Amar Kaushik, the director of movies like Bhediya, Bala, Stree and most recently Stree 2 is what you would call a complete movie buff. He has grown up watching movies, he lives movies, breathes movies, and even makes movies!
When you first start talking to Amar Kaushik, it is difficult to imagine this soft-spoken man as the director of movies like Stree, Munjya and the current reigning blockbuster Stree 2. You would imagine him to direct a gentle romance rather than a horror comedy. But then appearances can be deceptive. When he gets talking, his tales can completely captivate you and then you realize what makes him such a great story teller.
Some excerpts:
What are your earliest memories of your childhood?
My father was a forest ranger. When he was posted in Arunachal Pradesh, we used to hire VCRs and watch films. We always had electricity outages. So, we used to finish one film in three days depending on the electricity. So, when I would watch the movie, it would stay with me for all the time. I remember watching movies like Khoon Bhari Mang, Maine Pyaar Kiya, and all those Hindi classical, 90s films.
So, did your time there influence the movies that you have made so far?
Yes, my movie Bhediya has a lot of influence from that part because I have lived near jungles and watched my father. At that time, he had to battle a lot of smuggling of wood and trees. So, I did use a lot of those memories in Bhediya.
What about Stree and Munjya? Where did those movies come from?
These movies have been inspired a lot by Kanpur, where I did my college. Things like friendship of friends, the small town environment, how friends keep talking for hours about the same thing, how in every group there is a person who gives of gyan, how every little thing is blown into a big thing.
Let us talk about the Stree movies. In the first one, the Stree abducts the men and in the second one, the women are being abducted. How did you come about the idea for the second one?
This was the demand of the script. In the first one, Stree has left, so what was next? Niren Bhatt, the writer and I had a lot of discussions. In the first part, we already had established the back story of why Stree was killed and how she comes back to exact vengeance from those who killed her. So we decided to bring back the character who had killed her and whom she had killed in return by chopping off his head. So, we got this character called Sarkata. He was someone who could not handle modern women and believes that women should be subjugated and enslaved.
So, he comes back as a ghost and starts abducting those women who were modern in their thinking. But it takes time for the townspeople to realize that someone is abducting the girls. Initially, everyone thinks that since the girls were modern, they were simply running away in pursuit of better opportunities. The irony was that in the first part, when the boys were disappearing, everyone knew that they were being abducted by Stree but in the second part when the girls were disappearing, no one thought that someone was abducting them. So our film starts from that point where we see that the Sarkata has captured this girl and taken her to his realm by breaking the wall of her house in the process. It is then everyone realizes that the girls are not running away but they are being abducted. And that’s how the story started. We then started developing the characters integrating the old stories and tried to figure out who would rescue these women and who Shraddha Kapur’s character was. Every answer came after that.
The VFX in Stree 2 are even better than the first part. How did that happen?
We used to see a lot of foreign movies with such amazing effects and often get frustrated about why can’t we do it in Indian cinema. These effects demand a lot of money and obviously, one doesn’t have that much money because the collections are not that much. So, you need to be smart enough to invest your energy and money in small sequences and show parts of the entity. Sometimes, you show the head, and sometimes you show the hand or the leg in small sequences throughout the movie to create the mystery and so that you can spend more money on making the climax grand. Yes, it has been a gradual learning process and now we have an excellent VFX team. For each scene, we had a lot of discussions. For example, in the scene where Shraddha Kapoor gets into the body of Rajkumar Rao, I used the concept of Ardnarishwar but I wanted to do it differently. In most movies, we see that once the ghost gets into the body, you just see the other person and not the ghost. I wanted to see both of them even though she entered his body. So that was something we experimented in VFX.
So, how do you create the balance to enhance your horror elements without overshadowing the comedy parts?
When it comes to horror comedies, we are very clear that if this is horror, then we should treat this as a proper horror sequence. We should not buffoon this. We should go full horror in those things. And people should feel that. And then comedy should come very organically from that scene. It’s a very difficult thing. Actually, while doing such scenes of horror, one has to be serious. And then you also have to be aware of the kind of mood on the sets. For example, in the case of horror, no one should laugh or smile. Then I put something in between that sequence where humor comes from. For example, lets say everyone is quiet in a scene and then someone will suddenly say ‘Bhago’ and his way of running will be very funny. Or maybe they are running and someone has said something and the other person reacts to it, which can be very funny and then they realize that they are being pursued by the ghost and they start running again. So, it’s these little things that strike a balance between horror and comedy. So, first you need to get it down on paper and then handle all the sequences on a scene-by-scene basis.
