EXCLUSIVE: Jalsa director Suresh Triveni on unveiling the plot early on, the scene that gave him a nightmare and Vidya Balan breaking down on set

By Athulya Nambiar -

April 5, 2022 - 8:06 PM IST

After the light-hearted Tumhari Sulu, Suresh Triveni explored a redemption-revenge story with Jalsa headlined by powerhouse performers Vidya Balan and Shefali Shah. The human drama received rave reviews and created a splash on Amazon Prime Video as the film explored dilemma, fear, denial, and manipulation like never before. The film has been well received by the audience and has engaged viewers in a discussion about an ethical dilemma, morality, and much more. In a recent interview with Bollywood Hungama, director Suresh Triveni spoke about the two-line idea that gave birth to the film, the background score of the film, the toughest scene in the film, and Vidya Balan breaking down during a scene.

EXCLUSIVE: Jalsa director Suresh Triveni on unveiling the plot early on, the scene that gave him a nightmare and Vidya Balan breaking down on set

Opening up about the idea that gave birth to the film Jalsa, Suresh said, "The thought was pretty much simple. The ethical dilemma has always been a subject. Right from the time of Mahabharata to Shakespeare to everything, it has always been a part of our storytelling. So either the stories are about the good or the bad or then there are lines between good and bad, and then the choices that you make. However, we didn't want to philosophize so much, we just wanted to have a situation where what if I always maintained the film is about 'what if'. And the only thing which I was extremely conscious about was that I wanted to unfold the plot very early in this time when I'm writing it, and take that risk of saying what if I unfold my plot in the first 20 minutes. And let's see if we can also sustain through our craft as simple as that. So that's pretty much I think the birth of it, there are various thoughts, I would still go and give the credit to Prajwal Shetty who went about writing the first draft."

The background score and music played a pivotal role in the film, so much so it felt like an important character of the film oftentimes elevating an entire scene. "Sound means the world to me. That for me is like going to a worship place. All my actors and all my technicians, everyone who works with me knows it matters the world to me. I feel with it you can narrate, you can have a parallel story, and you can fill up the blanks that you didn't let the dialogue do. Gaurav Chatterjee composed the music. For me, sound sets the tone of a film because it's audio-visual media. The amount of importance that you give to a visual perhaps you should give the same importance to the audio. Hence, for me, that matters the world. Across all the reviews, the happiest that I am, is all my technicians are getting mentioned. And I love it," Suresh shared.

Suresh Triveni admits that he tends to get emotional on sets and that is the reason that he found the intense scene between Rukhsana (Shefali Shah) and Maya Menon (Vidya Balan) and another scene where Vidya Balan yells at her son Ayush (Surya Kasibhatla) very tough to direct. Talking about the kitchen scene between the female protagonists, he said, "That was a very tough scene. I know that. That gave me nightmares in my head. How do you even do justice? Because what happens is, on a day when two fine actors are there and such stupendous actors, as a director, it's pretty much possible that you will get carried away. You would want to impress on them, all. But that personally was tough."

"But the toughest one was a scene where Maya loses it on Aayush. Ah, that was was the toughest day. I mean, but I think I put a very straight face that day, we shot it in a practical way," he added. Suresh added that they had eight readings for the scene and had three takes of Vidya Balan's character yelling at her son. Sharing his memory from the day, the director added, "Every time Vidya would say that line, she'll walk up from there, come near the monitor, go inside a room and she would have tears. I remember when I met Surya later after the shoot, and the first thing he said was 'Vidya ma'am cried'. And this boy had a smile on his face. He was just understanding that this is a crucial moment and I need to hold up like an actor. Hats off to Vidya and Surya. they are incredible."

Jalsa is currently streaming on Amazon Prime Video.

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