Straight out of a comic book

Taking a break from the post production works of his much awaited film, Double Barrel (DB), starring Prithviraj, Tamil actor Arya, Indrajith, Asif Ali and Sunny Wayne, the director talks about making films on his terms.

What can the audiences expect from Double Barrel? “You guys can expect a roller coaster!” he smiles.

A comedy thriller written and directed by Lijo, DB will be the opposite extreme of his previous film Amen. “It is a film with an urban setting. Watching DB will give one a feeling of reading a comic book — an enjoyable one, which we used to read when we were in fourth or fifth standard. The entire film has been made like a comic. Be it the characters, the narration, the actions, dialogue delivery, romance, villain, vamp and so on,” he explains.

The movie that is all set to release during Onam has bright blue, yellow, red, orange and other colours of a flower carpet as the prominent tone. Being highly passionate about filmmaking, Lijo believes in making films that his mind demands, rather than following the typical formulas of movie making which is said to be accepted by the audience. “I am someone who enjoys being experimental and innovative and I suppose that the passion for films will be always alive in us if we really try to do something different. And DB was what I wanted to do after Amen. However, I had no plans as such after Amen but it just naturally shaped into something like DB… Maybe because I never wanted to be stereotypical or do something like my earlier films.”

After Amen became a huge hit, Lijo had pressures and influences from his acquaintances to do a similar film — trying hard to convince him that it was what the audiences expected. “A good director is not someone who should serve the audience with what they wait for, but one who would persuade them to love what he offers. If there is nothing experimental and creative happening on the silver screen, we will only have a thousand films with similar tone and style. Why do we want that?” he asks.

Talking about DB being a multi-starrer, Lijo divulges that the cast was never a planned one, it just happened. “All those in the film are the ones who wished to be a part of a film like this. We really enjoyed the process. There were no ego or confusion. All were really friendly, co-operative and amazing,” he says.

Ever since the film was announced, there were a lot of rumors regarding the budget of the film. Clearing the air, the director says that it definitely has a “budget” as the film has many successful stars from Mollywood and Kollywood. “So we can always have releases in both languages. This is an era of big-budget films like Bahubali and I, where the ‘other language’ industries are mass releasing the films and we Malayalis too embrace those films with similar excitement. Hence it is high time for us to stop holding back considering budget as an excuse. DB is what we, Mollywood, can give them!” he sums up.