Conversations with Mani Ratnam

by Baradwaj Rangan

I think a film has to be good, regardless of how it is made. Just because something is personal and caters to a niche, it doesn’t become a good film. A lot of mediocre films get made under the name of art cinema. If you’re not trying to communicate to a large number of people, that’s fine. But the ones made for the niche audience should still hold water. The content and form should be good enough. If I get a story that I want to tell and if it demands that kind of niche treatment, then I would do it. But I feel that if you want to share an idea or an issue that’s probably relevant, probably serious, there’s more reason for it to reach more people. The mainstream approach, sharing it with as many people as possible, will serve it more. That’s the path I have chosen. I am a product of mainstream cinema. I’ve liked mainstream cinema all my life. And I don’t think mainstream cinema needs to be stupid. I think it can have the sensibility of the so-called serious cinema and still remain connected to a large audience. It doesn’t have to be abstract for the sake of abstraction. It doesn’t have to be intellectualized for the sake of intellectualization. It can just be a sharing, a communication, a conversation with a large group of people.