Laughter is probably one of the most difficult things to do. While shooting do you have a measure of how would the final scene be? Whether the intended humour will make people laugh or not.
I go by my instinct. I keep looking at my script and monitor. And the scenes are shot quite organically. One character says something and the other one replies. So, you have to take shots with three different cameras. But then the magic also lies in the editing. How you will cut the scene, how you will edit it out, where you have to stop the punch where you have to make the music stick, where you need silence, all those things add to that horror. If you’re just standing and saying the lines, but the reaction isn’t correct, or the music isn’t correct, or the situation isn’t correct, or the camera angle isn’t correct, then it doesn’t work. But when everything comes together, obviously you need the best of the actors to do comedy. The way they react to the dialogue, they have to keep on repeating every time. For example, if there are five takes or ten takes, they have to keep on repeating the same energy, the same joke in the same manner. So you have to have very great actors to do comedy. And then there are some other aspects, like the music, how to sound, how to edit. So when the public sees all of this, they enjoy it. That’s interesting. Because you say a joke, so you have to say it once and laugh. How do you make them laugh again? How do you do this And then you have to ask yourself, yes, this will work, this won’t work. Ultimately depends on the director’s instinct.
When you do a movie or an artwork, it’s like your own child. Don’t you get biased towards it? Like how do you develop an objective view?
One understands these things. Sometimes what happens is, the actor is not comfortable while saying that line. It all depends on how that line is coming out of his mouth. So the actor has to be very comfortable while saying that line. You need to understand every joke’s germ. Why is this joke coming out? Sometimes what happens is, you’ve written it well, but when you say it, it doesn’t work. Then you need to, as a director, you change a few things, change a few lines, and then change the mood, change the lines and the way it is to be said. Like how to say it. This isn’t working, let’s say this. Then you develop by gelling up with the actors, that this isn’t working, let’s do something more. And then they give you a character-related something.
You’ve had the same actors for the two movies. Have the actors also helped you by evolving into their characters? For example, there’s Shraddha Kapoor, or there’s Rajkumar Rao. He probably knows more about Vicky because he’s lived it. So, does that help the director?
Yes, obviously. The actors know these things. With the actors, like Vicky and Jana, they know their characters. So, it is very easy for them to just come and start doing the same thing. Get into the skin of the character. And they’ve lived the characters for the last five years. They know that character very well. But after that, you have to stop them from overdoing anything because there is a chance of that too.
But you’ve used a lot of legends. People are bringing it up on the internet that there’s a British Army officer in Lansdowne whose head was chopped off and he roams around as a headless ghost. Did you do any research on this?
No, not at all. In the film when Chanderi Puran is being narrated by Rudra Bhaiya, it was said that Stree came back and chopped off the head of the person who murdered her. So when he comes back, his whole body can’t come with his head. His head will have to be shown as separated from the body.
Any scary incidents on your film set while filming? Did anything happen?
Yeah, a little bit. Whenever we go for a shoot, we go to locations where there are spooky locations. Because it makes our work easier. I intentionally ask the team to look for spooky locations. So when the actors reach there, they get to know the stories of the place and obviously, they are scared and when they shoot the scene, they look scared. So half the work is done!
You didn’t get scared while making the film?
Yeah, but that’s what I made the movie. To exorcise my fear!
Normally, in every movie, there is a point when people see their mobile phones because the sequences get repetitive. How did you ensure that the audience remained interested?
This is what my agenda has been whenever someone watches my movie, they should always remain on the edge. They should be so involved that they don’t want to miss any dialogues. So, I try to pace the movie in such a way that my audience should always be engrossed in the movie completely because I get irritated when someone is looking at their mobile in the middle of the movie.
To be continued………..
This article by Shailaza Singh appeared in Rashtradoot Newspaper’s Arbit Section on September 5, 2024
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