Shiva comes full circle

Courtesy: IndiaFM

Wednesday, August 09, 2006

The next film coming from Ram Gopal Varma's stable is Shiva. Incidentally Shiva happened to be the RGV's first directorial venture way back in 1990. Life has come a full circle for Varma. There were reports that the current Shiva is a remake of RGV's 1990 Shiva.

RGV talks about the connection between the two films...

"Fifteen years after my debut film Shiva, much has changed in the conditions around us, in our cinema and also in my perceptions of things.

Hence I feel compelled to return to first base, to come full circle, to retell the story in the context of the situation of the present time.

Through the various decades, people have always had great expectations from institutions like hospitals, schools and colleges and of course, the police and the judiciary. They are meant to serve the people, but do they really do that?

In my debut film Shiva, I delved into the disillusionment with our educational institutions, which often led to violence and turmoil on the campus. The film's protagonist, the title character, rebelled against those who were responsible, namely goonda elements and corrupt politicians.

The new Shiva will look into a law-keeping system through the eyes of a man who just finished training in a police academy and has freshly joined the Mumbai Police force. His ideals clash with the harsh reality of a police force at work.

Yes, cop films are overdone. I have myself made Shool and Ab Tak Chappan in this genre. But here the intention is to bring back the intense hero who ruled the 70s and 80s before he was sent into oblivion by the sugar sweet romantic films. It was that hero who actually made films larger than life, with Amitabh Bachchan leading the brigade and then in varying degrees followed by Vinod Khanna, Shatrughan Sinha, Mithun Chakraborthy, Sunny Deol etc.

In an attempt to reinvent that genre of films, I am reloading Shiva. I want to once again catch the spirit of one man taking on the odds when his principles and convictions are under threat. With a completely updated script and today's technical advances, I seek to capture that element of anger present in all of us. Most of us accept injustice mutely. But every once in a while a rebel comes along who hits back.

That rebel, who all of us want to be is Shiva 2006".

- Ram Gopal Varma