Initimacy is indeed a difficult art and it becomes even more so, when showcasing in cinema. But what surprised Raam Reddy, director of the acclaimed film Thithi, was that amidst all the applause, there was a small segment of Indian audience who felt that the scene where a couple enters a cow shed followed by their moans of pleasure was showcasing Indian youth and rural India in bad light to an international audience.
But Raam remains unfazed by the flashes of resentment and envy, “The age of putting two flowers together and calling it sex is gone. We stuck to realism. There is certain surrender to the treatment of my film and there is ample honesty in Thithi,” he said.
Another aspect which was highlighted in the film is the rural lifestyle but according to Raam the film does not represent rural or urban India. “We went into this film, trying to build characters that belong to a particular family. My particular structure to this film was to contrast materialistic to non-materialistic aspects of life. I do feel upset when people bring it up as it is not the pure way of bringing up art, more so a business way. I didn’t have a political view, but more of a spiritual view while doing this film. But it all depends on the audience,” he said and added that the crux of the film, which will have its theatrical release this week, is showcasing three generations in a comparative manner over a small period of time.
“While two of the three are materialistically driven, and one is beyond materialism. I have a spiritual background and I wanted to bring out the contrast of these three generations,” he said.
Eleborating further, he explained that he has taken a village concept to the urban audience. “My film is a reflection of the villagers’ daily existence. It is not purely documented, but it is realistic to an extent, which the urban audiences have not seen in cinema and that enamours them in a different way. So this film is a gateway to a new world,”
Ram asserted that he does not believe in using art to give an outright message, “I believe in intellectual freedom. I want people to watch the film and judge for themselves. For me, there is a way to approach the audience. There is no commercial element in my mind and I don’t make films for business as there is idealism to my process. Ere Gowda, the writer of the film, felt authentically from his experience. We only thought of trying to do something original,” he added.