History Revisited

Om Puri’s voiceover giving information about the film’s historical places, that is narrated after the film’s climax, was very interesting.

It was very important to put that information. It makes the audience realise that the film is a true story and the places mentioned still exist. Everything happened within a radius of 30 miles near Anandpur (near Chandigarh). The banks of the river where Guru Gobind Singh’s family was separated, the forest where Guru Saab slept under a tree and the gurudwara where they were jailed, are all still there. When I sat down to write it, I didn’t know much about the history and wondered why nobody bothered to tell the story, which further determined me to proceed.

A slate at the beginning of the film says that all the people who dubbed for the film chose to stay anonymous. Do you think if you had mentioned the actors who dubbed for the film, it could have been marketed in a bigger way?

People did ask me why I didn’t get the dubbing done from renowned actors which could have fetched the film more publicity. But I didn’t want anyone to associate the voice of the characters to any actor. That was the worst thing I could have done to the film. The characters are heroes themselves and do not need to be identified with anyone else. In fact there was a lot of pressure to do that as I would have got more investors and it would have also helped me market it. But I did not want to do that as I wanted to stay true to my film and tell the story I wanted to without over dramatising it.

Would you agree with the criticism that the quality of the animation of Chaar Sahibzaade was not up to the mark?

Have you seen the animated film Tintin? Like my film, Tintin too was photorealistic but the budget of the Steven Spielberg directed film was 300 million dollars or Rs 1800 crores! The budget of my film was less than one per cent of that and my quality was 40 per cent at par with the Tintins. So instead of saying that the animation is not as good as a Hollywood film, give me credit for what I’ve achieved. Give me 300 million dollars and I will make a better film than Tintin. Indian animation films have certain limits on recovery so we cannot go beyond a certain budget, but I have spent about 20 crores on the film. It is the first photo realistic film in India while Hollywood has been doing it for so many years.

What does a film-maker need to keep in mind while making an animation film?

The one thing that enhances animation is the sound. Since the character in an animation film is not a pure actor and just a model who is programed to act, the sound of the film is a major factor that contributes in bettering the film. So we have to ensure that the sound quality, whether it is the songs, the background score or the dialogues; they have to enhance the performance of the animated characters to the standard that I expect from my actors. Watch a film without the background music and then with it, and see how the emotions of anger, fear and love are heightened.