He remembers an old Irula lady who helps Malayalam actor Lijomol Jose to fine-tune his lines while dubbing.

“I think a film needs authenticity. As a director, it is my responsibility to ensure that. Jai Bheem, we had a retired forensic officer to supervise another actor, who was chosen as the forensic man. But the way he sprinkled fingerprint powder was so sleek and unique that we couldn’t replicate it with the actor. So, we ended up casting the officer instead. and we chose the actor [Tamizh] To play the role of SI Gurumurthy because he has worked in the police department for more than 10 years,” he says. Marie Selvaraj’s Kärnan, a recreation of the Kodiankulam incident against Dalits in 1995, featured non-actors from that region as background artists. On casting non-actors, Mari Selvaraj said in an interview that it was an important step in the democratization of cinema. Gyanvel agrees. “If there is a system that says only certain people can be part of something, it is undemocratic. It is democratic only when everyone gets equal opportunity. So, to say that only actors can be in a film and others cannot, is undemocratic,” he says.