'Eko' Explained: Bahul Ramesh Deconstructs the Layers of His Hit Thriller (Spoilers Ahead)

Writer-cinematographer Bahul Ramesh, fresh off the success of three back-to-back hits (Kishkindha Kaandam, Kerala Crime Files Season 2 and Eko), feels that the audiences have, more or less, acclimatised themselves to the fluidic style of his storytelling. They apparently also allow Bahul the liberty to write his films with secrets, hidden meanings and the ability to leave them hanging. He breaks down the thoughts that went behind the puzzling Eko and the many drafts that finally led to the version we now see.

Edited excerpts from a longer interview:

Let’s begin by talking about the title Eko. What does it mean? 

That’s simple. It’s just a variation of how we spell the word 'echo.' The structure of the movie itself is such that it’s about several different people with their respective histories, coming in search of a mysterious man named Kuriachan. We felt it would work, especially with that line on top.

At what stage did you add the caption “From The Infinite Chronicles Of Kuriachan” to this title? 

The working title was just “Chronicles of Kuriachan.” Strangely, it’s impossible for me to start writing when the text is just called Untitled”, so I need a title on the first page to get cracking.  

When you began to write Eko, had you then broken down the structure of the film to be a search for one man, with several people narrating their flashbacks to piece together this person?

Not at all. As usual, I did not have a structure, a plot or the whole story when I started writing. I’m absolutely blank when I start putting pen to paper. Everything I learn about the plot and my characters, I learn as I keep writing. The decisions are being made in real-time. What I started with was what you can call the film’s theme; it’s about the conflict between what we call protection and what we call restriction. Oftentimes, being protected can look a lot like being restricted. What if the dogs we call our guard dogs are imprisoning us rather than guarding us? That’s where it began.

Was it Kuriachan’s story, right from the beginning?

It wasn’t. This thought, I felt, came with its own set of ideologies and ironies. You could place that thought within the context of a relationship or in larger political themes. In the beginning, I’d wanted to set it in Travancore in the 18th century during the reign of Marthanda Varma's army. There was a clash between Marthanda Varma and Ettuveetil Pillamar, and I felt we could set it during that turmoil. But I wanted a character as mysterious as Kuriachan to be set at that period. 

What was your inspiration for his character?  

Hitler’s right-hand man was someone named Adolf Eichmann. He was a torturer. I imagined a character like that in Marthanda Varma's army. A man so peculiar that he would create his own dog squad for the first time in the world. Even in India, the first dog squad came up only in the 1930s. Instead of Kuriachan in the present version, the idea was to have the film be all about the man started this dog squad and of how there many people who come in search of him much later, if only to kill him for the crimes he’d committed earlier. 

Why didn’t you go ahead with the 18th century setting though? 

I hadn’t worked on it like a full screenplay then; I had written it out more like a short story. It was too big and expensive. I was even more nervous because the story isn’t formulaic or one that fit into a tested template. So I decided to keep scale much smaller to allow us the freedom we were taking such a risky subject. The lower your budget, we become free to express ourselves.

So, you decided to set it in the 70s or 80s?

No then I thought I could pull it off if we set it in the 1930’s. I was imagining a world like the one we saw in Ruskin Bond’s novels and I thought about that, especially like those stories about Jim Corbett. But as I wrote the very first scene, I wrote of this man arriving at an obscure village on a bullock cart. And then the logistical nightmare kept coming to my mind, yet again. The cost of bringing that cart, the cost finding a trainer for the bulls and then of the shoot on those days…so I immediately backtracked. The cost to bring a bullock cart itself was amounting to ₹2 lakh. From a bullock cart, I thought we would be better placed if we set it at a time when cars were still available, even if they were still old Ambassadors or Jeeps. I also didn’t want to specify a particular time period. 

What about the terrain? Did it have to be this remote? 

Yes, we needed to create that alienation. It needed to be surrounded by mountains, and it had to feel like an impossible place to get to. The story itself needed to take place in what we’d call a heightened reality. The only restriction was then to plant realistic characters and performances into this heightened reality. More than applying a lot of cinematic frames, we wanted to compose shots that were more candid, like how we’d see in films like Prestige or Children Of Men. 

I find several parallels between Eko and Kerala Crime Files. They are both about dog squads, and they are both about the search for a missing person. And yet when you see them, it’s hard to imagine they’re from the same writer. 

There are several common elements in both, but I feel the difference could be because of the setting. One is urban and contemporary, and Eko is rural and set several years ago. Even though we have now come to call my three scripts a part of the Animal Trilogy, I’d also felt that there was this undercurrent of the concept of freedom across all three scripts. I could even had called it the Freedom Trilogy. In Kishkinda Kaandam, the lead Appu Pilla (Vijayaraghavan) opts for a form of freedom in which he decides to live in his own reality. In Kerala Crime Files, we discussed characters like Ambili Raju and Ayyappan and themes of loyalties and slavery between them. In Eko, like I said, it was the two sides of protection looking a lot like restriction; that too has to do with freedom.   

Why did you decide to make all three a part of one trilogy, though?   

I think it gives these subjects more life. The spiritual essence of all three ideas needed to be the same for that, like three branches of a tree. It also urges people to go watch all three films as a part of a larger package. Even if you didn't like one of these, you still might appreciate the other two. As film students, we were always tempted to watch films together. 

How did you want to conclude the film? At least in your idea, did you want Kuriachan to be killed or for him to be entrapped for life?

I wanted him to remain alive, in the belief that he’s being imprisoned. Even the binoculars Mlathi Chedathi holds on to, was a part of the first draft. As I was writing the climax, the theme that kept playing at home was the Inception OST called 528491 when Cillian Murphy goes to meet his father. But for sure, I needed Kuriachan to remain alive at the end. I don't think I’ve kept the ending open... I tried not to spoon-feed in an obvious manner.

Have you thought of your next? Will that be a mystery too?

I haven’t thought of any ideas for now. The idea now is to take a break and spend time with family before writing it.