Who would have thought that Natty, a cinematographer-turned-actor, would make the most of Tamil cinema's storytelling shift from honest, heroic, and upright police stories to grey, grounded, and flawed portrayals of these officers? After Karnan and Maharaja, Natty is all set to don the khaki again for debut director Subramanian Rameshkumar's Right. "But this time around, the moral rectitude of my character doesn't come under question. I play a cop who has to decide his path when crisis strikes," says Natty as he explains his character in Right. He is joined by the veteran actor and producer Arun Pandian, who also plays a crucial role in the movie.
Playing both Kannabiran (Karnan) and Varadharajan (Maharaja) would have required research, might have resulted in the discovery of the innate greyness, and involved a lot of unlearning of the profession, especially the ideas inculcated by Tamil cinema. However, Natty believes that the police department, just like every other profession, has flawed people and thinks there is no necessity to single out a particular profession and villainize it. "I have met a lot of police officers, and there are some friends as well. They mean well. Even in the transport department, there are good drivers and rash drivers. There are fringe elements everywhere. So my experience in playing Kannabiran or Varadharajan did not change my perspective on police officers," remarks Natty. Interestingly, Arun Pandian points out that in recent decades there is a tendency to show the profession as glamorous, but Tamil cinema has always been vocal about the bad apples. "We did an Oomai Vizhigal almost 40 years ago, which also dealt with flawed policemen. In fact, there used to be a stock corrupt police character with a corrupt politician back in the day."
Right may be the first time Natty and Arun Pandian are collaborating on screen, but their relationship goes back decades, when the former was an assistant cameraperson. "I have worked on some of Arun Pandian sir's films. He is a simple person and interacts with everyone on the sets alike. He introduced me to a lot of international films. In the sets, he used to gather the ADs and assistant camerapersons after the day's shoot and handed us a VHS cassette and asked us to watch it. He was very particular about this and behaved with us like some film school professor (laughs). Also, he inspired a whole generation to maintain their physique," says Natty, to which Arun Pandian funnily adds that if he had gotten as much attention back then, he would have gone places. "I used to perform my own stunts. I used to dive into the water, not knowing if I would land in the water or hit a rock. If we had social media back then, who knows, I would have also worked in Hollywood," quips Arun Pandian.
Though Natty is now a busy actor, he always holds cinematography dear to him. In a bittersweet moment, he says that though he is not working on a lot of films now, he has substituted it with advertisement films. "I don't really feel too bad about not working on films as a DOP. To keep my passion for the camera intact, I still work on ad films. The drastic changes in the working style and demands kept to DOP are reasons why I am not signing a lot of films. I also reject films for the lack of a gripping story and those that have no excitement to offer me," elaborates Natty, and then adds that he is also expected to bear the brunt of someone else's bad professionalism. "As a part of the terms, I would be asked to take care of the photography alone and leave the rest to them. If I work on such films, I will damage the reputation I have earned over the years. If the final quality is bad, my work would be questioned, and then I cannot give explanations."
Buttressing his previous point, Natty says this has actually given him more time to listen to good scripts and launch emerging talents like Subramanian Rameshkumar, who was introduced by Natty as an assistant director and has also worked with Arun Pandian as an associate. "Right is produced by Subramanian's childhood friends, who believed in the project. Being a part of films for years, I may have agreed to do the film with the one-liner: What happens if the police station, which is supposed to safeguard the public, is itself in danger. But for them to be willing to invest takes courage. Right's success will provide an impetus not just for upcoming directors but also for emerging producers," adds Natty as he urges fans to support their film, with Arun Pandian, who is also a producer, making a comparison between the production scene of the 80s and the present. "Back then, to make a film, you just needed to squirrel away a little from your savings. Now, you may fall short even if you have pledged all your assets. Also, the filmmakers struggle to find a middle ground between making a film to cater to the dwindling attention span of the audience and to satiate their creative urges. We are at an important juncture to make the good films work. Right is one such film," Arun Pandian signs off.
