On 10 years of Goli Soda
Remember the ripples that Goli Soda created way back in 2014? A humble film, it boasted a lot of heart in telling the story of teenage boys forced to fight back when pushed to a corner, catapulting ace cinematographer Vijay Milton as a filmmaker to watch out for. As Milton looks back at the film, he likens himself to a 13-year-old boy who, through that film, was also forced to fight back. “It seems like a blunder that children commit so courageously because I don’t know where I got the courage to start such a project and how I managed to complete it.”
How precisely he translated the text to the screen, and the vigour he saw in the actors and his assistants, is what Milton remembers fondly from that time. “I didn’t provide them with the basic amenities required for a film shooting. I’m saying this because I endured all that because I had a dream I was running after, but they didn’t have to do that. They blindly just followed me.”
Ten years later, Milton is now at a place where he doesn’t have to think twice about getting caravans for his actors. He makes films for the likes of Shivarajkumar and Daali Dhananjaya, and the production values are exponentially bigger. After a delay due to the COVID-19 pandemic — and production banner Infiniti Film Ventures’ line-up of films with lead star Vijay Antony — Milton’s Mazhai Pidikkatha Manithan is finally set to release this week.
On Mazhai Pidikkatha Manithan, a ‘poetic action film’
The title grips your attention first — ‘The Man Who Despises Rain.’ Milton says he was adamant about this title, and you can see why. It immediately creates a sense of mystery about the character, which Milton says is the niche of the film. “In fact, Mazhai Pidikkatha Manithan is inspired by TheEqualizer, starring Denzil Washington. In that film, the mystery behind this lead character hooks you, and they drip-feed the information throughout the film. I have tried something similar in this film,” he says.
Vijay Antony in a still from ‘Mazhai Pidikkatha Manithan’ | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
Mazhai Pidikkatha Manithan is also the perfect title for what Milton was going for, a poetic action film. And you can see this in all the promo materials that have come out — a character likens the comfort she feels for a stranger to one that you feel in a temple under the protection of an invisible god. Another states how the purpose of the world lies in our efforts to understand those around us.
There is a sense of biblical poetry in these dialogues, which Milton says comes from his affinity towards Russian literature. “My father inculcated a reading habit since I was six or seven, and I eventually stumbled upon the translated versions of Russian literature. Those days we used to get these big novels in Tamil for as cheap as ₹2. Because they are translations, the way the characters converse in these stories would be a bit biblical,” explains Milton, adding that he has taken creative licenses to give the film this flavour.
Milton understands a section of Gen-Z audiences get instantly aversed to anything emotional or poetic, quick to term them all ‘cringe.’ “That wouldn’t happen here. I was conscious not to advise anyone to do anything because that might get termed as ‘cringe’; I just want to have a conversation with the audience on a more mature level, and I have tried to be as concise as possible.” One thing Milton wishes to change through Mazhai Pidikkatha Manithan is how bloodshed is normalised to the current generation of audiences “ You won’t see gruesome fight scenes or bloodshed. Of course, you will feel the anger behind the action, but how we depict the anger is where I have drawn a line,” says Milton.
On working with the likes of Shivarajkumar, and the quality he admires most in Vijay Antony
Mazhai Pidikkatha Manithan is also the first film coming out since Milton worked with a superstar, Shivarajkumar, in 2022’s Kannada film Bairagee. Milton says the experience of working on such a production led him to introspect his own filmography and how he must adapt his style to suit a star’s image. “My style is a bit too earthy and realistic. Even when it comes to punch-dialogues, I would prefer to write them in more natural modulation. But when it comes to big stars, it should be a notch higher, and I have realised that I failed to do it in my films.”
He admires how big stars like Vijay (with whom he worked as a cinematographer), Vikram, and Shivarajkumar are grounded while making a film. “They would just humbly sit next to the camera and refuse to wait in a caravan until the shot got readied. So handling these stars would be as comfortable and easy as handling young teenagers in Goli Soda.”
Milton says his Mazhai Pidikkatha Manithan hero Vijay Antony also refuses to let stardom get to his head. “He is someone who clearly understands who he is. If, say, he believes he is 8; he wouldn’t agree if you say he’s 9, and he’d politely disagree if you call him a 7. In a field like cinema, it’s a commendable quality because people might massage your ego or make you feel lesser than you are,” says Milton.
Vijay Antony in a still from ‘Mazhai Pidikkatha Manithan’ | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
On juggling cinematography and direction, and how failure affects a director like him
Despite being a filmmaker for almost 20 years, handling superstars, and trying his ropes in another regional industry, Milton believes he hasn’t changed as a filmmaker. “For every new movie, I take five assistant cameramen and five assistant directors. I give them a notebook and ask them to note down five things to correct in myself and five things they want to change in this office. What they all tell me is that I stay the same always.” He explains how the control freak in him never even lets him delegate work as he rests at a caravan. “I have always been this way. I want everything on set — from a nail on a wall in the background to how an actor’s costume gets designed — to be under my supervision. Maybe I want that control because I am both the director and the cinematographer.”
This is also why, Milton says, he doesn’t face the pressure of direction and cinematography, one more exhausting than the other. “I annoy technicians on set with instructions to get what I want. I didn’t want to do it to another cameraman; that would feel like I was misusing them. Mani Ratnam once said that we have to make the technicians feel like they own the film and that they would do their best. I struggle to do that.”
But with filmmaking taking so much of his mind space, how does he keep up with the growing developments in the world of the cameras? “A good artist would know when someone has bested them in their field. Even from an advertisement or a reel on Instagram, I can tell what I know and what I don’t know about what the artist has done.” Milton has no qualms to say that he would not match the technical prowess of his counterparts. “My philosophy differs from theirs; all I burden myself with is how my cinematography helps me tell my story well and how well I can present the film to the audience, and not solely on how well I can frame a shot.”
Milton gets quite candid when you ask how failure affects a director like him. “Fellow filmmakers would advise you to detach yourself from the film, right after it gets a censor certificate. But I have never been able to do that; to date, I haven’t come out of the failure of my debut directorial, Azhagai Irukkirai Bayamai Irukkirathu. It’s quite tragic to pour your love into something, only for it to not get recognition.” For a cinematographer, he feels, things seem relatively better as the business of a film no longer affects the technician’s growth in the industry. “New-age filmmakers don’t care about the box office success, but only what you have done in that film. Craft matters more now.”
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