Swaroop King

Swaroop King
Title Image

Tuesday 17 February 2015

Why "A"?


Some films aren't as much about the story as they are about the characters. Not that the characters have a story to tell, but some films' characters lift the burden of connecting with the audience from the shoulders of the twists and turns in the story and they carry it with a conviction. And such characters do not occupy the movie universe but inhabit a real universe, so that they have the weaknesses, aspirations, ramblings and temptations of an everyday average man.

In the film "A" we meet two characters whose chat is so casual and sounds so unimportant but that small conversation tells everything about them. Let me name them for you. Lets call them "The good guy", "The bad guy" and "The boss".  Now as the topic has come up, why didn't I name them? They don't have names in the movie, which is because I chose to present them as representations of the contradicting personalities inside a same person. Just think once. How many times do we want to do something and not want to do the same thing at the same time? Many times right? Similarly, we pack some jealousy towards the people we love most. We root for the bad guys whom we don't want to see in the society. We all have a wild side inside, which we tried to tame and failed but can smell its presence in the dark prisons of our mind. And in spits of anger, or burst of happiness we can see them trying to unleash outside. That's why these unnamed characters inhabit the same abandoned bungalow trying to reason with each other and trying to control each other, just like the contradicting personalities and emotions inside our minds. In a way, the abandoned building represents our dark motives and obsessions and these characters represent our motivations, temptations and dilemmas regarding them.

Back to the point again. The conversation. In the conversation, the good guy (Or the hero) tries to say that "If one shouldn't become the joker, there is no option but to leave the game". He clearly meant their criminal life, when he said "game" but the bad guy is too dumb to catch the reference, and we can see a sad smile on the good guy's face as he lacks a companion who tries to understand what he says. And the bad guy then says "You don't deserve to be here. You deserve more. I can see that you are smart. But since I am not as smart as you, I cannot acknowledge it. Many of us are not in their rightful places in this world. This is an unjust world." Now how does the bad guy know that he is dumber? How does an intellectually inferior person say all this intelligent analysis?  Remember that all of this is a dream inside the good guy's head. His thoughts are playing with each other in his subconscious and this dream is staging the conflicts his thoughts are carrying. It shows that the dreamer is being tormented by his self elation that holds himself in high regard in his mind but in reality chooses to make money by killing people. this is the reason for the conflict in his mind.

After they decide on who should kill and who should watch, the good guy wants to see who is inside. But the bad guy wants just to finish his task, not because he is cruel but because he is afraid of the truth. I represented the truth just as in real life. Truth is always covered. Truth is always expressed in an abstract way. Truth is never an absolute. Here, the truth is the face inside the mask. The good guy wants to face the truth, but the bad guy warns him that if the truth is unmasked, it will take away our comfort. The bad guy represents our psychological repressions and the way our mind cons us to protect us from the heat of truth's flame. The bad guy chooses to let the truth pass away than to look into its eyes as he fears that it will shatter his life. The bad guy prefers a comfortable and convenient lie to the disturbing truth. The bad guy is our eye when we look at the mirror and choose to tilt our head in an angle in which we look beautiful. The bad guy is our photo shopping skill. The bad guy is our unwavering trust in our cheating girlfriends. The bad guy is our belief that everything in this life makes sense and the reason it appears otherwise, is because we cant figure it out. The bad guy is our idol in the temple. The good guy is our science, The good guy is our inclination towards reason, The good guy is our dare with which we agree that life has no inherent meaning and whatever meaning it has is imparted by us. The good guy is our gut telling us that we are just animals who can think. The good guy is our atheism.






The film introduces the characters as two guys sitting in front of a horrifying building playing cards(deciding their chances). It is underlined with a mournful music which the movie begins with. The music establishes the characters as two unfortunate guys risking their lives to chance.
The frequently underlined fact in this movie is the probability that king becomes a joker, which actually means the cruel and unexpected twists and turns that fate presents in a game of crime. And that no one's position is unexposed to chance and fate. The good guy is so terrified of the power of the uncertainty of chance that he dreams of a King card to have a joker on the backside.
While the good guy is making a critical choice, we can see light dancing behind his head as if it is trying to get inside into his head. This is the subconscious representation of wisdom trying to enlighten his mind.

While the bad guy points out that no one has the power to handle the truth, we see the truth (The masked face) being handled by the
good guy with care. The cards being shuffled is played as a suggestion as they unmask the boss, as this indicates the intensity of the probability and chance that it could be anyone.




As a bottom line I would say that my film is a man's dilemma between choica and chance. Thats the reason we show a coin
(representing chance which he cannot control) and the good guy at a cross roads (representing choice which he can decide on).  While the cards thrown at the boss' face by the good guy symbolises his quit to the game, the shot where he runs away, alone explains the theme of the entire movie


I wanted to tell this story, and I told it. Forgive the bad lighting, as we shot the entire film on natural lighting only. And our camera is an age old iphone.

And finally "Why "A"? "

The characters are represented by cards. The boss is the king, the bad guy is the joker and the good guy is the ace. When you place "A" at the starting of the sequence, its value is one. But when you place the ace at the end, it is greater than the king. When the good guy leaves the bungalow (The criminal world), he crossed the sequence and became greater than the king. The king becomes the joker in the end.









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