THE CHANGING FACES OF CINE TECHNOLOGY: Looking back, looking ahead
AMIT KHANNA, the multi-faceted former Plus Channel boss, currently co-chairman, the entertainment committee of FICCI, traces the evolution of the motion picture, and takes a peek into the crystal ball, to predict what the future holds for movie-buffs...

Suresh Gopi, the national award winner, is also Kerala’s superstar. His forte is action, mostly the roles of an angry cop. His latest starrer Satyameva Jayate is a hit. In this film he plays a cop who refuses to play ball with the politicians and thereby misses his promotions and even loses his fiancee. The success of this film, at a time when hits are a rarity for any star, should have cheered up any actor but not Suresh who appears to be very disappointed. He feels he has nothing to cheer about. Says Suresh:”The film could have been directed in a better way. A few changes in the scenes and it would have made a world of difference. In one scene I was asked to shower abuses but I refused. At another time, I said that I would shower abuses. It was the scene where I pull Spadikam George towards me and start abusing. This was the scene which got popular. What can I do when I am told to play the stereotyped role in film after film? Can’t the cop do something different? No doubt, director Viji Thampi has done a good job in etching out the characters but it needs guts to deviate from the usual job.”

Today, Suresh’s films have a dubbing market outside Kerala and especially in Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu. He has carved out a fan-following for action films packed with punchy dialogues. However, the actor in him is now feeling unsatisfied with the success that is coming to him. “When I refused to take the stengun to shoot down villains in Kaliyattom, didn’t the film run? It even bagged the national award. Everybody said that I am a dead man but didn’t I prove them wrong? I play the double role of brothers in Randam Bhavam. One of them is a soft guy, while the other is a tough one. The soft guy gets killed as he is mistaken for the tough guy who keeps mum and acts as the soft guy. At home, too, he behaves like the soft guy with his parents and that is when he realises that his parents loved both the sons equally. I am happy with director Lal Jose who knows what he wants. I have high hopes on this film. And I am sure it will get me the national award,” hopes Suresh. Yet another film he is banking on is the Sidiq-Lal film which is to be launched soon. He has also signed Shaji Kailas’s Vijaykanth starrer Vanchinathan and Thina with Ajith. Earlier, he had turned down several Tamil and Telugu films but now he plans to accept good ventures in both the languages.

Today, the angry young actor has added a new dimension by playing a crusader’s role in public life. He was the only artiste to come from Kochi to Madurai to participate in the Kargil fund raising show of Tamil film artistes and organised a similar show in Thiruvananthapuram. The show was not without its share of controversies and posters came up saying that he was working against the Malayalam Artistes Association (AMMA). Undeterred, he went ahead. “Why do you think the public came forward for Kargil? The jawans fought bravely for our country. So all we can do is to contribute to such causes,” says Suresh.

Recently, Suresh wanted to go to Mangalore by the Thiruvanthapuram-Delhi Rajdhani train. But at the counter, he was told that he could buy a ticket to Cannanore and have it extended to Mangalore where the train ends. But when he boarded the train, the TT told him to buy a ticket upto Delhi because he couldn’t issue a ticket only to Mangalore. But Suresh refused to pay for a berth which would go vacant from Mangalore to Delhi. “I am a tax payer and will not allow such nonsense,” he said and gathered the public at the station and, in protest, decided to sleep on the tracks. “I told my people to phone the TV channels and the press. That is when Tomin Thankcheri, SP of RPF, told me that I could pay the fare only upto Mangalore and literally pushed me into the train. But it was later that I realised that I should not have boarded the train because I realised later that the system would continue unless someone protested against it. I have requested the MPs in Kerala to raise the issue in Parliament. Similarly, the yard near my house became a garbage dumping ground. When my daughter was infected with fever, it was found that there was a dead rat in the water tank placed there.

After a lot of hue and cry, a lorry came to clear the junk. It became a big issue and thus the garbage yard was finally removed. I am now planning to donate Rs 2 lakhs from my own pocket to the Trivandrum General Hospital where a report highlighted the sufferings of patients while the ministers go abroad for treatment. I want to be a catalyst in making my kind of people in the film industry to do something good for the public. We don’t realise that we have goodwill of the public. During shootings, I have personally requested the public politely to allow us to shoot, and they have complied. Public awareness in me developed because of scriptwriter Ranji Panicker. He planted in me the thoughts of rebelling against bad practices in society.

I started practising them myself slowly I am getting used to the idea of being a crusader. And I want others, too, to realise that they also can do good deeds for society in their own small way. The shanti yatra in Cannur can be cited aa an example. The whole place was reeking with violence. When I took the initiative to conduct a shanti yatra, everybody said that it would be a disaster. Chief minister Nayanar would call me almost everyday. Actually, till date there had never been a political murder in that area and if the violence was not controlled, it would have been disastrous to the state. So when the yatra was a success, I was congratulated even by those who had predicted it’s failure. What I mean to say is that we have to do something to bring peace to society. Actually, I am very scared of violence but when there is injustice, I cannot sit back and relax,” says a seething Gopi.

On the acting career front, Suresh plans to do a film in Tamil which will be socially stirring and will get him an award in a language other than his mother tongue. “I am very fluent in Tamil since my childhood. My mother used to take telephone calls from Tamil filmmakers. My father was a distributor of Tamil films. Later on, I spent sometime in Madras and so I can read and write Tamil very fluently. I gave a lengthy dialogue in a Tamil film directed by Sibi, and that too without any prompting,” says Gopi. Unfortunately, that film, Amethipoonga, was shelved.

On the personal front, Suresh is a happy man. “My wife and children lead a very peaceful and contented life and will continue to do so because I have done more good than harm and all this will pass on to my family. I have never given up my personal self to the industry and it stays as it should. Otherwise, I would have lost my personal self and lost the ability to react as a human being. I was pained when at the time of death of my father there were very few persons from the film industry. The people who thrived on me and who I thought were my friends did not turn up but at the same time my house was flooded with politicians. Maybe, if I had been a filmi guy, I would not have reacted but then my personal self is still intact and I don’t want to give it up,” observed Suresh, who is now getting ready to adjust his dates with the Tamil film producers, who pay, and the Kerala producers, who leave him high and dry .

Ayyappa Prasad