‘Aaruchamy and Durai Singam are my reflections ’

With such a defined sense of self, it is inevitable that his characteristics seep into the minds of his leading man. “Aaruchamy and Durai Singam are basically my reflections,” he confesses. However, when the story pushes the protagonist to do things he does not agree with, Hari uses the supporting characters to have a dialogue with them. “In Poojai, Vishal’s character indulges in heavy drinking and that is something I don’t agree with. I don’t like showing characters being drunk. So, I wrote it so the heroine (Shruti Haasan) advises the hero to stop drinking.”

Despite his personal moral compass dictating the choices of his characters, the director strongly believes that the circumstantial, and organic turn of events in his stories, are the strongest aspects of his films. “Take Saamy for example, the villain is not even aiming to kill Aaruchaamy’s father, the bomb was supposed to destroy an empty house but the father coincidentally arrives at the house.

In Singam, the initial clash between Suriya and Prakash Raj’s characters escalates because of small things like Durai Singam’s nonchalance while walking into the police station, and the villagers getting involved, both of which irks the villain. The hero and the villain could have parted ways after a small disagreement but every little thing in the scene contributes to a larger chain reaction.”

As the filmmaker ruminates on his previous films and explains his thought process, he eventually arrives at his upcoming film, Rathnam, which reunites Hari with Vishal after Thaamirabharani and Poojai. Revealing the initial spark behind his idea for Rathnam, Hari says, “I wanted to set a film in a state border. If an angry young man crosses the border, creates a ruckus and comes back, the police have to jump through several judicial constraints to cross the border and apprehend him.

And if the young man were to cross the border again, he is done for. There is a tension inherent in this premise and I thought that would make for great drama.” He further reveals that he goes through extensive research for his films. “I love geography. I like learning about every single district and town in Tamil Nadu. And that eventually seeps into my research for films. For Rathnam, I went as far back to learn about the conflicts faced by the locals when Tirupati was separated from Tamil Nadu and was added to Andhra Pradesh in 1956.”

The director is well aware of the fact that his films do not display his research as ostensibly as a period drama would. However, he is not worried that fans might not recognize his hard work. “They recognize my work in several other ways. They notice everything. In Singam 2, Suriya’s character refuses to eat meat on Saturdays and Sundays because his parents told him not to, for religious reasons.

When I sat down to eat at a restaurant in Malaysia, a woman ran up to me and said she won a bet with her husband over whether or not I would eat meat. She said, ‘I know you won’t eat meat on Saturdays because you had that dialogue in Singam 2’. It makes me happy when they notice these little things.” Hari confesses that moments like these reinvigorate his passion for filmmaking and make him work harder. And he believes moments like these are born out of his willingness to constantly stay in touch with his audience. As he mentioned in the beginning, “My greatest strength is that I listen to the audience.”

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