‘Options are just not working; people are not coming out.’
‘So what happens is, when you are not really sure, two things happen.’
‘If you release it (in theatres) and if the film doesn’t work, your OTT price also goes down.’
IMAGE: Taapsee Pannu in Ajay Bahl’s Blurr.
Ajay Bahl is happy with the response his latest film Blurr is getting on OTT.
“According to the changing times, OTT was the right way to go. It will have a longer shelf life there,” Ajay tells Rediff.com Contributor Mohnish Singh.
What kind of response have you received for Blurr?
To be honest, when you do something that is slightly off-kilter and not the way thrillers are done, you get a polarised response.
It’s bound to happen when you try to introduce something new to the audience.
But I am happy with the responses I am getting.
IMAGE: Taapsee Pannu with Ajay Bahl, next to her, and Team Blurr. Photograph: Kind courtesy Ajay Bahl/Instagram
Why did the makers release the film on an OTT platform instead of in theatres?
You know what’s going on, right?
Options are just not working; people are not coming out.
In a year, two films did well.
It might not be as expensive but it’s still an expensive film.
So what happens is, when you are not really sure, two things happen.
If you release it (in theatres) and if the film doesn’t work, your OTT price also goes down.
According to the changing times, OTT was the right way to go. It will have a longer shelf life there.
Blurr marks Taapsee Pannu’s production debut. How did you become a part of this film?
Vishal Verma is one of the producers of the film, who had acquired the rights to the Spanish film Julia’s Eyes.
Taapsee and I had been talking since Section 375 that we must do something together.
Vishal approached Taapsee first to be a part of it.
She saw the film and really liked it, so she came on board.
They had a list of directors they spoke about. Eventually, my name popped up and Taapsee said, ‘Yeah, let’s speak to Ajay.’
So Vishal met me, and I saw the film. Within a day, I was like, ‘Let’s do it.’
IMAGE: Gulshan Devaiah has a fun moment with Taapsee. Photograph: Kind courtesy Gulshan Devaiah/Instagram
What challenges do you face as a film-maker when you Indianise a foreign film?
First of all, you don’t want to lose the spirit of the original.
Julia’s Eyes is the story of an urban couple.
With this kind of subject, I don’t think we could have set it anywhere apart from the hilly terrain that it is already set in.
I did not want to lose out on the graphic elements of the original because that really appealed to me.
I thought this kind of urban couple in the wilderness would work best and also, it’s not that culture dependent.
If you see the film, it has these seven characters in it, and you don’t even get to know that what place it is.
You hardly see anybody else.
It’s very insulated from the outside world and I wanted to keep it like that.
IMAGE: A scene from Blurr.
What was the most challenging part of making Blurr?
It’s a film where the protagonist goes through extreme emotions, one after the other. There’s so much is going on in her life.
It’s a thriller. You cannot stop and then suddenly get into a place of drama.
You have to get that balance right.
Keep things moving, and yet, give a sense of what is happening internally to the character. That was a challenge for Taapsee as well as for me. Especially when she is blindfolded and has to work with body language only.
Section 375 was a very free-flowing, naturalistic, kind of film.
This is more of, you know, hyper-realism. It’s not very realistic in that sense and so, yeah, it was a new genre.
