Want my films to feel like experiences that completely absorb audience: Raam Reddy on 'Jugnuma'

NEW DELHI: For Raam Reddy, cinema is more than storytelling -- it’s about creating an immersive, almost theme park-like experience that transports audiences to a new world, a vision he hopes to bring to life with his new Manoj Bajpayee-starrer "Jugnuma: The Fable".

The film, which released in theatres on Friday, blends elements of magic realism and suspense to tell the story of a man and his family and the mysterious case of forest fires.

Reddy said his aim has always been to go beyond narrative and create films that absorb viewers so completely it feels like "a trip".

"I was very keen to create an immersive world. Like how you go to a theme park for a ride, I want my films to feel like experiences that absorb you so completely it’s almost like a trip. You get lost in that world-and honestly, that feeling is what made me want to become a filmmaker, even more than the act of telling stories.

"We often turn to cinema for escapism, but escapism doesn’t have to be shallow. It can be nuanced, layered, and enriching, while still transporting you away," the filmmaker told PTI in an interview.

Reddy made his directorial debut with "Thithi", the 2016 Kannada-language film that had two bagged awards at the Locarno Film Festival. It also won the National Film Award for Best Feature Film in Kannada. "Jugnuma" was selected in the encounters section at the Berlin International Film Festival last year.

While "Thithi" was a comedic tale of how three generations of men respond to the death of their 101-year-old patriarch, Reddy said he wanted his second movie to explore suspense, mystery, and elements of magic.

"The challenge of blending suspense, magic and in a way realism to heighten the magic even further, that really excited me. I went about trying to see where's the best setting in which I can do that. And the Himalayas immediately kind of drew me for the aura and the magic of the place. I let the place and life kind of influence where the story should go."

During his maiden Himalayan excursion, the director fought a forest fire with the locals and that gave him the narrative hinge to build a story that's set in Indian Himalayas in 1989 and follows Dev (Bajpayee), who discovers mysteriously burnt trees scattered throughout his sprawling fruit orchard estate. As fires continue to break out despite his efforts to prevent them, Dev begins to see himself and his family in a new light.

The filmmaker said he was conscious not to go overboard with the magical elements of the film.

"What I love about the genre is that it's so malleable that each individual artist can interpret it how they feel. There's like this beautiful slider. It can start at realism and head all the way to fantasy, and you can place yourself anywhere along that slider with your vision. I have a particular way of finding that balance... With this film, magic is used, I wouldn't say sparingly, but it's used realistically."

Reddy also revealed that he shot the movie on 16mm format to capture the aura of the period and to lend the film a tactile, immersive quality that mirrors the texture and unpredictability of the story.

"I was keen to use the medium that was available in 1989, which was 16mm. So that immediately sells the period in a way that's authentic. Secondly, I believe art is a form of transference.

"With film, imperfections emerge: dust, scratches, the texture of the reel, especially toward the end. Those details carry a kind of artistry, capturing emotion more directly, as if consciousness itself is being transferred into each frame. It’s preserved forever, frame by frame. Digital, by contrast, just feels different."

He also loved the rigor of shooting on film.

"If you look back at the Hitchcock era, or even the history of cinema in general, film always came with a certain discipline. Because it’s expensive and every reel counts, there’s no room for waste. That pressure creates focus, and it feeds into every department on set-- everyone is more present and invested. As a director, that’s very exciting, even if it’s also stressful."

Growing up, cinema was never part of Reddy's world and he only stumbled upon it in his twenties after journeys through poetry, photography, music and prose.

"I barely had any link to cinema. I would just watch films half asleep. In fact, I would watch films so passively that I often didn’t remember the story. I’d be asking the person next to me. So it wasn’t a part of my universe at all. I was much more of a poet."

Reddy, an economics graduate from St Stephen's College, recalled writing a novel about magic realism in college.

"But I didn’t go down the whole publishing route because I was too anxious-too itching to make films. But that book is actually my real debut. It’s called 'It’s Raining in Maya'. So this was my progression.

"Then I had this epiphanous moment when I was trying to figure out what to do... It hit me-that all these interests I had harboured individually over my growing years could come together in one single medium, which is film."

For him, storytelling came later-what drew him first, and what still drives his passion, is the medium itself.

"You can access all those layers in one place via the vehicle of a story. And I thought: Oh my God, what better way to spend a creative life? It’s as challenging and as multidimensional as it can be. So I got into it individually and that’s why I’m so passionate about the medium," he said.

If there’s one thing that Reddy wants "Jugnuma" to provide to the audience, it would be "a sense of hope".

"The world feels heavy right now, things don’t always flow freely. If I can, I want to undo some knots, touch an inner chord. The whole film was built so that by the end, there’s a feeling of lightness and freedom that you can gain something by losing something. You don’t always have to be in control; sometimes letting go can be just as powerful. I hope the audience feels that."

"Jugnuma: The Fable" also stars Deepak Dobriyal, Priyanka Bose, Hiral Sidhu, Awan Pookot and Tillotama Shome. It is presented by Academy Award Winner Guneet Monga and Anurag Kashyap.