???- “Why?”, “what?” and “what the fuck?” answered

“If you make people think that they are thinking, they will love you; but if you really make them think, they’ll hate you.”    -Aristotle

“If you suck, be the first to admit; it puts your haters out of job”   -Anonymous

I get it, the movie is shit. I know, and I admit it. But this is not to justify why the movie is bad (If you really want to know, it was because I was ill equipped- technically and intellectually, the fact that you are reading this makes me a shitty director), no this is to let you know of the tiny details and the metaphors you would have missed. These little things are pretty much the only reason why we made this movie in the first place.

            Le me introduce you to the people in this movie first (the reason will be evident as you read on)

CAST & CREW:

            Written by and other behind the scenes work: Abhiram & Jeevan

Cast:

* Yeshwanth as the guy who breaks up with his girlfriend

            * Kusuma as the girlfriend

            * Giridhar as the guy with the broken leg

            * Chetan as the guy who knows stuff

            * Bharath as they guy who almost runs over Yeshwanth (and who provided the car)

            * Kridhnappa as the BBMP employee

1)      There are no references signifying which part has dual meanings and which does not

How it all began-

            Abhiram, my long time friend/ producer/ co-writer called me up one evening asking me if I’d be interested to make a short film for him. I had already written a script called Marma, a supernatural thriller, but that wasn’t going anywhere, so I agreed to do this for him.

            Although the concept itself was pretty good, it had a lot of content. A short film just wouldn’t do justice to it. So we stripped it down to its bare bones and reworked the details to make it fit for a short film. Three hours later, we had a decent outline for our untitled project. (Side note: We were just about wrapping up, when I got a call from Aditya. He asked me if I’d be interested to work in Rohit Padki’s Ashtralle Just Missoo- which was planned a 40 minute short film. I had to turn in down because of this one)

            I returned the next day, and we fixed it up some more, did a scene list. We toyed around with it, fixing any discrepancies, changing/ adding details. Somewhere along that process we decided to name it ‘???’. It is supposed to signify the helplessness and confusions of three protagonists (no, not those three).

We faced a bunch of problems when we were shooting, had to replace an actor after we had shot a fairly lengthy scene, finding the female lead was a tough job, we had to rewrite almost every scene the day before we were to shoot because we couldn’t keep up with the requirements (the carom sequence was originally planned in a pool parlor; fml). But those are for another post, maybe, maybe not.

What it is all about-

            Ok, the first thing you might (or might not) have noticed is that none of the characters names are revealed. I had written dummy names when I wrote the script, but none of the characters are addressed by name. Al the characters are anonymous representations of the three kinds of people, or rather three kinds of attitude people have towards the system.

Giridhar represents the majority of the people, who have don’t have a concrete idea of how things work in the system- his broken leg is a representation of his handicapped knowledge. They have a faint idea, maybe, but nothing significant, yet they are dissatisfied at the way the government functions. These folks only have a general perception of how the system works, and their information mostly comes from social medial rants and general strife among people.

            Chetan represents the small portion of people who have a better idea of the system, who know their way around and can get the work done without paying under the table. The kind who make things work in their favor by pure knowledge. Yes, such people do exist.

            Yeshwanth and Kusuma, represent the same kind of people. Yeshwanth is the kind of person who is against the whole idea of corruption, but is helpless, and Kusuma is the one who  thinks it is ok to go to any lengths to get their work done. “Their work” is the key word here. The ones who don’t see bribe as a vice, as long as it is just this once. They both are lovers, who complete each other, yin- yang, that kind of sappy thing.

Analysis:

            The opening sequence is my favorite. The continuity from the mid shot to the close up is probably the reason why, and that was all Yeshwanth by the way. I had no idea it would fit so well until I had started editing it. This was the last thing we shot, and I had about 12 minutes of footage. I had to discard them all because they were bad. Curses to the cameraman (that is also me only).

            I was forced to use a different camera for the next scene, which explains the fuck up. I hate this because this causes a lot of distraction to the audience, and is something I cannot afford, not in this movie at least. L cuts and J cuts baby! Yeah! That’s about the only coolest things in this scene. There was a cool dialogue Giridhar says in the end of this scene, which fits perfectly with the beginning of the next scene. I didn’t put it because it seemed too vulgar-ish.

            Notice how the entire scene is pixellated? That’s because I screwed up the white balance. I didn’t know the difference between white balance and filters, hence this goof up.

            Carrom sequence. The first scene I shot and edited. Opens with a RGV-esque shot.

            I fucked up the over the shoulder shots, royally. But the ending is quite ok, I think. A pan towards Yeshwanth, and a baby zoom just after Kusuma exits the frame would have been textbook execution. Alas, I had no clue about either of those back then.

            Check out the subtlety after Yeshwanth’s flashback. When they speak of Yeshwanth’s problems, Giridhar pots a coin, and when they speak of Kusuma, the coin misses. It adds to the scene, but that wasn’t planned.

            I am a sucker of silhouette shots. The BBMP scenes were shot to satisfy this carnal lust of mine. Also it is a tribute to M S Sathyu. Sathyu has this signature POV shot of the most prominent person in the scene- in the entire movie sometimes- the bank manager in Garam hawa, the minister in Bara or the Party head in Chitegu chinte. I have reversed this, with the POV being from the weakest person in the scene (and the movie). Plus that was the only way I could get that silhouette shot, with the window in the back. The silhouette shot also signifies the faceless- nameless civil employee we all love to hate. We only picture them as money hungry lazy buggers. We never picture them as normal people with a family, leading normal lives outside their jobs.

            Also as the movie progresses to the end, the cuts become far more abrupt and sudden, as if jolting the audience, waking them up if you may.

Finally: Why in monochrome? I wish I had an elaborate reason for this- to represent the bleak condition of human existence, to show how everyone is not just black and white but multiple (complex) shades of grey, I would have even taken "because I wanted it to look cool" Sadly it is none of that, it's just that I didn't know the difference between White balance and filters.  I used the wrong white balance presets (the pixellation in the scenes involving  Yeshwanth- Kusuma is because of this) and tried to fix it with this cheat.