Ram Gopal Varma’s drama Satya, which starred J. D. Chakravarthy, Urmila Matondkar, Manoj Bajpayee, Paresh Rawal, Aditya Srivastava
And Saurabh Shukla is back in theatres again after 27 years. Talking with Subhash K Jha, Manoj Bajpayee revisits Satya.
Manoj, how was the special screening of Satya last night?
It was a great screening actually, an amazing interaction when the entire press was there and also so many assistant directors and so many production people, some of the actors, Urmila and Chakravarti, Makrand Deshpande, all of us…Anurag Kashyap made it, Vishal Bhardwaj and yes, of course Ram Gopal Varma.
To be meeting them all together after so many years!
It was great meeting first of all everyone after such a long time. It really seemed to me as if there was no time lost, there was never a gap coming back together and really talking about all those things that could have contributed to making this cult of a film that Ram Gopal Varma has created. The energy was the same, it’s just that the few grey hairs on everybody’s scalp was quite evident.
But the conviviality was palpable?
Yeah, the entire, all the unit people, you know, they were feeling so, so happy coming together and celebrating this gem of a film which has changed the filmmaking in our country, which changed the industry completely.
Normally you don’t watch your own films?
I don’t watch my films. But I am glad I finally saw Satya with an audience. Sriram Raghavan, Raam Reddy, the new generation of the independent filmmaker, all of those people were, you know, present in the audience and the messages that I’ve been getting from the people who watched it is still the same. I mean, all those nice beautiful words reminded me of all those compliments that one has gotten twenty-seven years back. It’s not about those words, it’s also about a film which really truly, without any PR activity, really, you know, stood the test of time. And nobody has spent even a single penny on this, on this PR activity. People came in, all on their own. Nobody has been really managing it. So, according to me, this is the true testimony of a great film, which is still fresh, you know, looks so fresh, sounds so fresh.
What are the factors contributing to the abiding power of Satya?
It’s also because the energy of each and everyone who was involved in making it was so pure. And in the end, all I would say, I owe everything to this film, Satya. And thank you Ram Gopal Varma, for being the filmmaker that you’ve always been, keep inspiring us. We look up to you.
