Kozhikode: In 2023, Oscar-winning sound designer Resul Pookutty made his debut as a director with Otta, a Malayalam film following the lives of two young men who run away from their homes. It is based on S. Hariharan’s book Runaway Children. Hariharan, a successful businessman, also runs an NGO that rehabilitates children who run away from home.
Pookutty won the Oscar for best sound mixing in 2009, for Slumdog Millionaire. He has worked across different languages, as a sound director for movies like Saawariya, Enthiran, English Vinglish, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, Highway, Pathemari, Pushpa and many more.
While at the Kerala Literature Festival, Pookutty spoke to The Wire about his directorial debut, the times we live in and his plans for the future. Edited excerpts from the interview follow.
What inspired you to move to directing? And how did you choose the book on which to base your first movie?
So you always wanted to be a filmmaker – that’s why you went to film school. Sound was only a way to get into the institute. Like every FTII graduate, I also nurtured the ambition to be a feature filmmaker – even if I’m a bad one. At least now I can die as a feature filmmaker.
I’ve been planning a couple of films. My first film was supposed to be a Hindi film, but that didn’t happen. For various reasons – political and other reasons. So I chanced upon this person, Hariharan, who wrote this book. I was invited for a function where they reunite children who have run away from home with their families. They rehabilitate them. So I went to this function and I saw this man jumping around, doing everything. He was introduced to me by my brother’s friend. So the following week he came to my place with his book, and also a written script. I didn’t like the way the book was interpreted. I didn’t read the book – I kept talking to him about his life. What I was thinking was, see a film is not a book. There has to be something that goes beyond the book. I wanted to know about his life, what it is that makes him who he is.
He came from a very traditional Brahmin family from Palakkad. He had his issues with his father, so he ran away. There was a girl who loved him very dearly. But he thought he couldn’t relate to her, she was from a very traditional Brahminical family and he wanted to be free. Three times he ran away from home; I kept asking him why he ran away. He said, ‘Freedom. A sense of freedom.’ So that was one point that struck me. And this girl. I asked him, when you came back and became what you became, did you ever meet her? He said she’s his best friend now. But he never got married to her, though she was in love with him. She always looked at his life in wonderment, this boy who ran away at the age of 8, then the age of 13, then the age of 20…she always had this fascination about him. So that was one aspect.
At the age of 20, he ran away and went to Chennai. There he met this slightly older man. You know when you’re young and jubilant, you need an old guy in your life, a friend, who will put some sense into you. Looking back at his life right now, I realise that this man paved the foundation for his life. In whatever little way, in the short span of time they were together. I asked him, now that you’ve become a billionaire and have offices all across India – he has 8,000 employees – I asked him, have you ever traced this man? Have you ever spoken to him? He said, I went once to the place where he lived, but everything had changed. So no. I never found him. So that struck me also.
I decided the film can be a letter written to this friend, who he wants to find now. If he can get Raju [the older man] back in his life through this film, I’ll be very happy. So I thought of devising the film as a letter written to Raju, and an unwritten letter to the woman who loved him.
Our first rebellion as teenagers is always against our parents. Our rebellion starts at home. And we as parents also misinterpret teenagers’ sense of freedom as rebellion, and we get worried that they will do bad things in life. So the film is a complex structure, about these two men’s journey. But it doesn’t participate or judge, the film just watches. It shows life as it is. It’s an emotional rollercoaster ride for Hari, through four decades of his life.
How did he react to it?
He loved it. People who have seen the film have loved it. The thing is that not many people came to see the film, so I didn’t love that part. But now it will come to OTT platforms, hopefully more people will watch it then.
You’ve worked across industries, across languages. You were saying your Hindi film didn’t get made because of political reasons. Do you see a difference between what can and can’t be said in different industries?
Absolutely. Everything is dictated by the time that we’re living in. Artists are people who either foresee this time, or bend against it. I am not an activist, so I am waiting for the right time. My story is still relevant. The films I want to make are about humanness. For me that is the biggest emotion. That is the biggest language. It cuts across all languages, it cuts across all the sounds of languages. So I am still waiting.
In your work as a sound designer, does the language of the film make a difference?
For me, it is just another sound. Language is another sound.
Is there another directorial film from you in the pipeline?
We are planning a couple of things. I’m reading scripts, some interesting stuff has come to me.
Do you know what language it will be in?
I have a British film in the offering, two Hindi films, a Malayalam film that I am developing. I really want to work in my language; I have a command over it, I write in it. But I also know Hindi very well, I know English. So for me language is not a barrier. If [Jafar] Panahi can make a Spanish film, I think this should be easy…
