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‘Odum Kuthira Chadum Kuthira’ Will Have a Mix of Deadpan and Slapstick: Director Althaf Salim
The director of the much-loved dark comedy 'Njandukalude Naatil Oridavela' returns to direct after eight years in a "Jason Reitman" kind of film
Director Althaf Salim needs to recalibrate before sitting down for this interview. He’s been shuffling between the sets of two movies as an actor, Pluto and Mollywood Times, as he tries to squeeze in time to promote his second directorial, Odum Kuthira Chadum Kuthira. He’s just a week away from the film’s release, which is led by Fahadh Faasil and Kalyani Priyadarshan. But he’s ‘pretty sure’ he’s not nervous. There’s just a little bit of last-minute sound design work that needs polishing, but he appears to be satisfied with the film. Even otherwise, he’s happy to be acting in back-to-back films during this final phase of release.
“It’s a happy distraction in one sense,” he says, explaining his mindset to The Hollywood Reporter India. “If I weren’t acting, I fear that I may have gone into some unhealthy levels of perfectionism.”
He’s curious to see how people will perceive his second film. Unlike his debut, one of Malayalam cinema’s first attempts at a wry, deadpan dark comedy, his second film will be more pacy, with a humour that’s more slapstick than deadpan. “It’s a style of comedy that appeals to a larger pool of audience. Plus, it’s important that my producer makes his money back. Just because I love a certain brand of comedy, it’s not necessary that the audience needs to love it. At least, that’s my reading of our viewers.”
This brand of humour he’s obsessed with aligns with the sensibilities of Alexander Payne and Woody Allen. Payne, especially, is Althaf’s biggest inspiration. As he was in the process of mounting Njandukalude Nattil Oridavela (2017), he shared the DVD of Payne’s The Descendants (2011) as the reference point. “The humour I was attempting was subtle, the kind that comes from between the lines. So I showed The Descendants to Nivin Pauly to get him on board. As for Saiju Kurup, I got him to watch Payne’s Nebraska (2013). Vineeth Sreenivasan, among the first to watch my film, said it even reminded him a lot of the mood of The Descendants, even though he did not know I was a fan.”
But he’s quick to remind us that Odum Kuthira... is neither Payne nor Woody Allen. “It’s more Jason Reitman,” he says. “But my next, with Naslen, is going to be a much darker comedy, along the lines of Coen Brothers’ Fargo (1996). It’s the only film that sucks me into its world, each time I watch it. There’s no film like it.”
As a director, Althaf understands the privilege he’s been able to afford because of his parallel acting career. “Because directing is not my primary source of income, I now direct only when I love a script. If I weren’t acting, I might have had to keep directing to make ends meet. But I love this balance.”
He recalls the instance when director-turned-actor Lal explained the occupational hazard of a director becoming a busy actor. “He warned me of the comfort zone you get as an actor and of how hard it is to switch back into directing.”
Not that Althaf ever switched off his direction. He could be on sets as an actor almost every week and still be aware of the latest happenings in the filmmaking world. “My only regret is the schedule. Like any other worker, I leave for a shoot at 7.30 AM and I return by 9 PM. I get very little time to watch movies anymore, and when I do, I often must wrestle with my young son to make sure he doesn’t get the screen time. Back when I was getting into movies, I couldn’t sleep without having watched at least two films a day.”
That’s the obsessive movie-watching pattern he’s looking forward to after the release of Odum Kuthira next week. But now, it’s acting that has taken up the lion’s share. “I’m still unsure what Alphonse (Puthren) saw in me to cast me in that comic role in Premam (2015). Maybe it’s my habit of coming up with counters each time a friend says something. It’s been a habit right from childhood, and he may have spotted something funny in it. But after I became an actor, I’ve had to swallow my instinct to reply with counters. I don’t want to offend anyone, and I find myself censoring a lot of the thoughts that come to mind. Either way, I feel full of all the comments I’ve had to swallow.”