Exclusive! Parole Director Dwarakh Raja On His Upcoming Film, How Vijay Sethupathi Came On Board & More

Director Dwarakh Raja, a promising Tamil filmmaker is getting ready for the release of his second feature film Parole. The trailer has been released already with the Makkal Selvan Vijay Sethupathi's voice over and it created a strong buzz about the film in the industry. Only a few films will gain audience's attention with its interesting storyline and Parole easily comes under the category with brilliant actors Linga and RS Karthik playing the lead roles. Amidst his busy post-production works, the director gave an exclusive interview with FilmiBeat about his upcoming film Parole.

What is the Storyline of Parole?

It's about two brothers of Vyasarpadi, who are poles apart which creates sibling rivalry. Elder brother Karikalan, a potentially dangerous killer by profession, is in jail with double life sentence for his criminal history. Sudden and unexpected death of their mother Aarayi, creates a critical situation for younger brother Kovalan to bring his big brother Karikalan out of jail. Whether Kovalan really did try to get parole for Karikalan with all the hatred on him is the crux of the story. The story has its own emotions, family drama and action sequences.

Is it based on a true story? And why did you choose Vyasarpadi?

Yes, it is almost based on a true story. I went to Vyasarpadi for the research process for another script of mine. There I heard a glimpse of this storyline which was really interesting for me. A mother died on a Friday and her son was in jail. He struggled a lot but couldn't come out to see his mother till Monday. Though I have already completed 3 days of shoot for that script, I immediately shelved it and started working on this line with proper permission from my producer.

What is the reason behind the pure Tamil names Karikalan, Kovalan & Aarayi in Parole?

There's an interesting story behind it. In Vyasarpadi there are three major localities named as A-Kalyanapuram, B-Kalyanapuram and C-Kalyanapuram. A-Kalyanapuram is an area where all the local people belong to the political party Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam for many years. During the period of Kalaignar Karunanidhi, he used to name the children in the locality. Since he is great Tamil Scholar, he chose names for the children only from famous Tamil Literature works. I heard about this real story and incorporated in my character names such as Karikalan and Kovalan. In fact, I know two real brothers in person there with the same names Karikalan and Kovalan. But this is not their story. And I got the name Aarayi from Karupar Nagaram written by Karan Karki.

Tell us about your actors who played major characters in your upcoming film Parole

Linga played Karikalan in Parole. I know him for a long time. We became thick friends from the first day shoot of my first short film. He did a character role in my first feature film Kadhal Kasakuthaiya. After which I completed my second script and approached Linga for the lead role. He said yes for that as well, but I shelved the film as I told already and came up with Parole script. Again my first choice was Linga. I wrote Kovalan character keeping him in mind but after watching his performance in Sindubad, I changed my mind and made him as Karikalan. He always believed in me and gave his best.
RS Karthik was a sudden surprise for me. Many of the actors whom I asked for Kovalan were not ready to do it since the character has a grey shade in it. Actually Kovalan is a good-hearted person but the situation around him portrayes him as a villain. And it is very difficult to pull off the character on screen. But Karthik, who is such an energetic person by nature transformed a lot to play the totally contrasting role of Kovalan with minimal expressions and subtle yet powerful body language. We also searched a lot for the mother role Aarayi. We were looking for a good performer as well as a fresh face for the role since we had some bold and challenging sequences for her in the script. And luckily we got Janaki, a brilliant actor who then got famous with her role of Ajith Kumar's sister-in-law in Valimai.
Vinothini Vaidhiyanathan is a famous and busy artist already. I approached her for a judge role with only one scene. But she asked me to narrate full script and based on her own interest she chose to play this advocate character. Then I re-wrote the character again and she loved it. Finally, it took 7 days for us to complete her portions and she just nailed it beyond our expectations.
Monisha and Kalpika played the female leads for Kovalan and Karikalan respectively. I selected them for their expressive eyes and they did their job really well. Both of them were already known faces in Tamil and Telugu films. Though Monisha had minimal scenes in the film, she will create her own place in the industry soon with her brilliant performance. Kalpika worked hard for almost a month to prepare and bring out the Sourashtra slang for her role in this film. Apart from them, we have introduced nearly 30 new faces in the film.

How Makkal Selvan Vijay Sethupathi came on-board this project?

Vijay Sethupathi watched Parole during the shoot break of Vikram and he loved it. We approached him for the voice over of an opening and end narration sequence in the film. He immediately said he will do it and it was a great gift for us. He never failed to support good films and upcoming talents.

What do you expect from an actor?

I will always look out for actors who could carry the perfect emotions through eyes. I will say Linga is the best in it and identified his promising talent on the first day shoot of my short film Vellai Pookal, which happened almost 10 years back. Then I will see the physical appearance and re-write the character for the actor if needed.

What kind films you want to do?

I want to tell stories that inspire me in my own perspective, satisfying the current generation audience. I'm an atheist but I won't forcefully write my characters as atheists. I never wanted to write my films based on my personal interests and ideologies. For me, the story should be interesting and of course I will focus on the morality of my characters. And I will always look for a classical quality in my stories. In Parole, the misunderstanding between the siblings gave me that quality and I played a lot with it. Mother Aarayi will be the only one for them to control their emotions and suddenly when she dies, the plot automatically takes its own mileage. It will easily get connected to the audience and it adds more weightage to the drama in the film.

Who are the important technicians in Parole?

Debut music composer Rajkumar did an extraordinary work in the film. He was a programmer with composer Dharan Kumar and I know him from my first film Kadhal Kasakuthaiya. Our choice of music was almost same. We tried to bring a western element in the music and he sent me a lot of demo tracks over a period of one year for the film Parole. Based on the suspense carried out in his music, I re-edited the film to hold the suspense in visuals too. There are six songs in the album but we will have it as bits and pieces in the film. Only one song will be used fully in the film.

Also for cinematographer Mahesh Thirunavukarasu, this is the debut film. He worked as associate cinematographer in my previous film. Both of us are basically from Perambur. We have grown-up hearing stories of Vyasarpadi and Integral Coach Factory. So it was very comfortable working with him. Editor Munees is doing his second film with me after Kadhal Kasakuthaiya. We followed a complete non-linear style of editing for Parole. Since there are lot of characters and almost all them were fresh faces, it is the job of the editor to make it more easy for the audience to understand the film. We also have three timelines for the story and Munees did a tremendous work.

What is your advice to upcoming filmmakers?

My first film didn't do well at the box-office. I didn't get a proper producer for my next film. I tried for almost 4 years and planned to go for a 9 to 6 job due to some financial situations. But my friend and producer of this film believed in me and asked me to come up with a script in a given budget. I have seen a lot of Anurag Kashyap videos and started working on a reverse process. We chose good actors at the first step and then we identified locations near Vyasarpadi, where I have a lot of friends who could help me get permissions to shoot without any problem. Then I wrote the script for Parole within the given budget and my producer liked it. So this reverse process worked for me and we are ready with our film now.