Exclusive! Srinath Rajendran on glorifying Sukumara Kurup: How can a socially-responsible filmmaker do that?

Last year, after a sneak peek of Dulquer Salmaan’s much-awaited Kurup was released online, the family of Chacko, who was murdered by Sukumara Kurup, had come out against the makers of the movie for allegedly glorifying the infamous fugitive on whom the film is based on.

In an exclusive interview with OTTplay, the movie’s director Srinath Rajendran addressed these claims. “How can you glorify a person who killed an innocent man? How can a socially-responsible writer or filmmaker do that? You can’t,” he tells us, adding that the audience will have to watch the movie when it hits theatres to find out his take on the story.

In August 2020, Chacko’s son Jithin had called a press conference, asking the movie to be screened for them and “the objectionable portions” removed. Srinath says that he and the team understood Jithin’s emotions.

“We clearly understand where they are coming from. In the video, Kurup’s character says, ‘From now, I will decide who sees me… no matter if it’s the police or politicians’. When the dialogue is standalone, it might elicit applause. But that’s just for the promo. When you watch it in the film as part of the sequence of events, you would know a scoundrel is saying that line and that’s the way he has been living his life. That gives it context and changes the perspective,” the director explains.

The film, which is inspired from true incidents related to Sukumara Kurup and Chacko, has Dulquer playing the titular character. Sobhita Dhulipala, Indrajith Sukumaran, Shine Tom Chacko, Sunny Wayne and Shivajith Padmanabhan as part of the cast of the movie that spans from the late 60s to the 80s.

Ask Srinath if Dulquer had any inhibitions playing the character of the fugitive, he says, “When we narrate an idea, we don’t talk about just the character; we discuss how the entire film will be. Dulquer is someone who is sensible enough to understand what the film is, and that’s why he came onboard. For him, it’s just another character and it’s a zone that he hasn’t explored. That again makes it interesting.”

The movie, which will be released in Malayalam, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Hindi, is set to hit 400 screens in Kerala alone. The film, made on a budget of Rs 35Cr, is the biggest release in Dulquer’s career.

Read the full interview: Exclusive! Srinath Rajendran: Kurup was my dream but Dulquer was the one who worked to realise it