A Dream Rooted in Despair

Thalluri’s innovative 2:37, a privately-funded film about six teenagers that ends in a horrific suicide, is being hailed as one of the most exciting debut efforts to emerge from Down Under in a long while.

Thalluri, whose doctor parents migra-ted to Australia from south India in 1980, is already in talks with a Hollywood major for his second feature film. “It is all very confidential at the moment. When I am allowed to talk about it, I will,” says the writer-director.

Thalluri’s dark teen drama is one of seven debut features that have made it to the 22-strong Un Certain Regard section this year. 2:37 was shot in four weeks on a tight budgetwithacast madeuplargelyof inexperienced actors.

“I first encountered suicide when a friend decided life was too unbearable,” saysThalluri.“Two days later, I received a videotape in the mail. It was a video sui-cide note.” Back then, he had viewed the suicide as“unfair, selfish, and weak”. Only six months later, Thalluri, weighed down by the burdens of life, attempted to kill himself by consuming 14 Codein tablets and a bottle of Jim Beam whisky.

He says:“Iwas upagainstmyriadprob-lems— my kidneys were acting up, my eye stabbed in an attack five years earlier needed another surgery, and I had broken up with my girlfriend. I had slipped into deepdepression.I feelstrangesayingthis, nowthat I’m as happy as one can be—sui-cide was my only option at that point.” Incredibly, the deeper he sank into the abyss, the closer he got to the realisation of his childhood dream. Thalluri always wanted to be a filmmaker.“I believe film-making and story-telling are ingrained in one’s soul,” he says.

“It came to fruition when I was 15 and was attacked by a bunch of rowdies. I was stabbed in my right eye and bashed in the head.Iwentfrom beingscienceandmath-minded to being creative,” saysThalluri.“I haven’tbeenableto stopwritingsince;the desiretotell storiesburnsfromwithin.” It was while recovering from the scars left behind by the suicide attempt that Thalluri wrote the first draft of 2:37 (then called AllinaDay) in 36 hours flat.

About 2:37, he says: “The story unfolds on anordinarydayin school,filledwiththe mundaneactivitiesof schoollife…theau-dience sees the day from the perspectives ofeach character…highlightingthatprob-lems as seemingly petty as relationship troublesare justaslikelyto driveonetosui-cide as somethinghorrificasrape.”

Thalluriislargelyself-taught.“Igrewup watching films from India, especially reli-gious ones. One film I remember is Bhakta Prahlad. Other than this, I didn’t watch too much. It is only recently that I began to broaden my cinematic scope. I guess I am theoppositeof acinephile,”hesays. Says Thalluri: “I think my lack of cine-matic knowledge helps me as I’m not trapped in preconceived notions of what should be in a film and what shouldn’t be.

I just do what feels right.” Where does India figure in his life? “I love India. It is the land from which one of the strongest cultures on earth originates. One day I hope I’ll bring that culture to the world. In fact, I have always dreamt of do-ing a versionoftheRamayana.”

Thalluri has “a lot of family” here and visits India regularly. Chances are we will see more of him in the years ahead.