Sivabalan Muthukumar interview: On Kavin’s ‘Bloody Beggar’ and the quest to make a ‘correct’ film

Debutant director Sivabalan Muthukumar speaks about conceiving ‘Bloody Beggar,’ casting Kavin as a crooked beggar, lessons from his journey with Nelson Dilipkumar, and the kind of filmmaker he aspires to be

Sivabalan Muthukumar wants to say and do everything the ‘correct’ way. You ask the debutant director the question cinephiles often dread — of the films that best define the film lover in them — and he struggles to settle with a finite number of titles. His list stretches from Life Is Beautiful and Gnana Oli to Roman Holiday and Bharatha Vilas, but he doesn’t seem quite satisfied with his response. Sivabalan wishes to speak about himself, his influences, and his journey into films in the most honest way possible. And you also see this quest for perfection when he talks about making his debut film, Bloody Beggar, which is set to release on Deepavali.

Headlined by Kavin, the film is produced by director Nelson Dilipkumar, who Sivabalan assisted for over a decade.

Excerpts

Joining Nelson sir was accidental; I wanted to make a film and thought I knew everything about films. A cinematographer I worked with for an advertisement advised me to join Nelson sir as an AD. But I soon realised that I had a lot to learn. The way Nelson sir saw commercial cinema was eye-opening. Even back then his ideas were quite wacky and he knew how to connect with the audience. But watching someone so talented wait so long for his break felt disheartening. That is why when he got a break in 2017 with Kolamaavu Kokila, it was like a huge boost of confidence for all of us.

I tried to pitch this story many times but got turned down. At one point, after many such attempts, I started analysing how I could do it right. With every rejection, you learn to objectively look at why the script wasn’t selected by the producer. I kept reworking and I wanted to do this film somehow because I believed that it would give a fresh experience to the audiences.

We coined the term commercial cinema because these films weren’t restricted to a genre. In Tamil, commercial cinema took an all-new path in the early 2010s, thanks to filmmakers like Nalan Kumarasamy, Pa Ranjith and Karthik Subbaraj. Bloody Beggar stemmed from my wish to do one such experiment in commercial cinema as it isn’t restricted to one specific genre.

Nelson sir is someone who, when it comes to cinema, wouldn’t do favours out of friendship. Since a film will reach a wide audience, he values the reputation he’s built in the industry. So he is particular about the quality of the film. When I first narrated the script to him, I only wanted to get his opinion, and maybe, put me in touch with a producer. After listening to the story, he understood that translating this to screen needed a good production team with good story sense. That’s why he chose to produce it himself. Once we locked the hero and the shooting schedules, he let me do my own thing.