Imtiaz Ali reveals why Amar Singh Chamkila’s cigarette scene was shot via animation: ‘Didn’t want Diljit Dosanjh to smoke, and he wouldn’t do that anyway’

Imtiaz Ali says no one in his films are ever shown smoking, and it didn't change during Amar Singh Chamkila as well, where Diljit Dosanjh would not have smoked anyway.

Imtiaz Ali talks about shooting the smoking scene of Amar Singh Chamkila. (Photo: Netflix/Instagram)

It has been nearly a month since filmmaker Imtiaz Ali’s Amar Singh Chamkila released, but the film continues to remain a topic of discussion among fans. Starring Diljit Dosanjh and Parineeti Chopra, the biopic of the slain musician released in April to glowing reviews on Netflix. In an interview with Connect Cine, Imtiaz was taking fans questions for the film. One of the observations by a viewer was how Imtiaz cut to animation to show Diljit light a cigarette, a clever way to depict it as the singer-actor is a Sikh and can’t be seen smoking.

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“I try that I don’t show anyone smoke in my films,” Imtiaz Ali revealed as he answered the query. “In none of my films you would have seen anybody smoking! In this film it was important, because it was an integral part of what Chamkila had actually done in his life. It wasn’t imagined, this had indeed happened, and it was necessary to show that.

“All those people of Punjab who knew Chamkila also know that he had done this. For that, I didn’t want to show Diljit smoke, and he wouldn’t smoke anyway. So woh thoda tha problem. So we used the resort of this comic book style,” he added.

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Imtiaz has used animation in Amar Singh Chamkila throughout several of its key sequences, from depicting violence in Punjab to the visuals of him being crowned as the “roof breaker artiste”, where roofs would fall down because of overcrowding of fans.

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“He was called a roof-breaking artiste, which was a measure of his success and celebration. But when you shoot it in real life, it would be a very painful visual, of hundreds of people falling down and hurting themselves. How are we going to justify saying that this is a good thing. To make that pain not come out, we used animation over it. So, there were a few reasons why we used it. I was careful to create a mythology, and I felt this was a good style through which it can be created,” he added.

Amar Singh Chamkila has turned out to be a smashing comeback of Imtiaz Ali, who was previously going through a low phase with two consecutive films–Shah Rukh Khan starrer Jab Harry Met Sejal and Love Aaj Kla 2– bombing at the box office.

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